Not really. Deng was quite smart. Unlike Mao who was an ideologists to the core, Deng was a visionary leader and a pragmatic one. Had he ruled China from the beginning instead of Mao, then China would have been a developed country long ago along with Japan and S.Korea.
Mao's obssession with odeology is what made China so poor, isolated from the world and backward to the point where even North Korea had better living standard than them. So contrary to what you said, had China cary on with Mao's policy/ideology and soviet model instead of opening up to the west and partnering with the U.S/west then believe me it would have been just another giant version of North Korea today, nothing more.
So if anything Deng was a visionary leader who looked at things from a long term and he ia the one who is to be credited with Chinas current prosperity/growth. He is like Japans Meiji who revolutionised Japan and opened up Japan to the west/world and changed Japan forever. China was just little too late for the game. So if anything you should be praising Deng not Mao.
Deng did the right thing by casting the outdated failed soviet commie ideology and ushering in a more forward looking pragmatic model foe hia country and adopting close ties with western powers and Japan which brought in huge investments from western countries and overseas Chinese. Only a fool/die hard commie will say Mao was better than Deng in running a country.