I’ve read that the CCP, observing how Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin was catastrophic for the Communist cause globally, never attacked Mao after his death but emphasized on separating “Mao Zedong thought” from Mao the man, whom they say made mistakes in his later years.
Of course it seems intuitive how such a vehement repudiation of the head of the biggest communist state would be detrimental for communism worldwide but how did it actually happen in practice?
Surely communists didn’t just become liberals after hearing about le evil communist. Though it certainly must have been grist for the anticommunist propaganda mill.
Here’s my personaly opinion on it: It’s not like people or even politicians in the USSR were uniformly ideologically Marxist, and by turning the USSR of the previous ~19 years into a monstrosity purely driven by the satan-like Stalin (someone who in many respects was very concerned with trying to uphold Marxist reasoning), you can attack Marxism via attacking the existing USSR policies via attacking Stalin. The cult of the individual, which Stalin was increasingly responsible for as he aged (a massive strategic error), made it much easier to attack communism under the cover of attacking Stalin.