Years later, historians would look back and say that it all started on April 15, 1989, with the death of Hu Yaobang. They would be wrong, of course. In some ways, it started all the way back in 1979, when the first 大字报 (dazibao, or “big-character posters”) were hung from what would later be known as Democracy Wall. Later, there were riots in 1985 and demonstrations in 1986. The breaking point had been a long time in coming. Historians would also declaim that those who took to the streets in 1989 wanted democracy. This would also be wrong. On the contrary, the vast majority were agitating in response to more prosaic complaints: inflation, shortages, corruption, and a host of other issues were foremost in their minds. But in truth, most people did not even know why they camped out in Tiananmen Square during that hot and muggy spring that never seemed to end. Perhaps many were motivated not by democracy but by a longing for change of any kind. They would get a good deal more than they bargained for.
**********************************************
“The Saturday Series: Question and Answer Sessions With Your Favorite Professors!” University of British Columbia. May 14, 1989.
-- Hi, yes, sorry, I know we’re running a bit late. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Jennifer Martinez, director of the [甲甲甲] Centre for [乙乙乙]. Since we’re behind on time, let me get straight to the introductions. Today’s guest is Professor Chen Menglong, a specialist in Chinese history and politics. Welcome, Professor Chen!
[Applause, about as wild as you’d expect from a couple dozen college students on a Saturday morning. Most are struggling through hangovers, and a few clearly do not know where, or perhaps even who, they are. Not to mention that they’re still mourning the Canucks’ loss in the NHL playoffs. Sure, it happened a month ago, but Canadians need a while to get over these things.]
CM: Pleasure to be here.
JM: The topic that’s on everyone’s minds is the pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square going on right now, and I think a lot of people - myself included - have been shocked by how fast that situation has developed. How did things start?
CM: Well, the current crisis started a month ago after the death of Hu Yaobang.
JM: And he was?
CM: Hu was on first. No, sorry, that’s an Abbott and Costello routine. Hu was the Party Secretary-General until he was purged - in China that means you’re fired, not shot - a couple of years ago, mostly because of his perceived weakness during the 1986 student demonstrations in Hefei and Shanghai. People thought of Hu as a liberal, you know, as a reformist, and after he died there was an outpouring of public grief. Memorials, posters praising him, really the works. It’s more than a bit similar to the April 5th Movement -
JM: I’m going to have to stop you there. What was the April 5th Movement?
CM: It took place in 1976 after the death of Zhou Enlai and had many of the characteristics of the current situation; praise for a recently deceased leader, etc. In both cases, the praise for the deceased leader is also an implicit criticism of the current leadership. And that’s how the whole thing started - the students were trying to get the government to reverse its official “verdict” on Hu Yaobang. See, if you’ve been a high official, when you die the Party will release a statement on your life, and depending on who’s in charge at the time you’ll get either praised or censured. It’s a bit more complicated than that, but those are the basics. Hu was censured, and the students tried to get the government to reverse the verdict. Then the government made a mistake.
JM: How so?
CM: On April 26th, a very strident editorial was published in the People’s Daily - that’s the Party’s official mouthpiece - that harshly condemned the student demonstrators. It was intended to more or less scare them straight, but it completely backfired. The students stood firm, then they were joined by their teachers, then ordinary citizens started to get in on the act, and then it started to spread beyond Beijing. That’s one of the more common misconceptions, by the way; the current demonstrations are not only in Beijing, but also in hundreds of other major cities as well. But anyway, now there are a couple hundred thousand people on the streets, and they’re not totally organized and don’t know what they want, and the government’s not totally organized and doesn’t know what it’s going to do.
JM: What do you think will happen next?
CM: No one knows. There’s clearly a rift among higher-ups in the Party as to how they should respond. It seems clear that while General Secretary Zhao Ziyang would prefer to negotiate with the demonstrators, Premier Li Peng favors a more hard-line approach, and it looks for the moment as though it’s Li who has the ear of Deng Xiaoping, who wields little formal power but is in fact the man in charge. Meanwhile, the demonstrators have been growing in numbers and in confidence. The latest news out of Beijing is that a hunger strike is under way by some demonstrators - who knows how long it will last or what the Party’s response will be. Again, no one knows anything, and that’s more than a bit unnerving . . .
Excerpted from “Serve the People: The Autobiography of Zhao Ziyang,” 2002.
