Our beloved chairman mao had started the cultural revolution in may. every day since then on the radio we heard about the need to end the evil and pernicious [harmful] influences of the "four olds": old ideas, old culture, old customs and old habits. chairman mao told us we would never succeed at building a strong socialist country until we destroyed the four olds, and established the four news. according to the passage, why did mao want the four olds destroyed? they needed to destroy old ways in order for communism to succeed. they were standing in the way of a new capitalist society. they needed a new way of life if china was to win the war against the nationalists. they were preventing people from serving in the revolutionary army.