Since the defeat of the Gang of Four and the convocation of the Third Plenary Session of the Party’s Eleventh Central Committee, we have formulated correct ideological, political and organizational lines and a series of principles and policies. What is the ideological line? To adhere to Marxism and to integrate it with Chinese realities — in other words, to seek truth from facts, as advocated by Comrade Mao Zedong, and to uphold his basic ideas. It is crucial for us to adhere to Marxism and socialism. For more than a century after the Opium War, China was subjected to aggression and humiliation. It is because the Chinese people embraced Marxism and kept to the road leading from new-democracy to socialism that their revolution was victorious.

You may ask, what if the Chinese people had taken the capitalist road instead? Could they have liberated themselves, and could they have finally stood up? Let us review the history. The Kuomintang followed the capitalist road for more than 20 years, but China was still a semi-colonial, semi-feudal society, which proved that that road led nowhere. In contrast, the Communists, adhering to Marxism and Mao Zedong Thought, which integrates Marxism with actual conditions in China, took their own road and succeeded in the revolution by encircling the cities from the countryside. Conversely, if we had not had faith in Marxism, or if we had not integrated Marxism with Chinese conditions and followed our own road, the revolution would have been a failure, and China would have remained fragmented and dependent. So faith in Marxism was the motive force that enabled us to achieve victory in the revolution.

At the founding of the People’s Republic, we inherited from old China a ruined economy with virtually no industry. There was a shortage of grain, inflation was acute and the economy was in chaos. But we solved the problems of feeding and employing the population, stabilized commodity prices and unified financial and economic work, and the economy rapidly recovered. On this foundation we started large-scale reconstruction. What did we rely on? We relied on Marxism and socialism. Some people ask why we chose socialism. We answer that we had to, because capitalism would get China nowhere. If we had taken the capitalist road, we could not have put an end to the chaos in the country or done away with poverty and backwardness. That is why we have repeatedly declared that we shall adhere to Marxism and keep to the socialist road. But by Marxism we mean Marxism that is integrated with Chinese conditions, and by socialism we mean a socialism that is tailored to Chinese conditions and has a specifically Chinese character.

What is socialism and what is Marxism? We were not quite clear about this in the past. Marxism attaches utmost importance to developing the productive forces. We have said that socialism is the primary stage of communism and that at the advanced stage the principle of from each according to his ability and to each according to his needs will be applied. This calls for highly developed productive forces and an overwhelming abundance of material wealth. Therefore, the fundamental task for the socialist stage is to develop the productive forces. The superiority of the socialist system is demonstrated, in the final analysis, by faster and greater development of those forces than under the capitalist system. As they develop, the people’s material and cultural life will constantly improve. One of our shortcomings after the founding of the People’s Republic was that we didn’t pay enough attention to developing the productive forces. Socialism means eliminating poverty. Pauperism is not socialism, still less communism.

Given that China is still backward, what road can we take to develop the productive forces and raise the people’s standard of living? This brings us back to the question of whether to continue on the socialist road or to stop and turn onto the capitalist road. Capitalism can only enrich less than 10 per cent of the Chinese population; it can never enrich the remaining more than 90 per cent. But if we adhere to socialism and apply the principle of distribution to each according to his work, there will not be excessive disparities in wealth. Consequently, no polarization will occur as our productive forces become developed over the next 20 to 30 years.

Our political line is to focus on the modernization programme and on continued development of the productive forces. Nothing short of a world war could tear us away from this line. And even if a world war broke out, we would engage in reconstruction after the war. The minimum target of our modernization programme is to achieve a comparatively comfortable standard of living by the end of the century. I first mentioned this to former Prime Minister Masayoshi Ohira during his visit here in December 1979. By a comparatively comfortable standard we mean a per capita GNP of US$800. That is a low level for you, but it is really an ambitious goal for us. China has a population of 1 billion now, and by then it will have reached 1.2 billion. If, when the GNP reaches $1 trillion, we were to apply the capitalist principle of distribution, most of the people would remain mired in poverty and backwardness. But the socialist principle of distribution can enable all the people to lead a relatively comfortable life. This is why we want to uphold socialism. Without socialism, China can never achieve that goal.

(Excerpt from a talk with the Japanese delegation to the second session of the Council of Sino-Japanese Non-Governmental Persons.) https://dengxiaopingworks.wordpress.com/2013/03/08/building-a-socialism-with-a-specifically-chinese-character/

I hope, with these passages, you can see why I believe that Deng Xiaoping is a much more nuanced historical figure than just a liberal capitalist reformer. While I hold criticism of him for somewhat overreaching in his privatization, one cannot deny that it has objectively turned China into a very wealthy country.

On a side note, I’d like to clarify something: Maoism is distinctly different from Mao Zedong Thought. Maoism, or Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, is a strand of political thought synthesized by the Shining Path ███ ██ ██████ ██ ████ ███ ███████████ ██████████████████ ███ ██████ ████ ████ ███ █████ █████ ███ █████ █████ ███████ ██ ███████████ █████████ ██████ ████ █████ ███████████ █████ ██ ████████████████ ██████ ██████████ ██ ████████ ████ ███████ █████████ ███ ████████ ██ █████████ █████ █████ ██ ████ ███ ███████ (redacted for sin), only recently being turned around by the election of Pedro Castillo (while I have many harsh criticisms of his culturally regressive views, I believe he is infinitely better than the neofascist Keiko Fujimori and am grateful he was elected.)

Nevertheless, barring my criticisms of Maoism, partly due to my personal preference for the divergent strand that is Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought-Deng Xiaoping Thought-Xi Jinping Thought, it is a legitimate strand of thought, and it has definitions. There is a neo-Maoist faction in China. Xi Jinping is not a neo-Maoist. Maoism is a strand of thought that is critical of the revisionism of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. Xi Jinping is someone who is at the later stages of the state capitalist transitional period that Dengism, or Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought-Deng Xiaoping Thought, proposes.

Thank you for considering this alternative perspective on these figureheads,
WhyEssEff

P.s. Have a great day!
P.p.s. I have many more quotes if you are interested. These topics fascinate me.