There are two related problems in any serious analysis of intellectual thought in Leninist regimes. The first problem is actually more an analytic dilemma. Analyses either tend to ignore the strong political context that limits and channels thought in even the most esoteric of academic debates, or to dismiss all Marxist scholarship as mere ideological slavishness to the current political line. Second, academic observers have long seemed unwilling to face up to the fact that intellectuals in all regimes, especially in Leninist ones, have strong statist interests well as a natural desire for greater intellectual freedom. Conservative observers tend to see only the statist interests and orientation of intellectuals, while liberal and Marxist scholars often look for merits in the intellectual thought underlying Leninist regimes without clearly noting the political context of a given debate.
The books under consideration are notable for their effort to steer through these two problems. In the process of absorbing these works' contribution, readers are introduced to nearly all of the key intellectual leaders and movements of the reform era in contemporary China, as well as with their precursors in the 1950s and 1960s. Although each work, even Gilbert Rozman's more narrowly focused study, is not con-