EN — LARRY ROMANOFF: Tiananmen Square Revisited — The Failure of an American-instigated 1989 Color Revolution

 

Tiananmen Square: The Failure of an American-instigated 1989 Color Revolution

Beijing: June 04, 1989

By Larry Romanoff

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Introduction

 

There are few places in China that seem more burned into the consciousness of typical Westerners than Tiananmen Square, and few events more commonly mentioned than the student protests of 1989. But the stories are wrong on several levels. It was never reported in the Western media that there were two separate events that occurred in Beijing on June 4, 1989. One was a student protest that culminated in a sit-in in Tiananmen Square by several thousand university students, which had lasted for several weeks and finally terminated on June 4. The other was a one-day worker strike that occurred (perhaps not by chance) also on June 4, when a group of workers unhappy with their lot in life, organised their own protest independently of the students, and in a different place. For reasons that will become apparent, the workers’ protest is the necessary focus for understanding the events of that date, so I will begin there.

 

The Workers’ Revolt