China Another Little Red Book

Are the hard-liners closing in on Deng Xiaoping?

At first glance, the slim volume with the red cover that found its way into the mailboxes of a few foreigners in Beijing last week read like one of the impassioned tracts circulated by Chinese students during their protests last spring. On closer scrutiny, however, the language was far harsher than anything the students ever wrote. Deng Xiaoping, the booklet charged, "is only an opportunist" whose "erroneous leadership" has betrayed "genuine Marxism-Leninism." Unlike the students, who castigated Deng for not carrying reforms far enough, the book accuses him of hurtling mindlessly down "the capitalist road." The solution: "Overthrow that handful of...

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