The editors tell us what they can. The Tiananmen papers were leaked by a lone individual high up in the Chinese hierarchy who was outraged by the Tiananmen massacre and now wants the truth to be known. But the task of compiling the documents and spiriting them out of China seems so complex and risky that you have to wonder if a single person could do it. The drawback with this theory is that it doesn't seem as if the documents could have been obtained and made public without help from people in power today, or well after June 4, 1989.
China is now in the early stages of a long political campaign.
Wei believes that the Tiananmen Papers were leaked by a group within the party's leadership that includes Deng Xiaoping's old protege Li Ruihuan and, perhaps, Wen Jiabao and Hu Jintao. One faction in the Communist Party is using these Tiananmen Papers to overcome another faction. That may be overly conspiratorial, although from Wei, it's understandable. In 1978, as Deng was seeking to gain control over the Communist Party, he suggested he was interested in political reform. Curiously, Wei thinks that those outside the Chinese Communist Party should seek a balance of power within it.