THE book is, by Chinese standards, heresy. And that is one of the reasons why Memorandum on Fighting Leftism has become a hot-seller in China.
This is not a book for the politically faint-hearted. The 40 liberal- minded intellectuals who contributed to this tome cite patriarch Mr Deng Xiaoping as their inspiration. They repeatedly quote Mr Deng on the need to fight leftism.
Yet Dengism - the theory that China can carry out capitalist-style reforms while leaving the Communist Party's control unquestioned - is being challenged almost as much as the neo-Maoists who tried to block the senior leader's economic restructuring agenda.
Taking a cue from Mr Deng, who relaunched his economic reform drive last January by going to the provinces, the authors sought out a provincial publishing company (Shuhai, of Shanxi province) rather than a major publisher in Beijing or one of the larger Chinese cities.
And like Mr Deng, the authors have been able to bring their ideas back to the capital, where their book is being widely read by intellectuals.
The authors clearly support Mr Deng's economic reforms. But that, they say, is not enough. A major theme which runs through these articles is that the leadership needs to permit the expression of divergent viewpoints.