Members of the left and right wings of the Communist party are jockeying for position in the run-up to a crucial party Central Committee meeting scheduled for next month.
Leftists, or remnant Maoists, have attacked the views of Professor Wu Jinglian, a close adviser of Vice-Premier Zhu Rongji, whose candidacy for the position of prime minister will be confirmed at the plenary session.
The criticisms have centred on Professor Wu's statement late last year that socialism can be defined as 'social justice plus market economics'.
While not identifying Professor Wu by name, party thinkers writing in the latest issue of the monthly, Seeking After Truth, claimed his views contradicted tenets of Marxism and socialism.
In his article, Zhang Zerong said market economics was more a characteristic of capitalism than socialism.
He added social justice was a 'murky term' that could be used by capitalist as well as socialist countries.
Mr Zhang, a researcher at the Sichuan Academy of Social Sciences, wrote the distinctive mark of socialism should be public ownership.