 Writers such as Chu Anping, however, made a strong case against the Nationalists; educators and scholars such as Fei Xiaotong and Tao Xingzhi made a case for revolution as a cause worthy of liberal support; while many more liberals left China, including the rural reformer James Yen, the university president Chiang Monlin, and many less well known figures.The ascendancy of Mao Zedong and the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949 brought the liberal impulse to its lowest level.Ideological witchhunts were organized against the (real or imaginary) followers of Hu Shih, and their values were ceaselessly derided as bourgeois delusions which could only weaken the nation.