But China has become fertile ground for a revival of Mao

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Chinese tech workers are often expected to work 9 am to 9 pm six days a week, a practice so common they call it “996”. Mr. Du’s schedule was worse. After only getting five hours of sleep over three days at the end of last year, his heart pounded, he was gasping for air, and he became sluggish. He resigned shortly after. He has not looked for a job for three months and rarely ventures outside. A doctor diagnosed with mild depression.

“Most of my peers that I know always want to be successful,” Mr. Du said. “We are simply against exploitation and senseless efforts. “

Although Mao never left, he was once old fashioned. In the 1980s, as freedom and free markets became buzzwords, young people turned to the books of Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre and Milton Friedman. Studying Mao was compulsory in school, but many students missed these lessons. After the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989, martial arts novels and books by successful entrepreneurs topped the bestseller lists.



Nominally a socialist country, China is one of the most unequal countries job function email database in the world. Some 600 million Chinese, or 43% of the population, earn a monthly income of only about $ 150. Many young people think that they cannot fit into the middle class or raise their parents up. The lack of social advancement has led them to question the purity of the party, which they deem too tolerant of the capitalist class.

The growing presence of the party in daily life has also opened doors for Maoism. The intensification of the indoctrination under Mr. Xi made the young people both more nationalistic and more immersed in communist ideology.