From: zzuo@iastate.edu (Zhiqi Zuo)
Subject: Re: What made 6.4 a real tragedy?
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 22:28:04 GMT

In article <9204161956.AA18732@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> I990002@UNIVSCVM.CSD.SCAROLINA.EDU (Bao Tong) writes:
>This e-mail is posted originally on china-net.
>
>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>
>It is hot again on this net. ;-)
>
>What made 6.4 a tragedy? I guess the following points may be the part of the
>reasons:                                                         ====
>
>1) Most of the participants, i.e. young students, had only vagur ideas about
>what could be gained from the demonstration. Dialogue? Step-down?
>
>2) D-organizers were more often than not misleading. For instance, Occupying
>TAM Square was a big mistake. Among the military high officers, many of
>them showed hesitation to act, but the weeks-long occupation of TAM Square
>gave those pro-crackdowners a very good excuse to initiate the "TAM Operation"
>to resume the order.
>
>3) The D-campaign lacked the support from workers and other ordinary people.
>The initial support from ordinary people was motivated by the inflation and
>many scandals of corrupted officials. But they didn't desire of the radical
>changes of the system. Instead, they wanted to have a stable price and stable
>society. Their interests were quite different from the D-organizers. How to
>convince ordinary people that democracy will bring wealth and happiness
>rather than unstability was, is, and will be the biggest challenge to the
>D-fighters, especially after the collapse of USSR and its little brothers.
>After a number of movements in the past decades, Chinese people have been
>bored of any movement. It should not be surprising that they are now so
>down-to-the-earth and believe nothing but money.
>
>   Another thing which made 6.4 a real tragedy is the "Big Escaping".
>When the people heard that most of the D-fighters escaped to US or hided
>in US Embassy, how will you expect them to respond? I did not take a poll
>so I can't make a conclusion. But the responses of those I know were
>complicated. On one hand, they were glad that the authority wouldn't be
>able to posecute them. On the other hand, they felt disgusting. Why in hell
>should they flee their country like rabbits? Would CCP kill them? People
>naturally would compare them with Mandela, Warlesa, and Aquino (spell right?).
>If those D-fighters were really commited to their noble cause, they should
>have the willingness to suffer. And only through such personal suffering
>will people be aroused and encouraged to fight for democracy. I still
>remember right before the first anniversary of 6.4, we got some letters from
>US, urging us to take some action to protest the evil CCP. We trash them
>immediately without second thought. Suppose you are in such a situation:
>you are going to graduate and desire to study abroad, but the road is
>blocked by the new regulation demanding you to serve the country 5 years, and
>moreover, you have to go to grass-root unit and stay for one year; at the
>same time, from VOA, you learned that the lucky folks abroad who kept urging
>you to act have got Bush's special offer, how will you respond to the
>campaign? How will you think about the D-fighters? Those who stayed suffered
>while those who fled benefited from the D-movement. Is it ridiculous?
>The result of this is that people became numb and suspective to any D-campaign.
>They simply don't trust any political stuff.
>
>   Of course, 6.4 also showed how harshly a communist government may crack
>down any anti-government movement. CCP lost almost all of its credits.
>People won't trust it as before. But even CCP knew it's urgent
>to get rehabilitation from the loss and tried hard by speeding up
>economic development. Surprisingly, the D-fighters here in US are still
>confining themselves in their elite world and seeking dirts from endless
>power struggles. They still stick to such a slogan: poor democracy is better

So they made some trouble for the government , thus the economic difficulties
were shifted to the public . I dislike using people's economic benifit to
gamble .

>than wealthy communism. With such a principle, I have doubt if they can do
>anything better than CCP did.
>
>   Where is the hope of China? Only those who are still in China, I believe.

 You are summerising what in many chinese students's mind . I agree with you
on almost all the points . I think this is -------- 
 The best article so far on this topic !