 Ac oes oedden nhw, mae'r anferwyr hwn yma, mae'r 30th anferwyr o'r tyanom gweithgwyr sydd. A dyna'r anferwyr ei wneud ei wneud o'r flwyddyn o ddechrau. Yn y tuwro, 95% ddechrau o ddweud o ddweud o'r ffwrdd yn Beidging, ac mae'n ddweud o ddweud o ddweud o ddweud o ddweud o ddweud o ddweud o ddweud o ddweud o ddweud o ddweud. A 1989, China was at a crossroads because for 40 years after the revolution of 1949 the Stalinist methods of running the planned economy that China had after the revolution had really brought the economy to and the whole regime really to an impasse. It's true that the revolution, which is one of the greatest events in human history, did free China from imperialism which had dominated and suffocated China for the past 100 years. And I think that the strength of China today actually still depends upon that event because it freed the state from that kind of dependency and the corruption and everything that it had before 1949. It made a very independent and powerful state, which is the reason why they've had some success recently. So that's true, but nevertheless it was a Stalinist regime from the beginning, modelling itself really on the Soviet Union, which of course already existed and inspired the Chinese Communist Party. And the trouble with running a planned economy when you've abolished capitalism with a bureaucracy and I don't have time to go into the details of exactly how this came about because most of you were talking about Tiananmen Square. But what you need to know is that the running a planned economy bureaucratically and without workers democracy makes the economy incredibly inflexible and prone to economic disasters. A very good example of that is the great leap forward under Mao's leadership, in which basically a lot of quite crazy economic policies were pursued and there was no possibility of criticising and changing these policies. Of course there were no real internal elections, there was no real freedom of speech, there was no workers democracy essentially so workers had to implement the decisions from above. And these policies were sometimes disastrous. And then you also had the cultural revolution from the mid 60s to the mid 70s, which also reflected the problems of a bureaucratic domination of a planned economy because in such a regime, and we see it also with the Soviet Union under Stalin, you have these constant zigzags of policy, you know, sudden lurches from one direction to the next. And that's because there's no possibility of debating and voting on decisions. And so differences within the bureaucracy are kept hidden and have to emerge in an explosive manner and then of course suddenly the bureaucracy realises it needs to change course and denies ever having done the previous policy. And that's kind of what the cultural revolution was like, it was an attempt, it was basically an internal battle between different wings of the Chinese bureaucracy being waged. In a very desperate fashion. And this created a lot of turmoil in society and exhausted people. And so by the time of Mao's death in 1976, which was also when the cultural revolution came to an end, I think Chinese society was exhausted with this experience. I think that the Communist Party enjoyed enormous authority and support at the beginning of the revolution. But I think by this time a lot of that had disappeared and there was a sense that China had gone down a wrong path or something deeply wrong, basically something had to change. Of course it was vague in most people's minds, but there was a sense that something had to change. And in particular in the bureaucracy, the one wing of the bureaucracy that was basically attacked by Mao and the cultural revolution then immediately came to power within two years had come to power. Deng Xiaoping was purged twice in the cultural revolution as a so-called capitalist roda and probably not without reason. He probably was more in favour of some capitalist measures in the economy and he was purged twice. It was very telling that within two years of Mao's death he became the leader of China. That really shows that there was a certain strength of feeling in the bureaucracy that things had gone too far and they needed to make accommodations with the West, get investment from the West and basically open up to capitalism and that's what really what happened. Mao's death I think opened floodgates with regards to capitalism. So at this point there are two options for China. It could go down the route of workers' democracy, of liberating the masses with democratic control of the workplaces which would also serve to boost production and limit or check bad economic policies. And give an incentive to working and participating in running society. But obviously the bureaucracy with its privileges and its power feared any option like that would never take it seriously because it might lead to the ending of the privileges of the bureaucracy. It might lead to the overthrow of the regime or the change in personnel at the top and a reduction in their privileges, a massive reduction in their privileges. So we're never really going to go down that route. So the other option they had was opening up to capitalism, getting investment from the West, advanced technology, allowing the market to basically give an incentive to production in the Chinese economy to increasing production that is. And so basically that's what then did. He began to open up to capitalism, not necessarily with a conscious plan of becoming a fully fledged capitalist economy. It's very hard to know what was the truth in that, but that was the path that they started to go down and it's kind of a slippery slope because there's a certain logic to capitalism. Once you open up, you