Tiananmen Square
The Tiananmen Square protests came as the culmination of almost a decade of reform, protests, and reactionary politics. Following the death of Mao Zedong the new Chinese leadership began to embark on a process of reforms and economic development that began to accelerate in the early 1980s. Politically this meant that Mao's Cultural Revolution was officially declared a catastrophe and the reformist Zhao Ziyang was installed as premier in 1980 and the even more reformist Hu Yaobang was installed as General Secretary of the Party in 1981. The reforms greatly improved the standard of living and culture also began to flourish as well. But with the reforms came added protests and political dissent as people took advantage of the relaxed environment to push for even greater reforms. At the same time, party elders began to fear that scope and pace of reforms was too great and putting the communist system in jeopardy. Hu Yaobang became the scapegoat by the party elders and was forced to resign as General Secretary and was replaced by Zhao Ziyang. Li Peng, a former Vice Premier, became Premier. This only furthered the attack on Zhao Ziyang's reform program, and when he called to accelerate his price reform program he drew complaints about inflation and a desire to return to a more centralized economic system.
The death of Hu Yaobang on April 15, 1989 led to a massive protest in Bejing's Tiananmen Square by students, intellectuals, and others. The protest was a massive camp-out in the Square to mourn the reformer Hu Yaobang and to protest the stagnation of reforms, call for increased democracy and increased liberalization within the Chinese Communist Party. The protestors erected a giant "Goddess of Democracy" statue as they were cheered on by the police. Also of note is that the protests were carried on live TV across the world. The protests began to grow despite government efforts to contain them and even spread to many other cities including Shanghai, Chengdu, and Guangzhou. Finally the government had enough. The protests came during the middle of a Sino-Soviet summit meeting and was incredibly embarrassing for the Chinese communists there, and there is also some speculation that they were frightened by the earlier events in Romania, where protests had dissolved into extremely bloody street fighting that ultimately led to the overthrow of the communist regime and the execution of Romanian leader Nicolae Ceausescu. While Zhao Ziyang expressed his sympathy for the protesters, but was overruled by Deng Xiaoping, who supported the military repression. Martial law was declared on May 20 and the army was brought into Beijing on June 3 and 4. The PLA used armed force to eliminate the protestors, possibly killing hundreds or even thousands. Reports mentioned the army firing into the crowd indiscriminately, sometimes even killing their own soldiers if they happened to be in the way. The protestors responded by surrounding military vehicles, burning APCs, and attacking the soldiers with rocks and Molotov cocktails. The attacks did not stop until the protests were completely eliminated, and the protesters were detained and kept for political "reeducation," along with many party members and government officials. After the protests were broken up the army remained in Beijing for several days afterward. There were reports of limited fighting within the PLA, with the 27th Army being ready for attack by other PLA units on June 5 (The 27th Army was the one blamed for the worst killing). The international community reacted very strongly to the events in Tiananmen Square, almost universally condemning the repression.
The uprising and subsequent repression gave the conservatives within the Communist Party a resurgence until reform picked up once again, this time led by Deng Xiaoping, calling for a more market oriented economy adding more young reform-minded leaders to top positions.
