The Operation was professionally planned and executed
Operation Tiananmen.. Part One, Part Two, Part Four.
Official Report on Checking the Turmoil and Quelling the Counter-Revolutionary Rebellion – by Chen Xitong
From mid-April to early June of 1989, a tiny handful of people exploited student unrest to launch a planned, organized and premeditated political turmoil, which later developed into a counter-revolutionary rebellion in Beijing, the capital. Their purpose was to overthrow the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and subvert the socialist People’s Republic of China. The outbreak and development of the turmoil and the counter-revolutionary rebellion had a profound international background and social basis at home.
As Comrade Deng Xiaoping put it, “This storm was bound to happen sooner or later. As determined by the international and domestic climate, it was bound to happen and was independent of man’s will.” 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. In face of this very severe situation, the Party Central Committee made correct decisions and took a series of resolute measures, winning the firm support of the whole Party and people of all nationalities in the country.
Proletarian revolutionaries of the older generation played a very important role in winning the struggle. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army, the armed police and the police made great contributions in checking the turmoil and quelling the counterrevolutionary rebellion. The vast numbers of workers, peasants and intellectuals firmly opposed the turmoil and the rebellion, rallied closely around the Party Central Committee and displayed a very high political consciousness and the sense of responsibility as masters of the country. Now, entrusted by the State Council, I am making a report to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress on the turmoil and the counter-revolutionary rebellion, mainly the happenings in Beijing, and the work of checking the turmoil and quelling the counterrevolutionary rebellion.
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. This is their long term, fundamental strategy. In recent years, journals said to have close ties with Zhao Ziyang’s “brain trust,” gave enormous publicity to this and spread the political message 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.”
Hong Kong’s Emancipation Monthly’s lengthy article said that some people in Beijing had “overt or covert” relations with certain persons in Hong Kong media circles, which “are sometimes dim and sometimes bright, just like a will-o’-the-wisp,” and that such subtle relations now “have been newly proved by a drive of toppling Deng and protecting Zhao launched in the recent month.‘” The article also said that “in terms of the hope of China turning capitalist, they settle on Zhao Ziyang.” To coordinate with the drive to “topple Deng and protect Zhao,” Beijing’s Economics Weekly published a dialogue on the current situation between Yan Jiaqi (research fellow at the Institute of Political Science under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences) who had close ties with Zhao Ziyang’s former secretary Bao Tong, and another person. It attacked “the improvement of the economic environment and the straightening out of economic order,” saying that would lead to “stagnation.” It also said that a big problem China was facing was “not to follow the old disastrous road of non-procedural change of power as in the case of Khrushchov and Liu Shaoqi.” It said 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 unbridledly. This dialogue was reprinted in full or parts in Shanghai’s Worm Economic Herald, Hong Kong’s Mirror monthly and other newspapers and magazines at home and abroad. Collaboration between forces at home and abroad intensified towards the end of last year and early this year. Political assemblies, joint petitions, big- and small-character posters and other activities emerged, expressing fully erroneous or even reactionary viewpoints. For instance, a big seminar “Future China and the world” was sponsored by the “Beijing University they stepped up the implementation of this strategy by making use of some policy mistakes and temporary economic difficulties in socialist countries. In our country, there was a tiny handful of people both inside and outside the Party who stubbornly clung to their position of bourgeois liberalization and went in for political conspiracy. Echoing the strategy of Western countries, they colluded with foreign forces, ganged up themselves at home and made ideological, public opinion and organizational preparations for years to stir up turmoils in China, overthrow the leadership by the Communist Party and subvert the socialist People’s Republic. That is why the entire course of brewing, premeditating and launching the turmoil, including the use of varied means such as creating public opinion, distorting facts and spreading rumours, bore the salient feature of mutual support and coordination between a handful of people at home and abroad.
Of course, the people and students raised many critical opinions against some mistakes committed by the Party and the government in their work, corruption among some government employees, unfair distribution and other social problems. At the same time, they made quite a few demands and proposals for promoting democracy, strengthening the legal system, deepening the reform and overcoming bureaucracy. These were normal phenomena. And the Party and government were also taking measures to solve them. At that time, however, there was indeed a tiny bunch of people in the Party and society who ganged up together and engaged in many very improper activities overtly and covertly. What deserves special attention is that, after Comrade Zhao Ziyang’s meeting with an American “ultra-liberal economist” on September 19 last year, some Hong Kong newspapers and journals of “The Future Studies Society” on December 7 last year. Jin Guantao, deputy chief editor of the Towards the Future book series and advisor to the society, said in his speech “attempts at socialism and their failure constitute one of the two major legacies of the 20th century.” Ge Yang, chief editor of the fortnightly New Observer, immediately stood up to “provide evidence,” in the name of “the eldest” among the participants and a Party member of dozens of years’ standing, saying “Jin’s negation of socialism is not harsh enough, but a bit too polite.” On January 28 this year, Su Shaozhi (research fellow at the Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences), Fang Lizhi and the like organized a so-called “neo-enlightenment salon” at the “Duke Bookstore” in Beijing, which was attended by more than 100 people, among them Beijing-based American, French and Italian correspondents as well as Chinese. Fang described this gathering as “smelling of strong gunpowder” and “taking a completely critical attitude to the authorities.” He also said “what we need now is action” and professed to “take to the street after holding three sessions in a row.