- After the protestors began their hunger strike on May 13, the situation entered a dangerous new phase. We were losing enormous face both at home and abroad, and it was clear that the government could not afford to delay and dither any longer. It was time for decisive action. But what kind of action? Not for the first time, I rued letting my visit to our fraternal socialist allies in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea continue as planned. As I have mentioned, it was during my absence that the Rightist deviationists of the Li Peng clique contrived to have the anti-socialist “4-26 Editorial” published in the People’s Daily. It was that error which began the process of escalation, and it was now my responsibility to prevent certain reactionary elements from fomenting violence against the laboring masses. Fortunately, I had been cultivating support among my colleagues on the Standing Committee of the Politburo for more than two weeks, ever since I cut short my trip to the DPRK and raced home after reading the 4-26 editorial. Although I was tentatively certain that I could win the support of a majority of these comrades for the moderate line, it was further necessary to take measures against the influence of certain meddling pensioners who believed themselves to exert influence over the Party and the People’s Liberation Army. It was as a means to this end that I paid the first of what would be many calls to my old comrade, Defence Minister Qin Jiwei. His words ring as clear in my ears as if he said them yesterday: “The student comrades are acting out of an ardent love for socialism and the motherland. We must surely heed their words and seek to correct our errors with the guidance of the people for socialism to flourish.” As Defence Minister Qin undertook to consult with some comrades in the military regarding the correct manner in which to proceed, I struggled to build support for the moderate line without overplaying my hand and giving the reactionary elements a clue as to my intentions. During meetings with USSR General Secretary Gorbachev, making a trip to Beijing to renew fraternal socialist relations - though we had to move the ceremonies from the Great Hall of the People to the airport - I almost let down my guard and made what would have been the fatal error of openly declaring my opposition to the reactionary elements. At the last moment, I maintained my calm. It was on the night of May 16 when I was abruptly summoned to meet alone with Comrade Deng Xiaoping - only a day before the scheduled meeting of the Standing Committee of the Politburo . . .
************************************************
[FONT="]
May 16, 1989[/FONT]
Zhongnanhai - Deng Xiaoping’s Residence
- For what seemed an eternity, the two men, protégé and mentor, student and teacher, stared at each other across the rough unvarnished table. Deng pursed his lips, spat lightly, and then poured another in what seemed an endless series of cups of tea.
“I have seen all of this before,” he said. “I have seen the youth gather, their hearts full of fire. I have seen the Party bend to their will, I have seen the blood and chaos and death that followed, and I have seen the horror visited on the people. It was not so long ago, Comrade, and itwas in that very same square!” He smacked the table once, twice, with the palm of his hand, sending one of the neat round teacups down to the floor where it shattered. Neither man noticed.
“I have seen it all, and you have seen it all, and it is the same thing! The same! So how do you not remember, Comrade Zhao?”
Zhao involuntarily let out a deep breath. “You are tired, Comrade,” he said quietly.
“I do not enjoy making these decisions, but they must be made, for the good of the Party and the good of the nation,” said Deng curtly. He sighed, then smiled shamefacedly and made a small gesture in Zhao’s direction. “But you are right, Comrade. I am tired. I am so very tired. And now I see that I have broken your teacup.” He chuckled, a dry throaty rasp that hung in the air like a puff of smoke.
“It gloriously sacrificed itself on the altar of Mao Zedong Thought,” said Zhao, and Deng laughed again, louder this time, eventually breaking into a fit of coughs and wheezes as he pounded the table once more, this time in mirth.
Zhao leaned forward. “If you have ever listened to me before, Comrade, hear me now,” he said earnestly. “History is not a cycle, spinning us round and round. The problems of the present are not the problems of the past. Have you seen them, out there in the square? More importantly, have you listened? They do not chant fool’s slogans, nor are they calling for ruin and chaos. They cry out, because their voices are not heard otherwise! And they are calling out to you, Comrade. Do you not hear them? Zhao had risen from his chair unconsciously, and his voice rose. “Will you not heed their call?”
Zhao did not say this last so much as he declaimed it, and he winced apologetically as Deng smirked and chuckled once more. As Zhao sat down, he noticed for the first time how small Deng was, how his legs kicked and dangled, not coming close to reaching the ground.
The older man yawned. “You have given me much to think about, Comrade,” he said. “But it is late, and as we have both observed, I am very tired.”