have to kind of open up more and more and more because if you want to make a success of it, then you've got to lower taxes, make it a healthy, friendly business environment, etc. But the reform that was begun by Deng was quite tentative. In fact, throughout the 80s it was very tentative. It didn't really see any privatisations of state-owned enterprises or layoffs of workers. They actually had a phrase for it, reform without losers. In other words, don't subject the economy to too much of a bracing of capitalism. So basically what they did is it was a bit like their new economic policy in Russia after the revolution where they allowed peasants and local enterprises, especially in rural areas, to flourish. They allowed them to keep their profits. They allowed peasants to sell at market rates rather than handing over at prices set by the government. And so gradually throughout the 80s there was an accumulation of wealth, especially in the countryside there was some growth of some businesses, basically small businesses, quite low value production. But that gradually began to develop and public spending in turn was also cut back. This also went hand in hand with a mild political liberalisation, which isn't really known very much today in the West that that was taking place. And that took several forms. First of all, the Chinese Communist Party began to withdraw from the control of businesses and state-owned enterprises, meaning that how you would determine who would be the manager of a workplace would no longer be who was the leader of the Communist Party in that area, but it would be like it is in any other western firm. You interview people and who you consider to be the best candidate that gets the job. That was the idea anyway. Basically they were trying to cultivate a kind of bourgeois class or a sort of management, a layer of management who are interested not really in any kind of ideology or commitment to the Communist Party in the regime, but were just interested in efficiency and making money essentially. And the idea was to establish a meritocracy in this way. So they began to do that and that therefore inevitably weakened the Communist Party's control over society as we'll see. It also led to the flourishing of thousands of independent newspapers. Of course it was still subject to the censor to a certain degree, but independent newspapers were created in the same way that small little businesses could be created in the countryside. In general, Liberals I think were encouraged by the government. They were allowed to speak out more. For example, intellectuals would tour professors and dissident intellectuals, Liberals essentially would tour universities and speak to thousands of people at lecture theatres. Although it's important to point out that whenever socialists or left wingers were allowed to speak it was always pro-capitalists, but they were genuine dissidents. They were against the regime, but they were allowed to speak. I think the reason for this was essentially that the government was still kind of waging a battle with the hardline Maoists and they saw the Liberals, the intellectuals, the people in favour of capitalism, that they would be obviously in favour of this policy, this gradual policy of introducing capitalism or elements of capitalism and therefore it would actually be good for the regime to allow these people a bit more freedom, it would get them onside essentially, be an ally against the hardline Maoists. This is a complex process, not easy to control and with it comes at the time a certain soul searching in Chinese society, which was kind of a continuation I think of the soul searching that had been taking place ever since the shock of the opium wars in the 1840s. After that there was this kind of questioning amongst Chinese intellectuals and bureaucrats as to why this formerly such a powerful empire had been so humiliated by British imperialism and that continued right up until the Chinese Revolution 1949 when it kind of came to an end, but I think it kind of re-emerged here and it was related to criticism of the communist regime. It was a soul searching that was saying, what have we done wrong? Why have we gone down this path and look at how well America is doing? It was that kind of, it was a pro-western kind of outlook, not necessarily in all of society but at certain layers of the middle class. There was for example a TV show which passed the censor called River Elegy, which is a kind of monologue which basically questioned Chinese civilization and said that they had taken a wrong path. They should have taken the path of the seas and not the rivers. That was what it was called River Elegy. In other words, should have been open to world trade like countries like Britain were rather than rivers meaning internal trade and that became a huge hit within Chinese society. So all of this was going on and there was a kind of, there was an opening up but it was beginning to get a bit dangerous I think from the point of view of the regime. I should also add that as these freedoms were being granted, freedoms were being taken away from workers. The right to strike for example was abolished in 1982 just as other freedoms were being granted. The right to strike was never necessarily genuine particularly under the communist regime but it's still significant that they formally abolished that right. That was because they anticipated that workers might oppose some of these policies. Indeed they would because whilst all this was going on there were a lot of problems. It wasn't plain sailing like we might imagine seeing as how powerful China is now, far from it. There were massive increases in inequality and also which was not normal. China was one of