The Pro-Democracy Movement of the 1980's

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The Pro-Democracy Movement of the 1980's

Communism took over China soon after the second world war. Mao Zedong,

the leader of the communist party who came from the country, remained

paramount until his death on the 9th of September 1976. During his

rule, he modified Marxist-Lenonism to suit China's population of

peasants, and went through many "leaps" to try and revolutionise

China's economy as he had done with the political system. But in the

end, Millions of Chinese men, women and children died. When Mao

himself died after a life of stubborness and an apparent inability to

listen, Deng Xiaoping came into power even thought being exiled twice

before.

Deng Xiaoping, after seeing the errors of Mao's long rule, began to

introduce political and economic reforms to China. Politically, he

wanted to deal with leadership change, the constitution, dealing with

dissidents, more power for the state rather than local, changes of

area's and branches, and perhaps even village democracy. Economically,

Deng's reforms included going from stateplan to market mechanism's,

state intervention in science and technology, creating taxation,

labour market change and the four modernisations. The four

modernisations included changes in agriculture, industry, military and

science and technology. But even during this, Deng wanted to uphold

"Four Basic Principles" which were upholding the socialist road,

upholding the dictatorship of the proletariat, upholding the

leadership of the Communist Party and upholding the

Marxist-Leninist-Mao Zedong thought.

Despite the rapid changes that were occuring to China, the people of

China wanted more, the student'...

... middle of paper ...

... Deng that the spear was

pointed at him to take action.

With the government's stubborness, and the student's refusal to back

down, the pro-democracy movement never really had a chance in

suceeding. If the government had been more accepting and listened,

this could have been averted. But the Chinese power systems never

really listened to what the people wanted so this was not going to

happen. If all the students chose to understand the momentum they had

gained and decided to back down after the martial law order then the

death could have been averted. But the students were hyped by the

words of "radical" leaders such as Wuer Kaixi and Chai Ling, and would

not back down the government they had rebelled against for so long.

This resulted in the Tianenman Massacre, and the fall of the

pro-democracy movement in China.

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