After Zhao had taken his leave, as he walked alone down the broad pathway to the drive, he realized that he had no idea whether he had persuaded Deng or not.
After Deng had written a few memorandums in his increasingly feeble hand, as he was preparing to drift off to sleep at last, he realized that he had no idea whether Zhao had persuaded him or not.
******************************************
Excerpted from “Our Styrofoam Goddess of Freedom: An Oral History of the April 17th Movement,” ed. Liu Jianwen and Zhen Gui. 2005.
ZHANG TIANMING, taxicab driver: It was a real fucking piss-shitter of a day, I’ll tell you that much. Miserable fucking weather, and those shit-eaters in the square were fucking up the traffic all the way to Tianjin! I remember hoping that they all starved themselves to death. Damn fools. What kind of jackass stops eating to prove a point? What? Oh, right. Sorry. So anyway, I’m on Xidan Bei Dajie, about to cross Chang’an Jie, and the crossing guard is waving me through, and then the shit-encrusted moron changes his fucking mind and throws up a stop sign! I try to halt the damn cab, but the brakes on the fucking thing are more worn out than a fifty year-old whore, and I plow straight into another car coming the other way. I was all right, so I got out to see if anything could be done. Well, my heart sank down to my balls, and I thought, Zhang, you have fucked the dog on this one. See, it’s a fucking Red Flag limo, with little fucking flags on the fenders, and who the fuck doesn’t know what that means? Well, I start screaming at that fucking crossing guard, and the driver of the limo steps out and starts screaming at me, and the motorcycle escorts - they’ve stopped - start screaming at him, I still don’t know why, and then out of the car steps - guess who? - Premier Li Fucking Peng himself, and he starts screaming at everyone, something about a meeting. I don’t know, I was too busy shitting a fucking brick. Well, we all scream at each other for another five or ten minutes until another limo pulls up - you can imagine the traffic jam that we’ve created - and that goat-fucker Li just gets in and drives off! It wasn’t so simple for me, oh no it wasn’t! Plus, the front bumper on my old Mian Di was ripped clean off. I loved that fucking piece of shit, I really did . . .
WANG YIFEI, secretary: You’d be surprised at how boring most secret meetings are, you really would. I certainly was bored, at any rate; maybe it’s more exciting if you’re making the decisions as opposed to writing them down. But I was a little more on edge, I remember, even though it was a beautiful day in May, the kind that makes you want to skip work and go to the park. Everyone was a little on edge, I think; it was all the demonstrations. Well, the Standing Committee all started to file in, and I got my notepad ready. But Premier Li wasn’t there. He was never late. I noticed that the rest were all looking at General Secretary Zhao -- Comrade Qiao Shi and Comrade Hu Qili with a kind of mixture of awe and fear, while Comrade Yao Yilin (he was very close to Premier Li, as I’m sure you know) just looked like he was about to throw up. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what had happened. We all knew that General Secretary Zhao and Premier Li had been feuding, and word had already gotten out that Zhao and Comrade Deng Xiaoping had had a big hush-hush meeting the night before (Communists are awful gossips, I’ve always felt), and now Li had mysteriously gone missing. Wink wink, nod nod, nudge nudge. It was odd, though - Comrade Zhao saw the way the others were looking at him, and for a second he just looked confused! But then some kind of light came on, and he said they should get started, and the first thing to do would be to take a vote on whether to negotiate with the demonstrators or take military action. Comrade Hu was on his side even before, I think, and you could never tell with Comrade Qiao, but Comrade Yao had definitely been opposed, and now he made a big speech about how he’d always really favored negotiation, and he denounced Premier Li in really harsh terms. The vote was unanimous in favor of negotiation, of course, and that was that, until Premier Li burst in ten minutes later yelling about a car crash, and demanding to know what he’d missed. Well, General Secretary Zhao asked me to read the minutes, and let me tell you that I have never heard such language in my life! And Premier Li was normally such a polite man - I wondered where he’d even learned such words . . .
NIE RONGZHEN, marshal of the PLA: What? WHAT? I CAN’T HEAR YOU! Eh? Sure, I remember! But first, let me tell you about my grandchildren . . .
. . . and so that’s how I got gout! Now, what was your question? Sure, I remember! But first, let me tell you about my grandchildren . . . what’s that? I just told you about them? Oh.
