Part of Mao's enduring legacy was his concept of the party line adapting to the will of the masses, and the sparrow extermination campaign was a failure in adap

Part of Mao's enduring legacy was his concept of the party line adapting to the will of the masses, and the sparrow extermination campaign was a failure in adapting the party line to this farmer discontent too well. Mao did change Chinese culture, but it was by purging Western-style intellectuals and promoting mass organization to take command from the bottom-up, because he saw people on the ground being more correct than intellectuals who might not apply their learning to the actual conditions. The successors after Mao adopting Deng Xiaoping's liberal attitudes towards economic development can be seen as a Party rebuke of Mao's policies. Yet they will still uphold Mao's legacy.