 Thus, little to nothing was done by the central government to stop or discourage the Red Guard's acts, no matter how abusive.Eventually, though, once Mao's cabinet tried to rein them in to start their program, most Red Guard squads refused to stop their activities, believing their fight not to be complete yet (or being unwilling to lose the privileges they held in the name of class struggle).Mao drastically changed his views about them, and set up to break their power base by splitting them up.