Anyway, sometime in the afternoon I started to get calls from what seemed like half of the unit commanders in the army. It was the same story, over and over: Either Premier Li Peng, or one of the Immortals - Chen Yun’s name came up a lot - had sent urgent orders to move into Beijing and put down the disturbances. But the Standing Committee of the Politburo had issued orders NOT to move into Beijing, and the Defence Minister was telling everyone to stand down. I tried to check in with the Central Military Commission - they were the ones to be ordering things like this - and was told that several members had called for a meeting, but the Chairman of the Commission [Deng Xiaoping] had sent word that he was indisposed, and you couldn’t very well have a meeting of the Central Military Commission without the Chairman of the Central Military Commission, could you? Granted, we stopped worrying about that stuff before long, but then it still seemed awfully important. Anyway, the orders were clearly illegitimate, so I sent a telegram round telling all units to remain at current stations. And I’m still not sure whether it was the right decision or not! Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for my nap . . .
**So I had the idea for this one over lunch, and spent a chunk of the evening banging it out while trying to figure out just how far offside Carlos Tevez was on that first goal. Wait, what was I talking about? Oh, right. Let me know what you think of this TL - the format is a bit different from what I’ve tried previously, and I’m not sure where I’ll go with this one in the event that I decide to write more. Thanks for reading.
**********************************************
“The Saturday Series: Question and Answer Sessions With Your Favorite Professors!” University of British Columbia. May 14, 1989.
-- Hi, yes, sorry, I know we’re running a bit late. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Jennifer Martinez, director of the [甲甲甲] Centre for [乙乙乙]. Since we’re behind on time, let me get straight to the introductions. Today’s guest is Professor Chen Menglong, a specialist in Chinese history and politics. Welcome, Professor Chen!
[Applause, about as wild as you’d expect from a couple dozen college students on a Saturday morning. Most are struggling through hangovers, and a few clearly do not know where, or perhaps even who, they are. Not to mention that they’re still mourning the Canucks’ loss in the NHL playoffs. Sure, it happened a month ago, but Canadians need a while to get over these things.]
CM: Pleasure to be here.
JM: The topic that’s on everyone’s minds is the pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square going on right now, and I think a lot of people - myself included - have been shocked by how fast that situation has developed. How did things start?
CM: Well, the current crisis started a month ago after the death of Hu Yaobang.
JM: And he was?
CM: Hu was on first. No, sorry, that’s an Abbott and Costello routine. Hu was the Party Secretary-General until he was purged - in China that means you’re fired, not shot - a couple of years ago, mostly because of his perceived weakness during the 1986 student demonstrations in Hefei and Shanghai. People thought of Hu as a liberal, you know, as a reformist, and after he died there was an outpouring of public grief. Memorials, posters praising him, really the works. It’s more than a bit similar to the April 5th Movement -
JM: I’m going to have to stop you there. What was the April 5th Movement?
CM: It took place in 1976 after the death of Zhou Enlai and had many of the characteristics of the current situation; praise for a recently deceased leader, etc. In both cases, the praise for the deceased leader is also an implicit criticism of the current leadership. And that’s how the whole thing started - the students were trying to get the government to reverse its official “verdict” on Hu Yaobang. See, if you’ve been a high official, when you die the Party will release a statement on your life, and depending on who’s in charge at the time you’ll get either praised or censured. It’s a bit more complicated than that, but those are the basics. Hu was censured, and the students tried to get the government to reverse the verdict. Then the government made a mistake.
JM: How so?
CM: On April 26th, a very strident editorial was published in the People’s Daily - that’s the Party’s official mouthpiece - that harshly condemned the student demonstrators. It was intended to more or less scare them straight, but it completely backfired. The students stood firm, then they were joined by their teachers, then ordinary citizens started to get in on the act, and then it started to spread beyond Beijing. That’s one of the more common misconceptions, by the way; the current demonstrations are not only in Beijing, but also in hundreds of other major cities as well. But anyway, now there are a couple hundred thousand people on the streets, and they’re not totally organized and don’t know what they want, and the government’s not totally organized and doesn’t know what it’s going to do.
JM: What do you think will happen next?
CM: No one knows. There’s clearly a rift among higher-ups in the Party as to how they should respond. It seems clear that while General Secretary Zhao Ziyang would prefer to negotiate with the demonstrators, Premier Li Peng favors a more hard-line approach, and it looks for the moment as though it’s Li who has the ear of Deng Xiaoping, who wields little formal power but is in fact the man in charge. Meanwhile, the demonstrators have been growing in numbers and in confidence. The latest news out of Beijing is that a hunger strike is under way by some demonstrators - who knows how long it will last or what the Party’s response will be. Again, no one knows anything, and that’s more than a bit unnerving . . .
