people as other doctrines had not.
Mao's position as icon of the Chinese people was not merely a function of the Communist system, for China was not the same as other Communist countries given that it had a different history and a different underlying philosophy. No matter how much Mao changed that philosophy, elements of Confucianism remained and colored the way the people viewed themselves and their leaders. A comparison with Stalin is instructive. Mao developed into the central figure in the new Chines political and social system and would remain so until his death. Stalin also made himself the center of the Russian political system, but he did so the way a fascist leader such as Hitler did in his own political system. Stalin instituted purges intended to solidify this move and assure there would be no opposition. Indeed, it would appear that Stalin had learned from the Germans how to accomplish precisely this placement of himself in a stronger position of power:
German events proved instructive to him at this time. The Reichstag fire of the previous year had been played up in the Soviet press for what it may have been: a Nazi-staged crime followed by legislation to authorize summary justice and ensuing terror against Communist and other left-wing elements.
Stalin, however, could not act as openly as had Hitler and knew it:
Not only did Bolshevik political culture militate against any such action; it was not Stalin's way to act so. Besides, his enemies were far too numerous to be put out of the way in a single limited operation. what he needed was, rather, a Soviet equivalent of the Reichstag fire: a heinous crime and politically shocking event in which numbers of prominent Old Bolsheviks could be implicated.
Tucker states that the idea offered by Lenin of a long-range effort to build socialism was a momentous modification to the classical Marxist scheme of history:
Marx and Engels had envisaged socialis...