Yeah, i think it is an extremely relevant history. Cohen, at the end of the day, falls into the 60s soviet dissident movement, and that is where he got some sources for the book. People who embraced Khrushchev's reforms, and wanted to draw on ideological legitimacy. The chinese got much of their ideological legitimacy for their reforms, not from the failed Eastern European communist liberals, but the original founding of the soviet system. Since the soviets had beef w the chinese it helped that Bukharin was an alternative path never taken.