Consider a country like China, which has made a transition from Marxism-Leninism to what an observer brilliantly called Market-Leninism.

The decade since Tiananmen has seen a new synthesis. Using a term that harks back to the beginning of the Deng era, the regime calls it 'socialism with Chinese characteristics.' Nicholas Kristof, former New York Times correspondent in China, called it 'market Leninism.'

Pioneered in the 1960's and 1970's by South Korea and Taiwan, this East Asian model combines harsh single-party rule with competition in the marketplace. … After Deng Xiaoping, China's current paramount leader, was purged in 1976, the People's Daily quoted Mao Zedong as saying that Mr. Deng 'knows nothing of Marxism-Leninism.' Mao may have been half-right, for the 89-year-old Mr. Deng has even advised visitors from developing countries not to bother with Marxism.

At the same time, Mr. Deng and other Chinese leaders retain a fondness for Leninism, in the sense of highly disciplined one-party rule with centralized decision-making. Their aim, in other words, is Market-Leninism.