NOTE 65 the norms of party life. He committed particularly grave errors in the last years of his life. There were unjustified limitations on democracy, flagrant violence of socialist legality and unfounded acts of repression. The errors and distortions linked with the personality cult damaged the cause of communist construction. But they neither changed nor could change the nature of socialist society, the genuinely people's nature of the Soviet system, and they could not shake or weaken the theoretical, political, and organizational functions in the CPSU's activities. The policy pursued by the party expressed the basic interests of the Soviet people, always enjoyed their support and ensured the successful building of socialism and communism in the USSR. While it would be wrong to draw an exact parallel, a close resemblance can be seen between the personalities of Stalin and Mao. Each of them in his respective way played outstanding roles in the development of the revolution in his country particularly, and in the world as a whole. Each of them therefore acquired prestige and popularity among the revolutionaries throughout the world. However, while they undoubtedly played the leading role in the development of the revolution, they were great because they were the leaders of the collective team — Stalin of the Central Committee of the CPSIJ and of the Executive Committee of the Communist International, Mao of the Central Committee of the CCP. It would be as foolish to deny the contributions made by the outstanding colleagues of Stalin and Mao in the development of the revolution which they respectively headed, as it would be to deny the fact that among all the leading comrades who developed the revolution, Stalin was the most outstanding in theCPSU and in the Communist International, while Mao played the same role in the GCP. What came to be known as the cult of Stalin's personality was a distortion of the actual process of the revolution. So is what has now come to be known as the "thought of Mao Tse-tung.95 Healing the Rift The consequences of the inner-party struggle which appears to have been going on in the Chinese Communist Party made the last years of Mao's life a sad story. One fails to understand, for instance, how non-party youths could be mobilized against the party leadership under the instructions of the very same Mao who had put the greatest emphasis on the unity of the party and its leading role. Much that has happened within China in the name of the 'Cultural Revolution9, and in the world communist movement after the Sine-Soviet rift came into the open, saddens everybody who admires the Chinese revolution and the Chinese Communist Party as a leading contingent of the world proletarian revolution.