For seven weeks it had seemed like China was on the brink of a massive social change, but in just one night the dreams of hundreds of thousands of protesting students and workers were brutally crushed.
For about a decade, China’s economy had been steadily opening up and allowing small amounts of free enterprise in the Communist country, after years of strict state control under chairman Mao Zedong.
Directing the change was then-Paramount Leader Deng Xiaoping, who wanted to see China grow prosperous by embracing some pro-market liberalization.
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But when large-scale protests in Beijing called for greater social freedoms, such as freedom of speech and even democracy, Deng would prove far less enthusiastic.
The protests first began in April, triggered by the death of former Chinese Communist Party leader Hu Yaobang at the age of 73. Seen by the public as a champion for liberalization, Hu had been deposed two years earlier and his death on April 15 was widely mourned.
Three days later, thousands of grieving students marched through Beijing, calling for a more democratic government in Hu’s honor.
Source: Tiananmen Square massacre: How Beijing turned on its own people
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