A case study in how Marxism (even China’s Fascist version of it) begins to economically self destruct.
The problem is, they can do a lot of mischief before they crash and burn. And when it is for their survival they will do anything to try and stave off the crash.
Atheist old men have a short event horizon. They will do lots of things which are bad in the long-term, in order to hold off disaster for 5 more years.