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You're correct and if anything you are actually underselling the point. Maoist China itself actually was able to manage a very high rate of economic growth, to the point that it outstripped Germany, the USSR and Japan during their modernisation periods. According to Maurice Meisner, in Germany the rate of economic growth for the period 1880-1914 was 33 percent per decade. In Japan from 1874-1929 the rate of increase per decade was 43 percent. The Soviet Union over the period 1928-1958 achieved a decadal increase of 54 percent. In China over the years 1952-1972 the decadal rate was 64 percent. China’s modernisation was actually wildly successful from the start and unlike the Soviets they didn't end up disintegrating, stagnating and lapsing into kleptocracy, though the whole "millions must die" situation is an obvious and big caveat.
The early PRC under Mao went from an industrial base smaller than Belgium to the sixth largest in the world, and this occurred without much external help, except for stuff like limited Soviet aid in the 1950s paid back in full by the 1960s. It was almost entirely endogenous. People always praise Deng but the capability to take over the world's factories didn't come out overnight in 1979. Deng essentially ended up inheriting an already-industrial China with the potential for huge further growth, so long as the right incentive structures were introduced (and they were).
In general, I'm kind of convinced that quick modernisation requires a dictator with the intent and willingness to move fast and break shit, though that approach is certainly not a sustainable system to run a state with over the long term. It also contextualises to me why Mao is still regarded in China, in spite of public perception of him having soured and even the CCP being willing to openly condemn many of his excesses.
I wouldn't consider myself a deep Chinese historian but I've always figured that the back half of Mao gets a large amount blamed on his health/wife taking over for the Cultural Revolution. Plus general party continuity with the massive run of affluence afterwards means that there hasn't really been much of an opportunity for revisionist backlash. The powers that be aren't really interested in letting one of their foundational myths get trashed
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