Stian’s Reviews > The Great Transformation: China's Road from Revolution to Reform > Status Update

Deng had been publicly denounced as "the number-two capitalist roader" after Liu Shaoqi and excluded from his state and Party positions. His brother was publicly tortured and died by suicide, his eldest son was paralyzed from the chest down after jumping from a window when terrorized by Red Guards at Peking University, and a brother-in-law died while being persecuted.

In November 1966 a group of Red Guards traveled from Beijing to Confucius's hometown, Qufu, in Shandong, where they set out to wreck temples and memorial halls. But toppling statues and burning books were not enough for their energetic vandalism. First, they dynamited the tomb of the ancient sage himself. Then they proceeded to dig up the coffins of the thousands of Confucius's descendants who had been buried there.

The latter position, at least if one argues for unintended consequences, may have some truth to it, though its claims do rather remind us of the old Polish joke that Communism is the longest possible road from capitalism to capitalism.