the most equal countries in the world at the time so that was very unsettling and strange for people. And also several bouts of inflation, of very high inflation throughout the 80s, which was a product of opening up to capitalism and loosening credit basically. And as a result real urban incomes actually declined especially for working class people. And also intellectuals and students whilst they were initially enthusiastic about this process they actually did quite badly out of it. In the cultural revolution intellectuals and students especially established intellectuals were vilified as you probably know. They were painted as basically enemies of the people, bourgeois essentially, often sent to the countryside to do humble work. And when that ended and when Deng Xiaoping came in the idea was well that's all over now and we're no longer going to be oppressed and actually China's going to open up, the economy's going to develop, it's going to get lots of investment from the west. They'll need lots of engineers and highly educated people for that. And so there was a huge increase in enrollment at universities and this was encouraged by the state. The state obviously also anticipated that it would need these people. And so China throughout the 80s built an average of one extra university every single week. And vast increase in the numbers of students in Chinese society took place. The reality was there was no jobs for them, something that's familiar to students in today's society. Basically this capitalist economy that was beginning to develop within China was a very primitive one. And it wasn't one that necessarily had much of a need for highly trained engineers. It was more like the people who were getting rich were like people who were selling lighters on the streets and things like that. Actually if you look at, if you read about the history of a lot of Chinese billionaires today you often find that they started out that kind of business. And so there were phrases that were going around such as those who produce missiles earn less than those who sell tea eggs. And those who hold scalpels earn less than those who hold eel knives. So there was a certain resentment, a sense of being cheated and that there was no jobs basically for these people. And that obviously led a contributor to the movement in the late 80s. So there was a lot of discontent actually in the 80s despite this initial euphoria at least amongst the middle class about the opening up. And there were several big student movements. For example in 1986 to 7 there was a very big student movement, not as big as 1989, throughout the country. And there was also many protests against inflation that took place. And anyway this student movement that took place in 86-87 led to the removal of who, I don't know if I'm pronouncing the name quite right, but who Yao Bang who was the Premier of China at the time, basically the Prime Minister. He was removed from his position because he was seen as too liberal and too soft. And the regime concluded at this time that this liberalisation was getting out of hand now. People were having protests and it was too far. So they removed him but he remained, importantly he remained on the Politburo despite losing his position as Premier. And also a number of the leaders of that movement and the intellectuals that led it were like the professors that were arrested and put in jail. And in 1988 and 89 there was a petition going round for the release of these people who were put in jail. And that petition was actually supported by the Beijing University and many other prominent universities. So it had widespread support. And basically it was this that created the activists that would lead the 1989 movement. Who Yao Bang then died in 1989 and he'd become a bit of a core celebra for the student activists. And basically first of all they were moved by his death and they were upset about it and everything. But also they realised quite intelligently that his funeral provided the perfect pretext for a mass demonstration. Because he remained as I said on the Politburo that meant his death was officially something to be mourned. So they realised that if they staged a demonstration which was a demonstration about how badly he was treated. But it also could be spun at the same time as a demonstration as a mourning for a member of the Politburo. They realised they couldn't really be repressed in the same way it would look very bad. And so that was what they did and it worked. So in the lead up to his funeral, in the week between his death and his funeral there were a few student protests gaining momentum for this planned demonstration at the local funeral with only a few hundred people. And on one of them it was outside the Sinhua Gate which is basically the entrance to the government complex which is right next to Tiananmen Square. A few students were roughed up by police I think and no one died but they went back to their university with blood on their shirt and everything. And this enraged a lot of the students and it further swelled the movement essentially. Also interestingly, as these students were protesting, a number of workers saw it and began to get organised around these students. Which also shows the depth of feeling that there was in the working class at the time because within about two or three days these workers had actually started printing leaflets in support of the students. So that's a very rapid mobilisation and I'll read out a quote about one of their leaflets at the time. In one of the handbills they distributed, they blamed the steady decline of people's living standards and uncontrolled inflation on the long term control of a dictatorial bureaucracy. In order to safeguard