"China is communist in name only. They have a controlled market, but they have embraced free trade and capitalism and they are now prospering."
Though I will get unto this point very soon, your point of the death toll has been answered by @anarchyhasnogods. I suggest you watch the video she linked.
Now unto this point, China (PRC, People's Republic of China) had been under a market economy when Deng took ever and was hellbent with his revisionism. Albeit Mao did went senile at a very old age, Deng would do far worse and kill off any anti-revisionist in the country that wouldn't be in line with Deng. In fact, the Tienanmen Square was a protest full of Maoists, MLs and Students that didn't agree to Deng's rule and policies in the PRC. He would allow Capital to flow into the country, destroy the communes and allow foreign Capital to dictate the whims of the people, that'll eventually help generate a Capitalist class in the PRC.
Years later that trend would be reversed under Xi Jingping's leadership, setting into motion with his fourteen points firmly established: trends like the killing off billionaires if they had gotten to rich, excluding them from the Party function, imprisoning corrupt party officials if they mismanaged funds for their ends, help combating poverty created thanks to Deng and Co.'s policies and expanding democracy back towards the proletarian path and ridding China of foreign Capital. Xi Jingping also is a staunch ML and is continuing to return China back on the revolutionary path with the proletarian masses. The PRC may still have remnants of Capital inside its country, but it has mercilessly, for the past few years, been forcing it to be under proletarian control and eliminating foreign control over the PRC.