One can only speculate about Mao's "true" motivations: hitherto repressed resentment over Liu's speech at the Conference of 7,000 Cadres; a paranoid fear of somehow losing power to Liu, who was exercising dynamic leadership on the “first front”; or a latent distrust towards someone who was his rough contemporary, but had never been personally close to him. The main reason may have been that Mao perceived Liu as a threat and believed that he was promoting the establishment of revisionist policies. Finally, Liu did not have to take responsibility for the negative tendencies of the regime and society, and his fate would also be sealed in the early stages of the Culture.