This was the beginning of a lifelong partnership that brought both glory and great distress to Zhou, in equal measure. As Chen writes, “Zhou witnessed Mao’s extraordinary capacity and skills in his handling of each and every crisis. It was that of the country and eventually the world undergoing “continuing revolution.” Mao’s problem was that he did not know how to place the brakes on his revolutionary impatience. According to Chen, Zhou participated in the criticism of close comrades, but he did this to give him the credibility to persuade Mao not to treat them too harshly. Chen writes, also eloquently, “In these two cases, Zhou Enlai, as China’s premier, still had to agree to put his loved ones into prison.