466 { China’s Quest
An even more powerful example of what was possible was Mikhail
Gorbachev, who for several years had been introducing a liberal brand of
Leninist rule in the Soviet Union. For hardliners within the CCP, the fate of
the PUWP was a warning against trying the same strategy in China. Once
blood flowed in Beijing streets, the specter of similar repression haunted East
European capitals with the belief that the clock could be turned back to the
Stalinist era as in China, if it did not move forward to freedom.China’s Democratic UprisingIn the CCP’s view of things, an uprising against it cannot be democratic.
Since rule by the CCP represents rule by and in the interests of the Chinese
people, it is by definition “democratic.” Attempts to overthrow the “people’s
democracy” are, again by definition, anti-democratic.^2 This Leninist soph-
istry met a powerful challenge in spring 1989. A powerful movement sprang
into existence and assumed nationwide proportions with startling speed and
demanded that the CCP abandon its traditional methods of rule, starting
with its long-standing ban on independent nongovernmental organizations
and control over the media. While the Chinese movement of spring 1989 did
not have a single voice or set of demands, there are good grounds to credit
the conclusion of the mainstream of the CCP’s leaders: the movement sought
nothing less than the dismantling of the CCP dictatorship.
The movement began with students memorializing the late Secretary
General Hu Yaobang in Tiananmen Square on “grave sweeping day”—the tra-
ditional Confucian holiday for venerating ancestors—shortly after his death on
April 15. Preparations for the officially organized funeral for Hu struck students
as cursory and insincere. The student protests resonated with Beijing’s popu-
lace, and soon marches of tens of thousands of people pushed to the square in
protest, pushing aside police cordons in the process. The Politburo eventually
responded with a harsh editorial in Renmin ribao on April 26, charging “an ex-
tremely small segment of opportunists” with “plotting to overthrow the CCP
and China’s political system.” The editorial, pushed through while Secretary
General and pro-reform leader Zhao Ziyang was visiting North Korea, was in-
tended to scare students into ceasing protest. It backfired, angering students
and creating a standing threat of punishment for the organizers of the stu-
dent protests. Demonstrations swelled further; the day after the editorial, up
to 100,000 people marched from Beijing’s university district to Tiananmen
Square. After Zhao’s return from North Korea on May 1, policy shifted in a no-
ticeably more tolerant direction. Demonstrating seemed safe, and crowds grew
larger. Work units began to join in, often with banners proclaiming their units
and their support for student demands. In the process, students formed inde-
pendent organizations, issued demands, and called a strike of classes.