ABSTRACT
Yang Xianzhen was particularly useful to the Dengists in undermining radical Maoist dogma since he more than any other theoretician had developed a comprehensive explication of a more orthodox Chinese Marxism-Leninism. Yang Xianzhen was one of those Chinese Marxists who learned early on through a series of painful experiences to oppose adventurism from any quarter. Yang Xianzhen belongs to a political generation of Chinese Communists whose early intellectual life was shaped by pre-Stalin Soviet thinking. Yang Xianzhen led a Party school work delegation to Moscow in October 1954 and early the next year published letters from his Soviet counterparts praising the work of the school. Yang Xianzhen published an article praising this same work conference for proceeding from a full understanding of China's national conditions. Yang Xianzhen's March 1981 article linked theory and policy by asserting that the new retrenchment policies required rectification of errors in theoretical and propaganda work.
