“Checking the Turmoil and Quelling the Counter-Revolutionary Rebellion”
Excerpted From Chen Xitong’s Report to the Central Committee, July 2, 1989:
From April to June 1989, a handful of people exploited student unrest to launch planned, organized, premeditated political turmoil, which later developed into a counter-revolutionary rebellion in Beijing. Their purpose was to overthrow the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and subvert the socialist People’s Republic of China. In this struggle involving the life and death of the Party and the State:
Comrade Zhao Ziyang committed the serious mistake of supporting the turmoil and splitting the Party, and had the unshirkable responsibility for the shaping up and development of the turmoil.
The turmoil was premeditated and prepared for a long time. Some political forces in the West have always attempted to make the socialist countries, including China, give up the socialist road, eventually bring these countries under the rule of international monopoly capital and put them on the course of capitalism as their long term, fundamental strategy. Their political message was that “Beijing is using Hong Kong mass media to topple Deng and protect Zhao.” One clamored for “removing the obstacle of super old man’s politics and giving Zhao Ziyang enough power.” Another appealed to Zhao to be an “autocrat.”
Economics Weekly attacked “the improvement of the economic environment and the straightening out of economic order,” saying they would lead to “stagnation” and that “non-procedural change of power as in the ‘cultural revolution’ will no longer be allowed in China.” The essence of the dialogue was to whip up public opinion for covering up Zhao Ziyang’s mistakes, keeping his position and power and pushing on bourgeois liberalization even more after Comrade Zhao Ziyang’s meeting with an American “ultra-liberal economist” last September 19.
Fang Lizhi, Chert Jun made a speech at the Friendship Hotel on “democracy” and “human rights,” and Fang expressed the hope that entrepreneurs, as China’s new rising force, will join force with the advanced intellectuals in the fight for democracy. Bao Zhunxin, Ge Yang and 38 others wrote a letter to the CPC, calling for the release of so-called “political prisoners.”
A vast number of posters attacking the Party and socialism then came out on Beijing university campuses. On March 1, “Denunciation of Deng Xiaoping–a letter to the nation” was put up at Tsinghua University and Beijing University simultaneously saying, “the politics of the Communist Party consists of empty talk, coercive power, autocratic rule and arbitrary decision,” and openly demanded “dismantling parties and abandoning the four cardinal principles (adherence to the socialist road, to the people’s democratic dictatorship, to the leadership by the Communist Party and to Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought).”
Some people took advantage of this to oppose the leadership of the Communist Party and the socialist system under the pretext of “mourning.” Some posters abused the Party as “a party of conspirators” and “an organization on the verge of collapse”; some attacked the older generation of revolutionaries as “decaying men administering affairs of the state” and “autocrats with a concentration of power”.
Some attacked by name the Chinese leaders one by one, saying that “the
man who should not die has passed away while those who should die remain alive;”
some called for “dissolving the incompetent government and overthrowing autocratic monarchy;”
some demanded the “abolishment of the Chinese Communist Party and adoption of the multi-party system” and “dissolving of party branches and removal of political workers in the mass organizations, armed forces, schools and other units;”
some called for “the death knell of public ownership at an early date and issued a “declaration on private ownership”.
some invited the Kuomintang back to the mainland and establish two-party politics,” etc.
Many posters used disgusting language to slander Comrade Deng Xiaoping, clamoring “down with Deng Xiaoping!”
Conflict between bourgeois liberalization and the Four Cardinal Principles1 was evident from the beginning. The “nine demands” first raised through Wang Dan, leader of an illegal student organization, in Tiananmen Square or the “seven demands” and “ten demands” raised later, there were two principal demands: one was to reappraise Comrade Hu Yaobang’s merits and demerits; the other was to completely negate the fight against bourgeois liberalization and rehabilitate the so-called “wronged citizens” in the fight.
Meanwhile, “democratic salon,” “freedom forum” and various kinds of “seminars, “conferences” and “lectures” mushroomed in Beijing’s institutions of higher learning and invited Ren Wanding, head of the defunct illegal “Human Rights League,” to spread a lot of fallacies about the so-called “new-authoritarianism and democratic politics.”
They held a seminar openly crying to “abolish the one-party system, force the Communist Party to step down and topple the present regime.” All this prepared, in term of ideology and organization, for the turmoil that ensued.
Organizers exploited student unrest from the very beginning. Comrade Hu Yaobang’s death on April 15 prompted an early outbreak of the long-brewing student unrest and turmoil. They staged large-scale demonstrations day after day in disregard of the 10-article regulations on demonstrations issued by the Standing Committee of the Beijing Municipal People’s Congress.
