Chairman Mao summed up in good time the experience of the January storm of revolution in Shanghai and issued his call to the whole country: "Proletarian revolutionaries, unite and seize power from the handful of Party persons in power taking the capitalist road!" Following that, Chairman Mao gave the instruction: The People's Liberation Army should support the broad masses of the Left." He went on to sum up the experience of Heilungkiang Province and other provinces and municipalities, laid down the principles and policies for the establishment of revolutionary committees which embrace representatives of the revolutionary cadres, representatives of the People's Liberation Army and representatives of the revolutionary masses, constituting a revolutionary three-in-one combination, and thus pushed forward the nation-wide struggle for the seizure of power.

The struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie for the seizure and counter0seizure of power was a life-and-death struggle. During the year and nine months from Shanghai's January storm of revolution in 1967 to the establishment of the revolutionary committees of Tibet and Sinkiang in September 1968, repeated trials of political strength took place between the two classes and the two lines, fierce struggles went on between proletarian and non-proletarian ideas and an extremely complicated situation emerged. As Chairman Mao has said: "In the past, we fought north and south; it was easy to fight such wars. For the enemy was obvious. The present Great Proletarian Cultural revolution is much more difficult than that kind of war."