complicated answer, but let's just say that he was an anarchist with traditionalist views on property I disagree with. But can't be said he was a Maoist as he lost his wife, and almost lost his life in the Cultural Revolution. Somebody who suffered greatly for his words and whose dying act was to support the students in Tiananmen Square.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/a-giant-of-chinese-literature-20051021-gdmagg.html

"No doubt this repudiation formed part of his regrets in Random Thoughts, a collection of 150 essays written between 1978 and 1986, first published in newspapers and then in a five-volume edition. He wrote that the main mistake of his generation was having "said too many empty words" in the Maoist age to please the cultural bureaucrats. Other pieces included memorial essays to his wife and to literary victims of the Cultural Revolution, including Lao She, the author of Rickshaw Boy, who had committed suicide."