Ultras, Hoxhaists, Maoists, and anarchists love to say that Deng was a counter-revolutionary force, a revisionist, and that his program was anti-communist in nature.

The fact that he chose to use the mechanisms of capitalism to achieve the development of the economic base is the obvious point of contention, but none of Deng’s critics have been able to present an alternative solution. Capitalism is a historical process qua social arrangement that emerges from the material base. One can no more skip over capitalism than one can simply push the communism button.

We have not seen an industrial society that did not go through some form of capitalist arrangement. Even the USSR had the NEP. Moving through this phase of industrial development of the economic base requires the efficient allocation of surplus and purely pre-planber micromanaging bureaucracy has not shown itself to be up to the challenge, historically