the extravagant lifestyles of a minority, the statement continued, the rulers issued large numbers of bonds like treasury bonds to take away forcibly what little income the workers have. The workers then punctuated this handbill with demands to stabilise prices and to make public the incomes and expenditures of the high state officials and their families. The leaflet goes on. The workers have asked how much money one of Deng Xiaoping's sons had bet at a Hong Kong racetrack. Whether Zhou Zi Yang had paid any money for the privilege of paying golf, how many villas were maintained for political leaders and at what cost, and what were the personal incomes and expenditures of top officials. The workers also wanted an explanation of how the party leadership viewed the shortcomings of their economic reform and why the proposed measures to control inflation never seemed to work. They expressed fear about China's mounting international debt and asked how much this amounted to per person and how its repayment would affect living standards in the years ahead. So it's quite unmarked. I should also point out that the students' demands, which also we would have supported, were nevertheless generally of a liberal democratic character. They were for elections, free press and things like that. Although there was one also attacking how rich the leaders of the state were. But it wasn't really anti-capitalist in any way. But you can see clearly with the workers here a class difference. They're not really talking about a democracy, although they were in favour of democracy, but they're talking about basically the privileges and the inequality that there was in society. Anyway, on the day of the funeral about 100,000 students packed into Tiananmen Square as part of this demonstration. And that happened because the universities in Beijing were all concentrated in one area and they basically were able to speak to each other and to gather a huge amount of people to come down to the demonstration and smash through the police lines. So there's huge numbers of them in the square and there's a lot of things that have to skip over what they did. But one thing of particular note is that three of the students walked up to, I think it was also the Sinhua Gate, basically the entrance to the government complex. And they had a petition, with these demands on it, calling for democracy and calling for the students not to be victimised for demonstrating, calling for re-evaluation of Hu Yao Bang, all these things. And they demanded that Li Peng, who was then the Premier, receive this petition. And this is a time on a tradition in Chinese society of handing in a petition to the government. Supposedly it's always been respected, but Li Peng never came out and never received the petition. And I think it genuinely shocked a lot of the students, it really outraged them. A lot of them were crying, some of them were punching themselves in the face, getting really worked up. And it was quite an intelligent tactic, I'm not sure how deliberate it was, but it's quite an intelligent tactic because most demonstrations, I don't know how many you've been on, but a lot of demonstrations have this quite impotent character because it's basically just, we're going to go here, then go there and then go home. And there's no threat to the government, but if you demand that the government come out and meet you there and then, and then they don't, of course it puts them on the spot and it kind of asks a question there and then of the government. And so it really raised the movement to a higher level, I believe. A couple of days later, this is late April, April 26th, the People's Daily, the main government newspaper attacked the student movement quite vitriolically and basically threatened a lot of repression. Obviously expecting that this would scare the students to go away, but in a sign that the movement was very powerful and it was almost taking on a revolutionary character, the opposite happened. It enraged the students and the next day, the 27th of April, about 300,000 students came out onto the streets to protest in defiance to this editorial, so it didn't work. And basically at this point, this forces a cracks in the regime. The regime begins to be uncertain of what to do and they basically decide to pursue a policy of concessions in the hope that this will placate the students as a classic dilemma of any regime. Do we give concessions, but that might strengthen them, might give them confidence? Do we attack them, but then that might outrage them even more? And so basically, but they decided to make a policy of concessions and the next day, the 28th of April, the same newspaper, the People's Daily published another editorial praising the demonstrations, which is quite an embarrassing admission for the government. Praising the demonstration, basically saying that they were pretty good, these were genuine patriotic demonstrations, just demonstrations against corruption and the like. And as a result, the government began to lose control of the media. As I've already said, they had loosened up their control anyway and new newspapers had appeared, independent newspapers. And basically this editorial was like a green light for them. It was basically saying, you can go and cover these demonstrations because they're officially okay. And so they did. And so I would say at this time, the Chinese media actually became far freer than Western media, which, whilst being ostensibly free, is actually dominating and controlled by a tiny group of individuals with shared interests. And so there was a lot of coverage of the demonstrations, basically promoting them. And as a result, they grew and grew, essentially. Also parts of the state, lower