Ceaușescu developed a cult of personality around himself and his wife Elena (herself promoted to high offices) after visiting North Korea and noting the parallel developed by Kim Il-sung, while incorporating in it several aspects of past authoritarian regimes in Romania ("see Conducător"). During the early 1970s, while curbing liberalization, he launched his own version of China's Cultural Revolution, announced by the "July Theses". In effect, measures to concentrate power in Ceaușescu's hands were taken as early as 1967, when the general secretary became the ultimate authority on foreign policy.