Question

After Mao Zedong died in 1976, Deng Xiaoping became China’s leader and adopted
Marxism
as the country’s main goal.

Answer 1

That sentence is inaccurate.

Facts in brief:
- Mao Zedong died in September 1976. Hua Guofeng briefly became the party’s official successor.
- Deng Xiaoping returned to power gradually and by the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee (December 1978) became the paramount leader driving policy, though he never held the formal title of party chairman for long.
- Deng did not “adopt Marxism as the country’s main goal” in the sense of returning to Maoist orthodoxy. Instead he reinterpreted Marxism for practical use under the slogan “socialism with Chinese characteristics” and shifted the focus from class struggle and ideological campaigns to economic modernization and development.
- Key Deng policies: reform and opening-up (from 1978), household responsibility system in agriculture, creation of Special Economic Zones (e.g., Shenzhen), encouragement of foreign investment and private/town-and-village enterprises, and market-oriented reforms of state enterprises.

In short: Deng kept the Communist Party and Marxist rhetoric as the formal framework, but prioritized pragmatic economic reform over Maoist ideological goals. If you want, I can give a short timeline of Deng’s major reforms and their effects.