 When he was accused of being less than enthusiastic in following Mao's leadership, he accused himself of "poor understanding" of Mao's theories, giving the appearance of compromising with forces that he secretly loathed and referred to in private as his "inferno".Following the logic of political survival, Zhou worked to aid Mao, and restricted his criticisms to private conversations.Although Zhou escaped being directly persecuted, he was not able to save many of those closest to him from having their lives destroyed by the Cultural Revolution.