148 China in World History
Party. On the one hand, he hoped to free people from the deadly politi-
cal campaigns of the Maoist era and to liberate China’s economy from
the waste and ineffi ciency of state socialism. On the other hand, he
was determined to maintain the Party’s monopoly on political power,
and he resisted some of his younger associates when they began to
argue for gradual moves toward a multiparty state with open political
competition.
In a brief period of relaxation in the mid-1980s, students demon-
strated in Beijing and elsewhere for more personal freedom and against
rampant corruption within the Communist Party. Fang Lizhi, a famous
astrophysicist and president of a major university, openly spoke to stu-
dents as no one had dared since 1949: “I am here to tell you that the
socialist movement, from Marx and Lenin to Stalin and Mao Zedong,
has been a failure. I think that complete Westernization is the only way
to modernize.”^8 Deng Xiaoping responded to these demonstrations with
another round of crackdowns and arrests and the dismissal of one of
his top associates, Hu Yaobang, who had pushed for more intellectual
freedom and was thus blamed for the demonstrations. Fang Lizhi and
several other dissident intellectuals were expelled from the Party.
In the spring of 1989, there was increasing unrest in China’s cities
as prices on more and more commodities were deregulated and wages
fell behind infl ation.^9 As managers could now fi re workers to cut costs,
unemployment rose, producing new inequalities. Students were becom-
ing frustrated by corruption within the Communist Party and by their
own lack of freedom to choose where to work after they graduated from
college. This combustible mix was ignited by the sudden death of Hu
Yaobang of a heart attack on April 15. Immediately students at Beijing
University and other campuses began holding rallies to commemorate
Hu Yaobang, to criticize the Communist Party for having dismissed him
from offi ce, and to call for immediate reforms. They urged the govern-
ment to open up China’s political system, to rehabilitate critics like Wei
Jingsheng who were in prison, to publicize the salaries of top Party lead-
ers, and to crack down on nepotism and corruption.
The designated heir to Deng Xiaoping, Zhao Ziyang, saw in these
demonstrations an opportunity to edge his more conservative oppo-
nents out of power. But his opponents saw the demonstrations as proof
that Deng’s reforms had gone too far and should be rolled back. When
aPeople’s Daily editorial used the word “turmoil” to describe the
demonstrations, the students were outraged, for they saw themselves
as true patriots calling for much-needed improvements in Chinese life.
The international news media came to Beijing in mid-May to cover