An intriguing study of the Cultural Revolution which demonstrates, quite convincingly, how it started with a leadership conflict over how to deal with the widening gap between elites and masses in a socialist China. The author argues that those who attacked the status quo during the Cultural Revolution were expressing dissatisfaction with their own social positions, while those who defended the status quo generally belonged to favored groups. For those interested in the social stratification of communist societies, this is one of the few books on China to even scratch the surface.