Date: Mon, 23 Sep 96 12:41:38 GMT
Subject: Tiannamen



I saw a program on T.V. last night about Tiannamen.

As usual, watching those events made me cry.
I think the reason they make cry is not that the human
suffering, which we see on our TV screens every day,
but that these people were rediscovering, inch by inch,
the real revolutionary tradition, in circumstances where
doing so put their lives at risk.

What I found particularly interesting was the description
of the agonising choices the leaders of the movement had to
face, and of the arguments and debates these agonising choices
led to.

All the leaders of the movement understood, at least after a 
while, that the army would be used to get them out of the square.
[ I had not realised this : I thought at the time that the leaders
of the movement had been taken by surprise by the use of lethal 
force ]. The question was, what to do about it.

The conservative elements in the student leadership seemed to hope
that sufficient concessions could be extracted from the government
to enable the students to leave the square. The "negotiations" , 
sometimes sanctioned by the student "commanders" [ ie their
 representatives ] sometimes not, were facilitated by groups of
lecturers meeting with representatives from the regime.

The more radical elements understood that if the students
withdrew from the square, it would be seen as a victory for the
hard liners. Therefore the only solution could be the "people
awakening" and getting rid of the regime. The mass democracy in the
square could be used as an arena where this movement could develop
and organise.

The women who led the student movement, the commander in chief, appeared
to be quite hypocritical - but she was just torn in two between the 
radicals and the conservatives. There was a moving interview of her
BEFORE the crackdown, when she was crying because she understood
that she had used her influence to prolong the movement in the 
square, even though she knew that the inevitable outcome was that
the regime would kill many people as a result. She had done so
because she understood, correctly, that so long as the regime
had not got control of Beijing, "the people" were going through a
speedy period of learning, discussion, and organising, without which
they would never be free.


The independent workers union set up shop in one corner of the square.
But as one of its organisers said on the program, a union means nothing
if it does not organise at the workplace. So in effect, the union acted
as a radical element in the democracy movement, more connected with the
workers who were blocking the advance of the troops in the suburbs, and
as a channel for propaganda about what real trade unionism is.

The workers in the union were more active in the fighting in the suburbs 
than the majority of the students. By the time they had been pushed down
the main boulavards into the square, a small group of them at least could
not believe what the student leaders were doing : they were breaking up
rifles captured from the army. "The time for non violence is over. We have
seen our comrades shot. We need to fight back." [ compare with Martin Luther
King vs Black Power ].

A related problem was that the democracy in the square was quite chaotic.
People would become dispirited and leave, new people would arrive from 
the provinces and the suburbs. There were "coups" as various groups tried
to get control of the loud speakers. The need for soviet style organisation,
which would have flowed naturally from a more directly working class movement,
was obvious from the program.

Also, it seemed that, contrary to the impression given by the western media 
at the time, the  more important fighting, including most of the deaths, and
the winning over of the troops when it did happen, happenned in the suburbs.
By the time the tanks reached the square, the students knew they were beaten,
and quite rightly negotiated their way out of the square.

I have met a couple of Chinese people one of whom was in China at the time, the
other whose familly were there. They both drew the conclusion from the defeat 
of the movement that it had gone to far. But, as after 1905 in Russia, we have
to hope that some of the people burrowing away today inside China have
drawn the opposite conclusions.

Finally, I think another reason why it makes me cry every time I watch these
programmes, is that these people are quite literally my generation. There
were pictures of the Chinese news bulletins with the photos and personnal 
details of the most wanted leaders of the movement : they were all born
between 1965 and 1970, like me and my younger brother. I cannot help
thinking how I would stand up under that sort of pressure, in a way 
that I do not when I watch pictures of France in 68, Solidarnosc in
1980-81 or even the township uprisings in South Africa of 1985.


Adam.




Adam Rose
SWP
Manchester
UK


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