>At least "right wing" autocrats have goals, albeit misguided ones, and power is a mean to an end; but communist are obsessed by power and power alone.
I don't think that's true at all.
Most of the Middle-Eastern dictators are "right wing" and have no goal apart from seizing and holding onto power.
On the communist side, while that would be the case for many leaders, both Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro come to mind as exceptions. Keeping it strictly to "CCP-style" communism, Wen Jiabao jumps out as someone who saw the CCP beauracracy as a positive means to an end.