In early February, Fang Lizhi, Chert Jun (member of the reactionary organization Chinese Alliance for Democracy) and others sponsored a so-called “winter jasmine get-together of famed personalities” at the Friendship Hotel, where Fang made a speech primarily on the two major issues of “democracy” and “human rights,” and Chen drew a parallel between the May 4th Movement and the “democracy wall at Xidan.” Fang expressed the “hope that entrepreneurs, as China’s new rising force, will join force with the advanced intellectuals in the fight for democracy.”
On February 16, Chen Jun handed out Fang Lizhi’s letter addressed to Deng Xiaoping and another letter from Chen himself calling for amnesty and the release of Wei Jingsheng and other so-called “political prisoners” who had gravely violated the criminal law. On February 23, the Taiwan United Dally News carried an article headlined “Beginning of a major movement – – a mega-shock.” It said, “A declaration was issued in New York, and open letters surfaced in Beijing; as the thunder of spring rumbles across the Divine Land (China), waves for democracy are rising.” On February 26, Zhang Xianyang (research fellow at the Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences), Li Honglin (research fellow at the Fujian Academy of Social Sciences), Bao Zhunxin (associate research fellow at the Institute of Chinese History under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences), Ge Yang and 38 others, jointly wrote a letter to the CPC Central Committee, calling for the release of so-called “political prisoners.”
Afterwards, a vast number of big- and small-character posters and assemblies came out on the campuses of some universities in Beijing, attacking the Communist Party and the socialist system. On March 1, for example, a big-character poster entitled “Denunciation of Deng Xiaoping a letter to the nation” was put up at Tsinghua University and Beijing University simultaneously. The poster uttered such nonsense as “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 MarxismLeninism and Mao Zedong Thought).” A small character poster entitled “Deplore the Chinese” turned up in Beijing University on March 2, demanding “to overthrow “totalitarianism” and “autocracy.”
On March 3, there appeared in Qinghua University and other universities “and colleges a “Letter to the mass of students” signed by the “Preparatory Committee of the China Democratic Youth Patriotic Association,” urging students to join in the “turbulent current for ‘democracy, freedom and human rights‘ under the leadership of the patriotic democratic fighter, Fang Lizhi.” On the campuses of Beijing University and other schools of higher learning on March 29, there was an extensive posting of Fang’s article “China’s disappointment and hope” written for the Hong Kong Ming Pap Daily News. In the article, Fang claimed that socialism had “completely lost its attraction” and there was the need to form political “pressure groups” to carry out “reforms for political democracy and economic freedom.” But what he termed as “reform” actually is a synonym of total Westernization. The big-character poster, “Call of the times” that came out in Beijing University on April 6, questioned in a way of complete negation “whether there is any rationale now for socialism to exist” and “whether Marxism-Leninism fits the realities of China after all.”
A small number of people took advantage of this to oppose the leadership of the Communist Party and the socialist system under the pretext of “mourning.” Student unrest was manipulated and exploited by the small handful of people from the very beginning and bore the nature of political turmoil. This turmoil found expression first in the wanton attack and slanders against the Party and the government and the open call to overthrow the leadership of the Communist Party and subvert the present government as contained in the large quantity of big- and small-character posters, slogans, leaflets and elegiac couplets. Some of the posters on the campuses of Beijing University, Qinghua University and other schools abused the Communist 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 issued a “declaration on private ownership,” calling on people to “sound the death knell of public ownership at an early date and greet a new future for the Republic;” some went so far as to “invite the Kuomintang back to the mainland and establish two-party politics,” etc. Many big- and small-character posters used disgusting language to slander Comrade Deng Xiaoping, clamoring “down with Deng Xiaoping!”
