Tismăneanu began his writing career as a dissenting Marxist, sympathizing with the intellectual currents known collectively as neo-Marxism. His doctoral thesis was cited as evidence that Tismăneanu was "a liberal student of Euro-Marxism" by University of Bucharest professor Daniel Barbu (who contrasted Tismăneanu with the official ideological background of Communist Romania, as one in a group of "outstanding authors", alongside Pavel Câmpeanu, Henri H. Stahl, Zigu Ornea, and Vlad Georgescu). Tismăneanu also states having been influenced by psychoanalysis, the Frankfurt School and Existentialism, and, from among the Marxist authors he had read at that stage, he cites as his early mentors Antonio Gramsci, Georg Lukács, Herbert Marcuse and Jean-Paul Sartre.