Could China be doing something similar today? After all, despite the growth of free enterprise in China since Mao died, the ruling party still calls itself the Communist Party; it maintains organizations such as the Communist Youth; China's flag features Marxist-Leninist-Maoist iconography, etc.
Whither China? That’s a damn good question.
My personal opinion, which is not particularly well informed, is that there is very little that is communist about the present Chinese system other than the name. Any country with many private-property millionaires and billionaires cannot be called communist in any real sense. YMMV
I think the present Chinese system has a great deal more in common with the traditional rule of the mandarins, with them replaced by the Party, than it does with a dictatorship of the proletariat.
In traditional Chinese society the rule of the mandarins tended to be brought low by unbelievable levels of corruption. The basic role of the emperor in this system was to act as a check on this corruption of the mandarins.
The problem in China today is largely that since there has been no emperor since the death of Mao the corruption has gone on unchecked.
IMO this will eventually cause the breakup of the country, as has happened dozens of times before.
But my opinion on China is based merely on reading, no actual experience.