His characterization of the USSR as a "kleptocratic gangster state" is wrong, and I say this fairly emphatically. I think this is visibly proven by the nature of modern post-Soviet Russia, which actually is a kleptocratic gangster state.

Yes, the USSR had a problem with corruption, patronage, and clique-based party politics.

But if the USSR was truly a "kleptocratic gangster state", post-Soviet capitalist Russia would resemble it almost identically. And I don't think anyone claims that. Yes, it is true that the people who carried out the privatization and formation of the kleptocracy indeed were the former nomenklatura who saw the writing on the wall and used their remaining influence to form private fiefdoms out of state property they controlled. But if the USSR was itself a "kleptocratic gangster state" then this would not have been necessary. There is a distinct difference between private ownership and stewardship in public trust when it comes to this. The former enables a true kleptocracy, the latter mere corruption. It's far easier for a communist party dictatorship to remove a corrupt steward than a bourgeois dictatorship with "rule of law" to convict and imprison a capitalist kleptocrat.

Additionally, my current view of Chinese Dengism is the successor to Bukharinism, or rather Bukharinism as a proto-Dengism. I view the CCP as engaging in the original orthodox Marxist "capitalist stage of evolution" (a la the Mensheviks or the Social Democrats) except under the dictatorship of the proletariat AKA the communist party. It's effectively sythesizing the Menshevik and Bolshevik approach.