The article interprets Chinese communism as a specific form of revolutionary, modernising nationalism. Its model is the industrialised, capitalist, anti-capitalist – "socialist" West, whom it attacks and imitates at the same time. The state-socialism of Mao was not only dictatorial and antidemocratic, but from the beginning it deliberately and systematically depoliticised civic life and divided society, especially the working classes. Today's China can be characterized on the one hand by social dynamism; on the other hand by extreme inequality and political impotence.