Word: zhou
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...this current massive expression of protest. The students grasped the opportunity provided by the death of Hu Yaopang, the former chief of the Chinese Communist Party, to convey their grief as well as their indignation at the political system, the same as they had after the death of Zhou Enlai...
...bayonets. Some officers rebelled against what they felt was the ambiguity of their position. In Wuhan district, the military commander, General Chen Zaidao, was ordered to support the local Red Guard faction. He refused and seized as hostages three party officials who were sent to confront him. Premier Zhou Enlai had to negotiate their release...
...seems straightforward enough, but implied in it is an attack on what the protesters see as the abuse of power by top party officials. Virtually all of them have been accused of nepotism. Li Peng is viewed as a beneficiary of nepotism since he was an orphan raised by Zhou Enlai...
...protests recalled two other convulsive events in Tiananmen Square, both of which preceded major political turning points. In 1976, after the death of Premier Zhou Enlai, crowds numbering 100,000 marched through the square and eventually were brutally routed by club-wielding police. The demonstrations were widely interpreted as a revolt against the leftist policies of the so- called Gang of Four, who at the time had effectively seized power from the dying Mao Zedong. Two days later the Gang of Four, led by Mao's wife Jiang Qing, sacked Deng, the recently rehabilitated Senior Deputy Premier whom they suspected...
...most important lesson of last week's events was the degree to which China has changed since the deaths of Zhou and Mao, the downfall of the Gang of Four and the emergence of Deng. Says Fang Lizhi: "At the time of Premier Zhou's death, the people liked him, but they thought of him as a good dictator. The people were still Marxists then." By contrast, continues Fang, who welcomes the transition, the people no longer speak of Marxism, and when | they venerate a man like Hu Yaobang, they are paying homage to him not as a benign dictator...