This turmoil, from the very beginning, was manifested by a sharp conflict between bourgeois liberalization and the Four Cardinal Principles1. Of the programmatic slogans raised by the organizers of the turmoil at the time, either 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. The essence of Post and Telecommunications and some other schools received a “Message to the nation’s college students” signed by the Guangxi University Students’ Union, which called on students to “hold high the portrait of Hu Yaobang and the great banner of ‘democracy, freedom, dignity and rule by law’ ” in celebration of the May 4th Youth Day.
Meanwhile, so-called “democratic salon,” “freedom forum” and various kinds of “seminars, …. conferences” and “lectures” mushroomed in Beijing’s institutions of higher learning. The “democratic saloon” presided over by Wang Dan, a Beijing University student, sponsored 17 lectures in one year, indicative of its frequent activities. They invited Ren Wanding, head of the defunct illegal “Human Rights League,” over to spread a lot of fallacies about the so-called “new-authoritarianism and democratic politics.”
At one point they held a seminar in front of the Statue of Cervantes, openly crying to “abolish the one-party system, force the Communist Party to step down and topple the present regime.” They also invited Li Shuxian, the wife of Fang Lizhi, to be their “advisor.” Li fanned the flames by urging them to “legalize the democratic saloon,” “hold meetings here frequently,” and “abolish the Beijing Municipality’s ten-article regulations on demonstrations.” All this prepared, in term of ideology and organization, for the turmoil that ensued.
A Ming Pao Daily News article commented: “The contact-building and petition-signing activities for human rights initiated by the elite of Chinese intellectuals exerted enormous influence on students. They had long ago planned a large-scale move on the 70th anniversary of the May 4th Movement to express their dissatisfaction with the authorities. The sudden death of Hu Yaobang literally threw a match into a barrel of gun-powder.” In short, as a result of the premeditation, organization and engineering by a small handful of people, a political situation already emerged in which “the rising wind forebodes a coming storm.”
Student unrest was exploited by organizers of the turmoil from the very beginning. Comrade Hu Yaobang’s death on April 15 prompted an early outbreak of the long-brewing student unrest and turmoil. The broad masses and students mourned Comrade Hu Yaobang and expressed their profound grief. Universities and colleges provided facilities for mourning the two demands were to gain absolute freedom in China to oppose the Four Cardinal Principles and realize capitalism. Echoing these demands, some so-called “elitists” in academic circles, that is, the very small number of people stubbornly clinging to their position of bourgeois liberalization, organized a variety of forums during the period and indulged in unbridled propaganda through the press. Most outstanding among the activities was a forum sponsored by the World Economic Herald and the New Observer in Beijing on April 19. The forum was chaired by Ge Yang and its participants i.r/eluded Yan Jiaqi, Su Shaozhi, Chen Ziming (director of the Beijing Institute of Socioeconomic Science), and Liu Ruishao (head of Hong Kong Wen Hui Po Beijing office). Their main topics: “rehabilitate” Hu Yaobang ans “reverse” the verdict on the fight against liberalization”. They expressed unequivocal support for the student demonstrations, saying that they saw from there “China’s future and hope.” Later, when the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee made the correct decision on straightening things out in the World Economic Herald; Comrade Zhao Ziyang who consistently winked at bourgeois liberalization, refrained from backing the decision. Instead, he criticized the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee for “making a mess of it” and “landing itself in a passive position.”
This turmoil also found expression in the fact that, instigated and engineered by the small handful of people, many acts were crude violations of the Constitution, laws and regulations of the People’s Republic of China and gravely running counter to democracy and the legal system. They put up big-character posters en masse on the campuses in disregard of the fact that the provision in the constitution on “four big freedoms” (speaking out freely, airing views fully, holding great debates and writing big-character posters) had been abrogated and turning a deaf ear to all persuasion; 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; late on the night of April 18 and 19, they assaulted Xinhuamen, headquarters of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, 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; ignoring the relevant regulations of the Beijing Municipality and without registration, 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; disregarding law and school discipline, they took by force school offices and broadcasting stations and did things as they wished, creating anarchy on the campuses.
Another important tool of turmoil organizers and plotters used was to fabricate a spate of rumors to confuse people’s minds and agitate the masses. At the beginning of the student unrest, they spread the rumor that Li Peng scolded Hu Yaobang at a Political Bureau meeting and Hu died of anger.” The rumor was meant to spearhead the attack on Comrade Li Peng. In fact, the meeting focused on the question of education. When Comrade Li Tieying, member of the Political Bureau, State Councillor and Minister in charge of the State Education Commission, was making an explanation of a relevant document, 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.
