1989 Tiananmen square massacre: twenty years ago this June, china's rulers sent the army to break up student protests calling for democracy hundreds, perhaps thousands, were killed in the crackdown.

• Author: Perlman, Merrill
• Position: TIMES PAST

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On May 29, 1989, a 27-foot-tall foam-and-paper-mache statue resembling the Statue of Liberty appeared in Tiananmen Square, the 100-acre heart of Beijing. Thousands of college students had occupied the square for more than a month in defiance of China's Communist government, and the towering figure they named the Goddess of Democracy and Freedom symbolized their goal of forcing the government to loosen its repressive grip on the lives of China's 1.3 billion people.

But to China's authoritarian rulers, the statue was an insult, perhaps more so because its features were not even Chinese. Within days, they sent in Army tanks to break up the protest in one of the most violent crackdowns in China's history: Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of protesters were killed, and the statue was smashed--along with the hopes of millions of people across China.

The protest began in April 1989, when several thousand students, mourning the death of a Communist leader who favored reform, marched through Beijing chanting democratic slogans. Within a week, more than 100,000 people had converged on Tiananmen Square to demand more openness and political freedom, and protests began springing up in other cities, including Shanghai and Chengdu.

The government quickly outlawed the demonstrations, but to little effect, and many of the students in Tiananmen Square went on a hunger strike to call even greater attention to their cause.

"I don't know exactly what democracy is," a 22-year-old physics student told The New York Times. "But we need more of it."

The protests began at a time when the 40-year Cold War between the United States and its allies and its Communist adversaries--led by the Soviet Union and China--was winding down. Tensions were easing as a result of arms control and trade agreements, increasing diplomatic contacts, and signs of change in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

GORBACHEV'S ROLE

In fact, the Tiananmen Square protests might have petered out had it not been for the visit of Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev to Beijing for a long-planned meeting to reconcile the two squabbling Communist giants. In his four years in power, Gorbachev had initiated major reforms at home known as perestroika (free-market economic reforms) and glasnost (relaxing some curbs on speech).

Gorbachev's visit seemed to spur on ordinary Chinese, and by the middle of May more than a million people were marching: Teachers, doctors, and factory workers joined the students, complaining about political repression and government corruption.

Because the usual Chinese restrictions on foreign journalists had been relaxed to show what was supposed to be the glorious reconciliation with the Soviet Union, the world got to see thousands of protesters praising China's rival.

"In the Soviet Union, they have Gorbachev," one banner read. "In China, we have whom?"

Behind the scenes, there was an intense struggle among the handful of men who controlled China over how to respond to the protests. Though some called for dialogue, hardliners backed by China's senior leader, Deng Xiaoping, prevailed, and martial law was declared in parts of Beijing. But the protests continued, and the Goddess of Democracy, a gift of student artists, arrived in the square on May 29.

When the local police weren't able to stop the protests, the government called in the Army, the first time since the Communists took power in 1949 that it had been mobilized to quell a domestic disturbance. Troops stayed on the outskirts of Beijing until June 2, when they marched into Tiananmen Square, at first unarmed.

Protesters piled vehicles in the streets to block their advance and begged the soldiers not to attack. "Don't use the People's Army against the people," was a typical...