Despair and Death In a Beijing Square

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Although the link could prove tenuous, the observer just may be right. And if he is, that bond between two once disparate elements could haunt Deng and his successors for a long time to come. A similar connection between intellectuals and workers gave rise to the Solidarity movement that rocked Poland in the early '80s. China's leaders had been fretting about the similarities between the student movement and the Solidarity campaign. Tellingly, when officials ordered arrests last week, three of the 14 people who were briefly detained were members of a new, unauthorized union.

In the thousands of years spanned by Chinese history, unspeakable atrocities have occurred. Millions have suffered from the machinations of cloistered emperors, empresses and eunuchs; whole cities have been slaughtered by marauding invaders and warlords. Until Sunday, that all seemed safely in the past. No one quite expected it to happen again. The shock will ease with the passage of weeks. The tremors will be felt for years.