I lived in China for 6 months. This fits my experience, and is remarkably similar to a story I was told by a native Chinese:
"We were taught in school about Mao, who rose to power on idealism. At first he showed us many great things that we could do, but eventually idealism led us to the great famine, and many people starved. Since then, Mao lost some power, and now in school they teach us that Mao was 2/3 right, but 1/3 wrong. And that 1/3 that was wrong was idealism. So now we practice pragmatism."
"We were taught in school about Mao, who rose to power on idealism. At first he showed us many great things that we could do, but eventually idealism led us to the great famine, and many people starved. Since then, Mao lost some power, and now in school they teach us that Mao was 2/3 right, but 1/3 wrong. And that 1/3 that was wrong was idealism. So now we practice pragmatism."