They assaulted Xinhuamen, headquarters of the Party Central Committee and the State Council late on the night of April 18 and 19, and shouted “down with the Communist Party,” something which never occurred even during the “cultural revolution;”
They violated the regulations for the management of Tiananmen Square and occupied the square by force several times, one consequence of which was that the memorial meeting for Comrade Hu Yaobang was almost interrupted on April 22;
They formed an illegal organization, “solidarity student union” (later changed into “federation of autonomous student unions in universities and colleges”), and “seized power” from the lawful student unions and postgraduate unions formed through democratic election, ignoring the relevant regulations of the Beijing Municipality and without registration; they took by force school offices and broadcasting stations and did as they wished, creating anarchy on the campuses.
Another important tool of turmoil organizers and plotters was fabricating rumors to confuse and agitate people:
They spread the rumor that Li Peng scolded Hu Yaobang at a Political Bureau meeting and Hu died of anger.” Comrade Hu Yaobang suffered a sudden heart attack. Hu was given emergency treatment right in the meeting room and was rushed to a hospital when his conditions allowed. There was definitely no such thing as Hu flew into a rage.
They spread the rumor that “a car of the Communist Party’s armed police knocked a student down and killed a foreign language student of Beijing Teachers’ University. (She was run down by a trolley-bus after attending a party on the night of April 19 and died despite treatment). This stirred up the emotions of some students who did not know the truth.
They concocted the rumor of “April 20 bloody incident,” alleging that “the police beat people at Xinhua, not only students, but also workers, women and children,” and that “more than 1,000 scientists and technicians fell in blood” – after policemen whisked away students who had blocked and assaulted Xinhuamen, and sent them back to Beijing University by bus.
They perpetrated a fraud with “An open letter” from New York to Chinese university students, urging them to “effect a. breakthrough by thoroughly negating the 1987 movement against liberalization, ..strengthen contacts with the mass media..increase contacts with various circles in society.. and enlist their support and participation in the movement.”
Chinese intellectuals residing abroad who stand for instituting the Western capitalist system in China invited Fang Lizhi to take the lead, and cabled from Columbia University a “Declaration on promoting democratic politics on the Chinese mainland,” asserting that “the people must have the right to choose the ruling party” in a bid to incite people to overthrow the Communist Party.
From the US, ‘Hong Yan’ faxed “Ten opinions on revising the Constitution,” suggesting that deputies to the national and local people’s congresses as well as judges in all courts should be elected from among candidates without party affiliation,” in an attempt to keep the Communist Party completely out of the state organs of power and judicial organs.
China Spring Journal editors in the USA hastily founded a China Democratic Party and sent a “Letter addressed to the entire nation” to universities in Beijing, inciting students to “demand that the conservative bureaucrats step down” and “urge the Chinese Communist Party to end its autocratic rule.”
Political forces in Hong Kong, Taiwan, the United States and other Western countries were also involved in the turmoil through various channels and by different means. Western news agencies showed unusual zeal.
For ten hours a day, the Voice of America spread rumors, stirring up trouble and adding fuel to the turmoil. Facts listed above show that we were confronted not with student unrest in its normal sense but with a planned, organized and premeditated political turmoil designed to negate the Communist Party leadership and the socialist system.
Attack Li Peng
First they started the rumor that “Premier Li Peng promised to come out at 12:45 and receive students in the square.” Then they let three students kneel on the steps outside the east gate of the Great Hall of the People for handing in a “petition.” After a while they said, “Li Peng w e n t back on his word and refused to receive us. He has deceived the students.” This assertion fanned strong indignation among the tens of thousands of students in Tiananmen Square and almost led to a serious incident of assaulting the Great Hall of the People.
Rumor mongering greatly sharpened students’ antagonism towards the government. Using this antagonism, a very small number of people put up the slogan: “The government pays no heed to our peaceful petition. Let’s make the matter known across the country and call for nationwide class boycott.” This led to the serious situation in which 60,000 university students boycotted class in Beijing and many students in other parts of China followed suit.
People made speeches at middle schools, factories, shops and villages under the slogan, “Oppose the Chinese Communist Party” and “Unite with the workers and peasants, down with the despotic rule”.
Organizers pushed the slogan “Go to the south, the north, the east and the west” and began beating, smashing, looting and burning in Changsha and Xi’an.
Forces outside the Chinese mainland, like Hu Ping, Chen Jun and Liu Xiaobo, groomed by the Kuomintang, employed base political means to incite students and others who did not know the truth.
Comrade Deng Xiaoping pointed out that this was not a case of ordinary student unrest, but a political turmoil aimed at negating the leadership of the Communist Party and the socialist system.
Excerpted from Report on Checking the Turmoil and Quelling the Counter-Revolutionary Rebellion by Chen Xitong. Beijing Review, July 17-23, 1989.
The principle of upholding the socialist path
The principle of upholding the people’s democratic dictatorship
The principle of upholding the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
The principle of upholding Mao Zedong Thought and Marxism–Leninism