levels of the state, essentially began to support the demonstrations. There's lots of examples of work units being allowed to go and actually use company money to travel to go and visit the demonstrations. Huge numbers of members of the public turn up to donate to the demonstrations. And amazingly, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, the official trade union of China donated 100,000 yuan to the demonstrations. Some of this was also because I should have mentioned that a hunger strike had started. About 3,000 of the students in the square were on hunger strike, really just as a means of getting attention, essentially. And it worked. And the government was afraid of students dying, basically. And so they were giving them food and again loosening the restrictions and allowing local party activists and people to support the demonstrations and help them. Because they were afraid of what was going on. But quite clearly, this had now gotten really out of hand and the policy of concession had not worked. From the point of view of the government, this is very dangerous. This is becoming absolutely immense. People were travelling from across China to visit the demonstrations. 1.172,000 people travelled from outside Beijing to visit the demonstration. So they decided then basically decided, OK, we've got to crush this now and it's going to lead to violence. And so on the 20th of May, which is about a week after the hunger strike had started, 15,000 troops were moved into Beijing. Or at least they tried to because they failed. Basically a spontaneous uprising of workers and residents of Beijing prevented them by erecting barricades and just preventing the soldiers from coming in. They were absolutely overwhelmed by the numbers of people. And some of the residents were fraternising with them and even throwing street parties for them on some occasions, bringing them food and water. Very intelligently trying to win them over essentially. And it also shows that this was not just a student movement, but it had mass support throughout Beijing and in fact China as a whole. And 1,400 soldiers refused to fight and about 100 officers also refused orders to fight. So basically the offensive collapsed and they had to withdraw these soldiers for fear that they would come over fully to the side of the demonstrators. But at this point Beijing was really in the control of the working class and the students or at least it should have been if they had realised it, if they had had a party, some kind of organisation that could realise the significance of this situation and actually genuinely control Beijing. Although these were spontaneous, these barricades, some of the students in the demonstrations got hold of a military map and were marking out where they knew soldiers were on the map and were telephoning people in different parts of the city. So it was beginning to come very well organised actually so it really was the potential to run Beijing under workers control. And there was a certain euphoria but of course that was naive because a week later over 10 times as many troops encircled Beijing that was up to about 250,000 of them. And this time they were troops taken from other parts of China, from the provinces, from remote parts of China. Soldiers who didn't speak the same dialect as the people in Beijing and therefore it wouldn't be so easy for them to fraternise. And it has to be said also some mistakes were made, mistakes of a spontaneous character showing the need I think for discipline and a revolutionary party. Mistakes were made by the residents because in some cases the residents actually attacked and even killed some of these soldiers so this obviously didn't exactly help with the fraternisation. But the main point is they brought in vast numbers of soldiers from very far away who didn't really understand what was going on. Still many of them had to be moved into the city in plain clothes because if they went in and marching in again it might prove impossible or very very difficult. So they actually went in plain clothes without any weapons but obviously they need weapons so the weapons then had to be bussed in separately. But when they were bussed in separately in several cases residents actually found these buses filled with AK-47s and they stopped them and seized the weapons. And again you see that example, the possibility that was there for the arming of the work and the taking over and controlling of Beijing by the local population but nothing was really done. In fact in some cases the AK-47s when taken over were then handed into the police which is probably not tactically the best thing to have done. Anyway also they should have at this point called a general strike I think and I'll come on to that later on because that was also in the air. Anyway skirmishes broke out as the army did advance through Beijing and many unarmed civilians were shot dead often as they were running away from the police with their back to them. By June 4th the army had surrounded the square where there were still about 80,000 people protesting and basically here at this point the game was up and there was nothing that they could do. And the leaders of the students realised this and basically agreed. They went to the soldiers and they said look can you agree a particular part of the square that we can leave from and we'll leave in peace. And then that was announced on a tannoy to the students by the military. Some of the students wanted to stay and fight and declared it to be a sellout but I think basically they realised the game was up and they had to leave. They left more or less peacefully. Overall 500 to 1000 people were probably killed but very few of them actually in the