On the night of April 19, a foreign language student of Beijing Teachers’ University was run down by a trolley-bus on her way back to school after attending a party. She died despite treatment. Some people spread the rumor that “a car of the Communist Party’s armed police knocked a student down and killed her,” which stirred up the emotions of some students who did not know the truth. In the small hours of April 20, policemen whisked away those students who had blocked and assaulted Xinhuamen, and sent them back to Beijing University by bus. Some people 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.” This further agitated some people.
On April 22, when Li Peng and other leading comrades left the Great Hall of the People at the end of the memorial meeting for Comrade Hu Yaobang, some people perpetrated a fraud with “An open letter” from New York to Chinese university students, urging them to “consolidate the organizational links established in the student unrest and strive to carry out activities effectively in the form of a strong mass body.” The letter told the students 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.” Wang Bingzhang and Tang Guangzhong, two leaders of the Chinese Alliance for Democracy, made a hasty flight from New York to Tokyo in an attempt to get to Beijing and have a direct hand in the turmoil. A number of 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.
Someone in the US, using the name of “Hong Yan”, sent in by fax “ten pieces of opinion s. 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.
Some members of the former China Spring journal residing in the United States hastily founded a China Democratic Party. They sent a “Letter addressed to the entire nation” to some universities in Beijing, inciting students to “demand that the conservative bureaucrats step down” and “urge the Chinese Communist Party to end its autocratic rule.” Reactionary 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.
The Voice of America, in particular, aired news in three programmes beamed to the Chinese mainland for a total of more than ten hours everyday, spreading turnouts, 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.
The next objective was working out an excuse for attacking Comrade Li Peng. First they started the rumor that “Premier Li Peng promised to come out at 12:45 and rec6ive 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. The student unrest escalated and the turmoil expanded. This turmoil was marked by another characteristic, that is, it was no longer confined to institutions of higher learning or Beijing area; it spread to the ‘whole of society and to all parts of China.
After the memorial meeting for Comrade Hu Yaobang, a number of people went to contact middle schools, factories, shops and villages, made speeches in the streets, handed out leaflets, put up slogans and raised money, doing everything possible to make the situation worse. The slogan “Oppose the Chinese Communist Party” and the big-character poster “Long live class boycott and exam boycott” appeared in some middle schools. Leaflets “Unite with the workers and peasants, down with the despotic rule” were put up in some factories.
Organizers and plotters of the turmoil advanced the slogan ” Go to the south, the north, the east and the west” in a bid to establish ties throughout the country. Students from Beijing were seen in universities and colleges i n Nanjing, Wuhan, Xian, Changsha, Shanghai and Harbin, while students from Tianjin, Hebei, Anhui and Zhejiang took part in demonstrations in Beijing. Criminal activities of beating, smashing, looting and burning took place in Changsha and Xi’an. Political forces outside the Chinese mainland and in foreign countries had a hand in the turmoil from the very beginning. Hu Ping, Chen Jun and Liu Xiaobo, members of the Chinese Alliance for Democracy which is a reactionary. organization groomed by the Kuomintang, wrote It had clear-cut political ends and deviated from the orbit of democracy and legality, employing base political means to incite large numbers of students and other people who did. not know the truth. If we failed to analyze and see the problem in essence, we would have committed grave mistakes and landed ourselves in an extremely passive position in the struggle.
The following morning, Comrade Deng 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. The People’s Daily’s editorial on April 26 pointed out the nature of the turmoil. At the same time, it made a clear distinction between the tiny handful of people who organized and plotted the turmoil and the vast number of students. The editorial made the overwhelming majority of the cadres feel reassured. It clarified the orientation of their activities, thus enabling them to carry out their work with a clear-cut stand.
After the editorial of the People’s Daily was published, the Beijing Municipal Party Committee and people’s government, under the direct leadership of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee and the State Council, convened in quick succession a variety of meetings inside and outside the Party to uphold the principle and unify their understanding, then proceeded to clear up rumors and reassure the public by any means, render support to the leadership, Party and Youth League members and student activists in educational institutions, encourage them to work boldly, and persuade those students who took part in demonstrations to change their course of actions, and actively conduct a variety of dialogues to win over the masses. The dialogues, whether conducted by the state Council spokesman Yuan Mu and other comrades with the students or by leaders of relevant central departments with the students and principal leaders of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee and people’s government with the students, all achieved good results. Meanwhile, earnest work was being carried out in the factories, villages, shops, primary and secondary schools and neighborhoods to stabilize the overall situation and prevent the turmoil from spreading to other sectors of society.
Upholding the socialist path
Upholding the people’s democratic dictatorship
Upholding the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
Upholding Mao Zedong Thought and Marxism–Leninism
