It's all the best parts of democracy and all the best parts of dictatorship. You get to vote, but there's only one choice. It takes all the pesky thinking out of it. The PRC promised equal rights for women, rent reduction, land redistribution, new heavy industry, and lots of freedoms. Including freedoms of thought, speech, publication, assembly, association, correspondence, person, domicile, moving from one place to another, religious belief, and the freedom to hold processions or demonstrations. Yeah, no. Even putting aside the PRC's failure to protect any of these rights, Mao's China wasn't much fun if you were a landlord, or even if you were a peasant who'd done well.