square was mostly as they advanced through the streets of Beijing which again demonstrates I think the mass support that the movement had. It wasn't just a bunch of students in a square in the centre of the city. So yeah and that brought it to an end. So I'll just finish on the lessons and the mistakes of the movement basically. It was predominantly a student movement. It was called by students and led by students as I said 90% of the Beijing students allegedly were demonstrating at one point. It was immense. There were demonstrations of over a million people as I said. And that really demonstrates the fact that students can play a leading role in a revolution. And there's many other examples of in history France since 68 is a very famous example where students kickstart a revolution. And they can do that because A they are not burdened with the defeats of the past. They're probably a bit fresher, a bit more radical. But also they don't have a family to look after. They probably either don't have a job or the job is not so many hours. And they can afford to stay and do things like camping in a square or going on regular demonstrations. And that demonstrates the effectiveness or the power of students really, their significance. However there are also limitations to the students and if it's merely a student movement I would say it's pretty much always doomed to defeat. Student movements always tend to be very loose. Students are only at university for a few years. They don't work together either. They tend to work effectively competitively. So they don't tend not to be very stable and coherent organisations that have legitimacy. Where you can elect leaders and obviously in the west there are student unions there weren't necessarily student unions there. But we know what student unions are like here as well. They don't really represent students to be honest. So there's this very loose character to the student movement. There was a lot of self-appointed leaders and there were many, many different student leaderships that declared themselves leaders of the movement. There was the hunger strike committee. There was the Beijing Students Autonomous Federation. There was many, many different organisations that sprung up and then would fall apart. They were constantly bickering and denouncing each other. And again that reflects the instability of a student movement, the lack of any experience, the lack of any stable organisations I think. They're very egoistic as well. I think you should also bear in mind that Chinese students at the time represented an elite of society or as I said they didn't necessarily live very well and get very good jobs. But they were a very small section, a very highly educated and very small section of Chinese society, not really like today. And therefore more prone to the perhaps slightly more snobbish and petty bourgeois mentality essentially. There were certainly the leaders anyway, not necessarily the bulk of the students. There was one point where they actually had a televised negotiation with leaders of the Communist Party which was a demand they had that was actually granted. But this negotiation actually broke down not because of anything by the government but because the students started denouncing one another on TV and in front of the Communist Party leaders. And many of the journalists who'd gone there sympathetic to the students actually left quite embarrassed by their conduct. So this is not to cast aspersions on the students as a whole. They were quite heroic and obviously many of them sacrificed their lives for this. But a layer of the student leaders I think played quite a bad role. And also I think they got absorbed in the occupation. And this is something you see in occupations even today obviously on a far smaller, less significant scale. But the tendency of an occupation is for it to become an end in itself. Something you try to maintain and it requires a lot of organisation. I mean of course a strike and a demonstration requires organisation as well. But I think it's not quite as all consuming. Of course there weren't even any access to toilet facilities in this square. So by the end of the month it became a genuine health hazard. And this absorbed all of their time. All of their meetings were taken up with just discussions about whether or not to continue the occupation. They weren't discussing how to broaden its support. They weren't discussing how to connect with the workers, how to organise a general strike. They weren't discussing what political demands to make. It was just, do we continue the occupation? And it became a self-fulfilling prophecy as well because those who didn't want to continue it just left. And new ones came in who did and obviously therefore they always voted to continue the occupation. And that's something we see I think on a smaller scale in occupations that you still have today at universities. So these are some of the limitations. But the main limitation because all of this is not really that important had they connected with the working class. But they didn't. And the tragedy is the opportunity was genuinely there. These workers who I already mentioned and I quoted from had by now announced they'd been holding regular meetings and they'd announced that they were the Beijing Autonomous Workers Federation. And they basically, you could go to the square, find them and sign up to be a member of the Beijing Autonomous Workers Federation by showing them your work card. Your card to show which work unit you belong to. And then you would be signed up. And supposedly by late May they had 20,000 members. Of course these were fairly tenuous links but these were actual members. People had gone there to sign up. And