The more recent reactions of America to new problems, such as removing a President before his term of office is up and the handling of shortages of energy, are conditioned by the years of attacking the four olds. However, as in China, so in America. The tightening and hardening grip of bureaucracy over society was only momentarily shaken. Lacking skill, knowledge, and positive purposes, neither movement could divert this monster's encroachments. Furthermore, neither movement turned the mind of the people away from material desires and amusements toward the creation of a new society.
Societies are enormous machines that limber along through time, accumulating great momentum.
If we trust the history of revolutions, the most that can happen is that the machine can be slowed down, at enormous cost, in lives, property, and anguish. A quick turning of the machine of society to a new set of ideals and practices has been impossible in history. Moreover, even if the Red Guards and the New Left had been multiplied a hundred times, they would not have made a beneficial revolution. They could not. They had no concrete image of the future.