The train of events in China between the Cultural Revolution and the neoliberal turn is not so much a matter of Orthodox Marxism as it is the development of the historic forces that were fundamentally misunderstood in the West. The Cultural Revolution created utter chaos and ripped the society to shreds. The reasons why are complicated. After Mao died the Chinese looked at their priorities and said that national self-determination and strengthening the commanding heights of the economy came before anything else. National self determination and strengthening the domestic economy are not by default Communist values. My uncle is a Chinese American attorney who has done business over there. One of his sons that also spent a year there explained it this way: The Communist Party essentially functions like the outside crust of a civilization known as China. The Chinese national were inventing fireworks and paper back when Europeans were still in caves. Marxism Leninism has a certain set of useful insights that can be helpful. But the argument that Communism offered the Chinese some benevolent revelation unto their civilization unlike other emerges from a substantial underestimation of what China had/has to offer humanity. (That is by no means intended to dismiss the serious critiques of Chinese feudalism’s excesses, like foot binding, that Mao highlighted.) Self determination and national liberation from imperialism and colonialism are powerful impulses and protecting those gains were of tremendous importance for the Chinese people. They clearly were not seeking to go as far as Mao wanted to go with the Cultural Revolution, hence the way that it was so quickly reversed after Mao died and the Gang of Four was deposed.
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