Benjamin I. Schwartz '38, a pioneering scholar who, at the height of the Cold War, first noted the differences between Chinese and Soviet communism, died Sunday night of cancer. He was 82.

Schwartz, a specialist in Chinese history and thought, began teaching at Harvard in 1951. He retired in 1987 as Williams Professor of History and Political Science.

In the 1950s Schwartz was the first to publish a major study--his first book, Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao--that treated Chinese communism as an ideology substantively different from Soviet communism.

It was an unorthodox, even revolutionary thesis, at a time when most scholars assumed that Chinese communism was an outgrowth of the Soviet empire.

During that era, Schwartz also looked at the impact of Western ideas on Chinese thinking and wrote an examination of ancient Chinese thought.

He often challenged fellow East Asian scholars to reconsider their understanding of major issues in Chinese history, said Elizabeth J. Perry, Rosovsky Professor of Government.

For example, she said, Schwartz maintained that the revolution in China in 1949 did not inevitably have to be a communist one.

In addition to institutions, a traditional focus of government studies, Schwartz emphasized peoples and their ideologies in his research.

"If he objected to anything, it was the relegation of ideas to the sideline of political analysis," said Roderick L. MacFarquhar, who now holds the Williams professorship.

Schwartz was best known among his colleagues for the breadth of his knowledge, from ancient to modern Chinese history and from Western to Chinese thinkers.

"He was equally comfortable with Plato, Aristotle, de Tocqueville, Marx and Weber as with Chinese thinkers," said Professor of History Andrew D. Gordon '74, director of the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies.

Colleagues said this constant comparing of Chinese ideas to Western ones was one of Schwartz's lasting contributions to East Asian scholarship. He was what Gordon called an "obsessive relativizer."

Gordon first met Schwartz in 1970, when Schwartz taught what is now Historical Studies A-13, "Tradition and Transformation in East Asian Civilization: China."

"His lectures were infuriating. He would go off in one direction and then say, 'on the other hand,' and weave back," he said.

Schwartz was also involved with the Fairbank Center for East Asian studies from its inception in 1955, said Perry, the Center's current director.

She said he was the Center's "intellectual soul."

"He embodied the scholarly ideal," said Ford Professor of Social Sciences Ezra F. Vogel. "He valued scholarship above money, position, status and fame."

Schwartz maintained his Harvard connections after he retired, coming to campus to write and converse with colleagues into late October.

"He was a very faithful and regular participant at the Fairbank Center lunch table," Perry said.

Schwartz served in the Army from 1942 to 1946 as an intelligence officer in Japan, specializing in translations.

He liked to tell the story of how he translated the Japanese message of surrender in 1945, Gordon said. He said that he looked up the word "surrender" in the dictionary two or three times to be sure he had it right.

Schwartz, who was fluent in ten languages, taught high school before joining the Army.

In addition to receiving a B.A. in French literature from the College, Schwartz graduated from Harvard's Far Eastern Regional Studies program in 1948.

He is survived by his wife, Bunny/Bernice, and his children, Jonathan and Sara-Ann.