After Mao Zedong died at the age of 82 in 1976, his successors deliberately crafted a system that they hoped would prevent the rise of another dictator. Mao had turned against other leaders and put the nation at risk through irrational schemes. Deng Xiaoping, Mao’s former comrade-in-arms who had twice been purged by him, did not blame Mao as an individual for the tragic mistakes of the Cultural Revolution (1966–76) and the Great Leap Forward (1958–62). Instead, Deng targeted the systemic source of the problem: “Over-concentration of power is liable to give rise to arbitrary rule by individuals at the expense of collective leadership.”
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