Failure of the 1989 Student Movement in China
Abstract
June 4, 1989, the military attacked unarmed student protestors and other citizens in and around Tiananmen Square, as stated by Messer(2018) the resort to armed suppression by “orthodox Marxist” hardliners who saw their political system and not their power slipping away the observers inside and outside China. The hardliners attempt to consolidate control through a campaign marked by the arrest of large numbers of students and other revolutionaries accompanied by the intimidation of the rest of the population, is useful to examine some of the backgrounds to such startling events.
Communist systems used to pride themselves on the ability to socialize among themselves. The events in Beijing from April to June 1989 indicate that; moral and ideological education had become entirely ineffective. The party-state had lost control over the students. Moreover, the continuing response by leadership suggests that party elders may have abandoned their duties (Messer,2018).
Failure of the 1989 Student Movement in China
The government’s response to the demonstration became progressively harsher. The
officials who showed any sympathy to the protestors were purged. Several of the demonstration
leaders were arrested, and a propaganda campaign was directed to crush the movement. An
unknown number of Chinese protesters were killed which came to be known as the Tiananmen
Square Massacre ( Cheng,c.2019).
The protests attracted widespread attention (Rosen, 2017) in the United States. Many Americans assumed china, like the soviet union and the communist nations of Eastern Europe.
Why Chinese students protested in 1989
The protesters did not like the way the communists’ party of China ran the economy. Some people also wanted a change towards more democracy (Chen .T 2016)
Causes
Inflation
It led to agricultural problems; The inflation was as high as 28 percent, the government gave peasants IOUs instead of cash for grain.
Party Corruption. Many Chinese were frustrated with the corruption they saw within the leadership of the Chinese communist party; many party leaders and their children were in joint ventures that china had agreed with foreign companies. The rich and powerful were getting more productive, and the common was left out(Perry, J 2018).
Conclusion
The 1989 democratic movement was marked by many dramatic reversals. It attracted millions of followers and led to a mass movement in Tiananmen Square. The event raised many questions; Was the massacre necessary? Which path will the people follow in the next decade (Zhao, S 2016)
References
Chen, T. (2016) The 1989 Tiananmen Square protest in Chinese fiction film
Cheng, C. (2019) Routledge behind the Tiananmen Massacre.Social, Political& Economic Ferment in China.
Chung, S. (2016) Hongkong Federation of Students
Messer, K.(2018) Cries for Democracy: The Causes of the 1989 Student Protests at Tiananmen Square
Perry, J. (2018) Casting a Chinese Democracy Movement,The roles of Students,workers.
Rosen,S . (2017) Political Education &Student Response in the 1989 Demonstration
Zhao, S . (2016) China’s Research for Democracy in the Twentieth Century