Intellectuals were again sent to the countryside, as they were in 1942. Millions were persecuted, and countless historical and religious artifacts were destroyed. But the real aim of the Cultural Revolution was to consolidate Mao's revolution. And while his image still looms large, it's hard to say that China these days is a socialist state. Many would argue that Mao's revolution was extremely short-lived, and that the real change in China happened in 1911. That's when the Chinese Republic ended 3,000 years of dynastic history and forever broke the cyclical pattern the Chinese had used to understand their past. I mean, at least in some senses, those nationalist revolutionaries literally put an end to history.