Slide from my government class where Bernie Sanders is more left wing than China, Pinochet is extreme right wing authoritarian and Milton Friedman is a sweet right wing libertarian despite advising and defending Pinochet. Obama is more authoritarian and right wing than Washington as well.
It is not a crazy thing to say. Mao had fundamental disagreements with Stalin and was frequently worried that the party would become dogmatic and lose revolutionary fervor. That was the point behind the Cultural Revolution after all. Mao experimented with new forms of governance and codified New Democracy. He ended up often cracking down on the movements he allowed when things got messy, but he was always trying to encourage radicalism within the PRC.