Excerpted from “Serve the People: The Autobiography of Zhao Ziyang,” 2002.
- After the protestors began their hunger strike on May 13, the situation entered a dangerous new phase. We were losing enormous face both at home and abroad, and it was clear that the government could not afford to delay and dither any longer. It was time for decisive action. But what kind of action? Not for the first time, I rued letting my visit to our fraternal socialist allies in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea continue as planned. As I have mentioned, it was during my absence that the Rightist deviationists of the Li Peng clique contrived to have the anti-socialist “4-26 Editorial” published in the People’s Daily. It was that error which began the process of escalation, and it was now my responsibility to prevent certain reactionary elements from fomenting violence against the laboring masses. Fortunately, I had been cultivating support among my colleagues on the Standing Committee of the Politburo for more than two weeks, ever since I cut short my trip to the DPRK and raced home after reading the 4-26 editorial. Although I was tentatively certain that I could win the support of a majority of these comrades for the moderate line, it was further necessary to take measures against the influence of certain meddling pensioners who believed themselves to exert influence over the Party and the People’s Liberation Army. It was as a means to this end that I paid the first of what would be many calls to my old comrade, Defence Minister Qin Jiwei. His words ring as clear in my ears as if he said them yesterday: “The student comrades are acting out of an ardent love for socialism and the motherland. We must surely heed their words and seek to correct our errors with the guidance of the people for socialism to flourish.” As Defence Minister Qin undertook to consult with some comrades in the military regarding the correct manner in which to proceed, I struggled to build support for the moderate line without overplaying my hand and giving the reactionary elements a clue as to my intentions. During meetings with USSR General Secretary Gorbachev, making a trip to Beijing to renew fraternal socialist relations - though we had to move the ceremonies from the Great Hall of the People to the airport - I almost let down my guard and made what would have been the fatal error of openly declaring my opposition to the reactionary elements. At the last moment, I maintained my calm. It was on the night of May 16 when I was abruptly summoned to meet alone with Comrade Deng Xiaoping - only a day before the scheduled meeting of the Standing Committee of the Politburo . . .
************************************************
[FONT="]
May 16, 1989[/FONT]
Zhongnanhai - Deng Xiaoping’s Residence
- For what seemed an eternity, the two men, protégé and mentor, student and teacher, stared at each other across the rough unvarnished table. Deng pursed his lips, spat lightly, and then poured another in what seemed an endless series of cups of tea.
“I have seen all of this before,” he said. “I have seen the youth gather, their hearts full of fire. I have seen the Party bend to their will, I have seen the blood and chaos and death that followed, and I have seen the horror visited on the people. It was not so long ago, Comrade, and itwas in that very same square!” He smacked the table once, twice, with the palm of his hand, sending one of the neat round teacups down to the floor where it shattered. Neither man noticed.
“I have seen it all, and you have seen it all, and it is the same thing! The same! So how do you not remember, Comrade Zhao?”
Zhao involuntarily let out a deep breath. “You are tired, Comrade,” he said quietly.
“I do not enjoy making these decisions, but they must be made, for the good of the Party and the good of the nation,” said Deng curtly. He sighed, then smiled shamefacedly and made a small gesture in Zhao’s direction. “But you are right, Comrade. I am tired. I am so very tired. And now I see that I have broken your teacup.” He chuckled, a dry throaty rasp that hung in the air like a puff of smoke.
“It gloriously sacrificed itself on the altar of Mao Zedong Thought,” said Zhao, and Deng laughed again, louder this time, eventually breaking into a fit of coughs and wheezes as he pounded the table once more, this time in mirth.
Zhao leaned forward. “If you have ever listened to me before, Comrade, hear me now,” he said earnestly. “History is not a cycle, spinning us round and round. The problems of the present are not the problems of the past. Have you seen them, out there in the square? More importantly, have you listened? They do not chant fool’s slogans, nor are they calling for ruin and chaos. They cry out, because their voices are not heard otherwise! And they are calling out to you, Comrade. Do you not hear them? Zhao had risen from his chair unconsciously, and his voice rose. “Will you not heed their call?”
