The answer really turns on how one defines "bourgeoisie" and takes at face value Mao's proclamations on the matter. Even though Mao was a self-avowed Marxist and traditional Marxism of this period holds the bourgeoisie to be a counterrevolutionary class, Maoism in its early stages enfolded two alleged class enemies, the "national bourgeoisie" and the "enlightened gentry" into progressive forces for the Chinese revolution. The PRC flag encodes this schema, with the large star symbolizing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the four smaller stars the class allies of the CP (national bourgeoisie, urban gentry, peasantry, proletariat). In a prominent 1948 speechinner party directive On the National Bourgeoisie and the Enlightened Gentry, Mao outlined his rationale for including these two classes into the revolutionary constellation. Mao identified these groups as being not only opposed to the KMT corruption, but they were also opposed to imperialism of the West and Japan (i.e. capitalist exploiters) and wanted to modernize China and move away from its feudal past. Both the experience of war and the national humiliation of imperialism had radicalized segments of these classes and allowed the to step out of their halo of class-based self-interests. These two groups were thus in Mao's estimation part of the progressive forces in China and their alliance both during the Japanese war and civil war proved their commitment to profound change in China.

But it is a truism that political rhetoric is not always the same as reality and in terms of actual policies, the PRC was more ambiguous. Mao's 1948 speech was careful to distinguish between those individuals of these two classes who were progressive, and those whose actions did not reflect a more progressive attitude towards the march of history. Moreover, Mao's public and semi-private statements, such as internal CCP conferences, expressed the notion that the progressive elements of both of classes would gradually melt into either the peasantry or the proletariat. Moreover, in a 1949 article to celebrate the anniversary of the CCP, Mao defined the "people" as these four classes, but noted that the proletariat would enjoy hegemony with their peasant allies, and the other two would be followers. Mao also warned that those members of these groups who fell back into older habits of class-based exploitation would no longer be of the "people." Herein lies some of the problem of taking proclamations at face value. Class identity and other markers are much more protean and the state was constantly able to shift the goalposts of class and class enemies quite easily; those Chinese considered to be of the middle class could find themselves safe at one moment, but then subject to discrimination the next.

Just out of curiosity, being that Mao was a Communist in all senses and the bourgeoisie are the class enemy essentially in this political framework, how could he be anything other than anti-bourgeois? What evidence have you read to contend the opposite?