I think it wouldn't be hard to argue that the real, as opposed to rhetorical, target of the Chinese Revolution (like, BTW, the Russian Revo) was not capitalism, but feudalism, and if so interpreted there is more continuity between Mao and the current CCP than you might think.
--- On Tue, 5/5/09, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] "I like rightists"
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Tuesday, May 5, 2009, 8:49 PM
>
> On May 5, 2009, at 7:51 PM, wrobert at uci.edu
> wrote:
>
> > On the other hand, I feel that I am, by in
> large, in sympathy with
> > the spirit of Doug's comment, which I suspect is a
> critique of the
> > authoritarian nature of the state apparatus that Mao
> contributed
> > considerably to, but that authoritarian structure was
> linked to a
> > very radical project of social transformation, one
> that continually
> > outstripped the material ability of the society to
> transform.
>
> Yes, that's what I was really talking about. It wasn't just
> the material ability of the society to transform - there
> evidently wasn't a whole lot of mass support for the agenda.
> The ease with which Mao's successors transformed China into
> a quasi-capitalist state - though obviously not one in the
> Anglo-Saxon sense - is evidence that his revolution had very
> shallow roots.
>
> Doug
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>