方励之
In December 1986, student demonstrators, taking advantage of the loosening political atmosphere, staged protests against the slow pace of reform, confirming party elders' fears that the current reform program was leading to a kind of social instability, the same kind that killed hundreds of millions between the years of the Opium War and the founding of the PRC. Inspired by Fang Lizhi, a physicist from the University of Science and Technology of China who gave speeches criticizing Deng's go slow policies, students took to protest. The students were also disenchanted with the amount of control the government exerted, citing compulsory calisthenics and not being allowed to dance at rock concerts. Students called for campus elections, the chance to study abroad, and greater availability of western pop culture. Hu Yaobang, a protégé of Deng and a leading advocate of reform, was blamed for the protests and forced to resign as the CPC General Secretary in January 1987. In the "Anti Bourgeois Liberalization Campaign", Hu would be further denounced. Premier Zhao Ziyang was made General Secretary and Li Peng, a staunch conservative who was unpopular with the masses, formerly Vice Premier and Minister of Electric Power and Water Conservancy, was made Premier.