I don't think anyone in China is seriously contemplating turning the clock back. But I think Hu and Wen also recognize that there are a lot of people that think some things were better then (an egalitarian society) and perhaps it is part of their push to encourage development of rural and inland regions. The Shanghai clique always resented Mao for taking their surplus and throwing it at Guizhou and Gansu; Jiang and his cadres totally reversed that policy, and pretty much made it everyone for themselves. I think the current leadership think that there is some room, if only for their legitimacy, for more balanced development efforts.

I guess there will always been some regions that don't do as well as others - Arkansas v. New York, or Darwin v. Sydney. But there is something to be said for national policies that share the new wealth, at least a little bit, with those regions.

In my view, that a macroeconomic 'social' Marxism is what perhaps is being implied here, insofar as 'Marxism' to a certain segment of the Chinese population equates with 'fairness' and 'egality'.

I think that we must be also cognizant of the vacuum of moral principles in modern day, officially still atheist China. Given that the ruling party is still the Chinese Communist Party, not only must they extrapolate any official morality from their history but also they feel they must do so without giving free rein to other religions that could topple its official monopoly on public morality.

So short of creating some sort of old-style 'cult of personality' Kim Il-Sung or Mao Zedong state religion, I think they are furiously racking their brains about how to create a unifying, appealing moral code that at once is consistent with some aspect of Marxism, that addresses modern society's need for moral principles (especially for officials!), and that does not give license or initiative to religious institutions outside of their control.

I personally don't see how it'll be done, but one can understand why they are trying.

I agree that the underlying motivation is likely to be appearing close to the old Marxist theme of social equality - appealing both to peasants and cadres who still have faith in the old system. But it's pretty thorough though - Hu's been promoting the whole red tourism thing and advocating N Korea and Cuba as study models for the management of ideology. Not to mention the whole Marxist re-education programme for all 60m+ CCP members.

Interestingly there were quite a few mutterings during the campaign from cadres in the cities who feel it's a pointless waste of time in the modern era. Can't imagine why... I'm just waiting for the government to start outsourcing these courses in Marxism to the private sector.