"The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was launched when Mao said: 'To rebel is justified.' That instruction was not forgotten, but many of those active in the Red Guard movement realized that the objects of cultural revolution could only be realized if rebellion led to the establishment of the rule of law and of democratic procedures. The first result was the Li-Yi-Zhe poster. The second was the 1978–9 Democracy Wall protest. From then on, through the Tiananmen demonstrations of 1989 to the present day, former Red Guards have led the only part of the democratic movement in China seriously concerned to mobilize all classes to achieve democracy from below. Moreover, Mao’s conviction that the system of comprehensive central economic command was the main source of privilege and the abuse of power became the shibboleth of the democratic movement. In this sense, Mao built better than he knew. He himself, both in the Great Leap and in the Cultural Revolution, drew back from the brink; committed in the last resort to the idea of the necessity of a Leninist ‘vanguard party’, he was reluctant to discipline the offending cadres in the Leap, and in the Cultural Revolution he drew back from supporting Paris-Commune-type government. However, the forces he released—former Red Guards committed to real democratization, and an economic system which created millions of new centers of economic decision-making outside the system of central planning— strengthened the preconditions for future democratization."