By Kent Ewing
HONG KONG - When news broke last Thursday that China's most bold, charismatic and ambitious politician had fallen from grace, the message to the increasingly dissatisfied leftist wing of the Communist Party was clear: China will continue to move forward with economic and political reform, not backward toward the dark days of Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution (1966-76).
For years, leftists and reformers have been engaged in a largely behind-the-scenes battle for the soul of the party. The unceremonious firing on March 15 of Bo Xilai as party chief of the sprawling southwestern municipality of Chongqing represents a humiliating public rebuke not only to Bo but also to all those party members who - unsettled by China's naked materialism and growing wealth gap and social divisions - wax nostalgic for Mao READ MORE
