Mao’s tenure represented the apotheosis of one-man rule, complete with the obscene personality cult and wild policy gyrations that accompany an extreme centralization of power. Mao’s successors understood that his model was incompatible with the stability, growth, and innovation the country needed to become a first-tier power. For roughly thirty-five years after Mao’s death, China evolved—haltingly and partially—toward a smarter form of autocracy.
