PATRIARCH Deng Xiaoping has attacked party elders and cadres for saying his reformist theories run counter to Marxism.
He has also given instructions to prevent a Deng ''personality cult'', especially after his death, and advised General Secretary Jiang Zemin to consolidate his grasp on the army.
According to the latest issue of the pro-Chinese journal The Mirror, Mr Deng is worried about the recent spate of seminars honouring the so-called Deng Thought, and about plans in various cities to erect Deng statues.
In a letter to the Politburo last month, Mr Deng reportedly said: ''I am not being humble but just being practical. I will feel uneasy about exhibitions that eulogise me.'' The patriarch also indicated that Deng Thought - building a socialist market economy - needed to be constantly revised.
''Some people in the party, including party elders, are opposed to or do not totally agree with the theory of building socialism with Chinese characteristics,'' Mr Deng said in the letter.
''They think the theory has revised and corrupted Marxism and Leninism.'' The patriarch warned that the unnamed conservative elders still insisted that China should engage in unremitting ''class struggle''.
''Some of our old comrades have not shed the bondage of dogmatism of the 1950s, '60s and '70s,'' Mr Deng added.