Despair and Death In a Beijing Square

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The rumor-heavy press in Hong Kong suggested an altogether different scheme. Newspapers claimed that the ultimate target of the Gang of Elders was not Zhao but Deng; the elders, it was said, intended to force Deng out of his role and replace him with the more conservative and orthodox President Yang. Beijing analysts discounted the theory as overly sensational. In fact, Deng is the most hard-line enemy of the students. Only the party turmoil may have delayed him from lining up support for his position. The massive sweep through Tiananmen could not have been facilitated without the cooperation of the various military factions that owe fealty to such veterans of the revolutionary war as Yang, Li and Peng Zhen.

Many suspect that Yang is the true champion of the military push into Tiananmen. While Deng heads the shadowy but omnipotent Central Military Commission, the President has placed relatives in key positions in the military hierarchy; one of the units involved in the Tiananmen massacre was under the personal command of his brother Yang Baibing. If Deng, through loss of face or life, ceased to rule China, Yang Shangkun might attempt to maneuver himself into the leadership of the Central Military Commission and replace Deng as China's most eminent leader.

In the days before the attack, the government began to show its desperation. It organized antiliberal rallies that became unwitting parodies of the strident Red Guard style of the '60s. The authorities tried to rein in the press. Foreign correspondents were warned to stop covering student activities, but few reporters took heed. Chinese television ceased live coverage from Tiananmen Square and began carrying statements from leaders expressing support for martial law. "Nobody takes the news broadcasts seriously these days," said an office secretary. "They are all a sham."

Meanwhile, students holding out on the square knew that their numbers were dwindling and that their protest was turning into a minor sidelight to a power struggle. A few days ago, in a flash of their earlier exuberance, they erected a "Goddess of Democracy" at the northern end of the square. The 30-ft.-high sculpture, fashioned from plaster-covered Styrofoam and bearing a marked resemblance to the Statue of Liberty, drew contemptuous comments from the government -- and admiration from thousands of onlookers.

The bloody assault by Deng's armed troops ended all that, and also the Goddess of Democracy, which was crushed by a tank once the troops gained control of the square. Even so, the events of the past seven weeks immunized vast numbers of people against the traditional propaganda bromides and convinced them that the government was not invulnerable: it was only an agency of brutal power. If the student campaign failed, it at least succeeded in forging a historic new link between China's intellectual community and its masses. As an observer said earlier in the week, "It will be impossible to turn back the clock."