Slop.

I think the lack of such references is meaningful (though it's not a total lack, and he worked with or at least was happy to facilitate communalist types), but there's a difference between synthesizing things and being an eclectic who just picks things out and retains those elements in their original form. He really did have important elements of his approach that bore a substantial resemblance to anarchist ideas and approaches, maybe most conspicuously in the Cultural Revolution. I would also consider this anarchist-like lean, while it did have real benefits in some cases (like the approach to land reform!), to be a contributing factor to several of his greatest failures (the Hundred Flowers campaign, a few GLF policies, and worst of all some of the Red Guard ordeal). Of course, that's hardly the only source of his errors either, to be clear.

He references Chinese philosophical ideas and texts much more than anarchist ideas and concepts to give you an idea of how little anarchism factors into his work. And like every single Chinese philosopher in existence, his works make more sense after reading Confucian text.