they had links with workplaces all over the city. They had a megaphone at the edge of the square and they had a printing press which they were using to distribute leaflets such as this one that said, and I quote, We denounced the special privileges towards abroad for children and spouses and babysitters and the keeping of mistresses by high level officials. We have calculated carefully based on Marx's capital, the rate of exploitation of workers. We discovered that the servants of the people swallow all the surplus value produced by the people's blood and sweat. We declare that there are only two classes, the rulers and the ruled. The political campaigns of the last 40 years amount to a political method for suppressing the people. History has shown that the Communist Party is fond of settling accounts after the autumn harvest, which is a phrase, a Chinese phrase. But history's final accounting has yet to be accomplished. So they were very, very bold, kind of had an anarchistic character basically, a kind of syndicalist character. They also helped the students. At 1.8 students were arrested and put in jail. And some of the workers from this federation got motorbikes and drove to the jail and forcibly freed the students that were arrested. So they were quite heroic as well. And they tried to build for a general strike. They raised the demand for a general strike and they were trying to build for that. They also called for workers' control of industry. However, it has to be said that the student leaders behaved in a lamentable fashion. I think this reflects the snobbery that I mentioned before. They actually on occasion refused to meet with them. They saw them as a kind of arrival basically. This is our movement, right? We were the ones that set it up. And they were jealous basically of the burgeoning power of this workers' federation. They also I believe saw workers as stupid and ignorant basically. And again, I think I have to emphasise there was a much greater educational divide than there would be today. A lot of these workers probably left school at quite a young age. And these were quite elite students from Beijing University. And to be honest, a lot of the student leaders were pro-capitalist. They were liberal basically. And they saw that there was a socialistic character to what these workers were saying. They didn't like it and they were worried that this was actually reminiscent of things like the Cultural Revolution. Which it wasn't but that's how they saw it. And so they actually denied them a space within the square and they had to set up their megaphone on the edge of the square. And that's really the tragedy of Tiananmen Square. That this alliance of workers and students was within touching distance. Of course some of the work students did support them. I mean there's hundreds of thousands of students there. And there were alliances formed and help given from students. But many of the most prominent leaders were not very helpful. And I would point out that if you look at the history of a lot of... When I was researching for this you read about the leaders of the famous leaders of Tiananmen Square. You find that a lot of them now run hedge funds in New York and things like that. And I'm not exaggerating. That's genuinely what quite a few of them do. So these are quite elite prestigious students with an illustrious career ahead of them. So that I think goes some way to explaining this attitude that they had. And again I'm at pains to emphasise that not all the students but the most prominent leaders basically put themselves forwards. But yeah that's the tragedy of this. That this alliance was within touching distance. And the lack of a party and the lack of good leaders basically of the students movement prevented this from happening. But the workers were the only true allies of this movement. The only ones who really came and supported them. They erected the barricades as I mentioned. They formed the Beijing Autonomous Workers Federation called for a general strike. And they put their lives on the line. Many of them were executed after. The workers' leaders were executed after the movement. Or exiles such as Han Dongfang who now runs the China Labour Billiton, which you might have seen. Anyway they really put their lives on the line. Whereas the intellectuals who started the movement, the professors who wrote this petition to free students and other professors that were arrested in the 86-87 movement. These intellectuals who were very more pro-capitalist even than the worst of the students. They basically concluded the whole thing was a horrible mistake. Basically China was going down a path towards capitalism. And actually the demonstrations made things worse. If they just kind of been quiet and allowed capitalism to flourish, this would naturally bring with it democracy. Which is the general idea of the Liberals in the West as well. And their idea relating China into the World Trade Organization is always that China will just automatically become a liberal democracy after 10 or 20 years or something which clearly hasn't happened. They're still waiting for this and it's not occurred. But that was their outlook. We're not going to lift a finger to support this movement as soon as it gets dangerous. And actually we're going to spurn it and see it as a horrible mistake. So the Liberals basically as always never really allies in the revolution. It was only the workers that had nothing to lose and that were really determined to see it through to the end. But of course the lack of this alliance, the inability to build up a strong organisation of the workers I think doomed the movement to defeat. But that is really the lesson of the Tiananmen Square movement.