Some Chinese want their country to move closer to communism

In a poor, communist country, the phrase sounded like a truism. But in the early 1980s China’s admission that it was still only in the “initial stage of socialism” was an ideological bombshell. The use of those words meant the country had become “totally freed from the restrictions of orthodox socialist principles”, recalled Zhao Ziyang, who took over as Communist Party chief later that decade and championed the term. It allowed China to introduce capitalism (a stage Marx viewed as essential) and repudiate Maoist madness. Many Chinese were delighted by the weakening of ideology’s grip on decision-making. China’s dramatic economic growth owes much to the licence it gave.

In today’s China, Zhao’s description of this liberating effect would sound like heresy (Zhao died in 2005 while under house arrest for being too soft on pro-democracy protesters in 1989). The current party leader, Xi Jinping, talks with great enthusiasm about orthodox principles. Far from scaling back the party’s involvement in economic affairs, as Zhao tried to do, Mr Xi has ramped it up. In businesses, party committees are flexing their muscles again. Over the past couple of years bosses of big private enterprises have been quaking as Mr Xi uses government regulators to bash their companies. Talk of the need for “common prosperity” has raised fears among the rich that the party has them in its sights.