Zhao did not say this last so much as he declaimed it, and he winced apologetically as Deng smirked and chuckled once more. As Zhao sat down, he noticed for the first time how small Deng was, how his legs kicked and dangled, not coming close to reaching the ground.
The older man yawned. “You have given me much to think about, Comrade,” he said. “But it is late, and as we have both observed, I am very tired.”
After Zhao had taken his leave, as he walked alone down the broad pathway to the drive, he realized that he had no idea whether he had persuaded Deng or not.
After Deng had written a few memorandums in his increasingly feeble hand, as he was preparing to drift off to sleep at last, he realized that he had no idea whether Zhao had persuaded him or not.
******************************************
Excerpted from “Our Styrofoam Goddess of Freedom: An Oral History of the April 17th Movement,” ed. Liu Jianwen and Zhen Gui. 2005.
ZHANG TIANMING, taxicab driver: It was a real fucking piss-shitter of a day, I’ll tell you that much. Miserable fucking weather, and those shit-eaters in the square were fucking up the traffic all the way to Tianjin! I remember hoping that they all starved themselves to death. Damn fools. What kind of jackass stops eating to prove a point? What? Oh, right. Sorry. So anyway, I’m on Xidan Bei Dajie, about to cross Chang’an Jie, and the crossing guard is waving me through, and then the shit-encrusted moron changes his fucking mind and throws up a stop sign! I try to halt the damn cab, but the brakes on the fucking thing are more worn out than a fifty year-old whore, and I plow straight into another car coming the other way. I was all right, so I got out to see if anything could be done. Well, my heart sank down to my balls, and I thought, Zhang, you have fucked the dog on this one. See, it’s a fucking Red Flag limo, with little fucking flags on the fenders, and who the fuck doesn’t know what that means? Well, I start screaming at that fucking crossing guard, and the driver of the limo steps out and starts screaming at me, and the motorcycle escorts - they’ve stopped - start screaming at him, I still don’t know why, and then out of the car steps - guess who? - Premier Li Fucking Peng himself, and he starts screaming at everyone, something about a meeting. I don’t know, I was too busy shitting a fucking brick. Well, we all scream at each other for another five or ten minutes until another limo pulls up - you can imagine the traffic jam that we’ve created - and that goat-fucker Li just gets in and drives off! It wasn’t so simple for me, oh no it wasn’t! Plus, the front bumper on my old Mian Di was ripped clean off. I loved that fucking piece of shit, I really did . . .
WANG YIFEI, secretary: You’d be surprised at how boring most secret meetings are, you really would. I certainly was bored, at any rate; maybe it’s more exciting if you’re making the decisions as opposed to writing them down. But I was a little more on edge, I remember, even though it was a beautiful day in May, the kind that makes you want to skip work and go to the park. Everyone was a little on edge, I think; it was all the demonstrations. Well, the Standing Committee all started to file in, and I got my notepad ready. But Premier Li wasn’t there. He was never late. I noticed that the rest were all looking at General Secretary Zhao -- Comrade Qiao Shi and Comrade Hu Qili with a kind of mixture of awe and fear, while Comrade Yao Yilin (he was very close to Premier Li, as I’m sure you know) just looked like he was about to throw up. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what had happened. We all knew that General Secretary Zhao and Premier Li had been feuding, and word had already gotten out that Zhao and Comrade Deng Xiaoping had had a big hush-hush meeting the night before (Communists are awful gossips, I’ve always felt), and now Li had mysteriously gone missing. Wink wink, nod nod, nudge nudge. It was odd, though - Comrade Zhao saw the way the others were looking at him, and for a second he just looked confused! But then some kind of light came on, and he said they should get started, and the first thing to do would be to take a vote on whether to negotiate with the demonstrators or take military action. Comrade Hu was on his side even before, I think, and you could never tell with Comrade Qiao, but Comrade Yao had definitely been opposed, and now he made a big speech about how he’d always really favored negotiation, and he denounced Premier Li in really harsh terms. The vote was unanimous in favor of negotiation, of course, and that was that, until Premier Li burst in ten minutes later yelling about a car crash, and demanding to know what he’d missed. Well, General Secretary Zhao asked me to read the minutes, and let me tell you that I have never heard such language in my life! And Premier Li was normally such a polite man - I wondered where he’d even learned such words . . .
NIE RONGZHEN, marshal of the PLA: What? WHAT? I CAN’T HEAR YOU! Eh? Sure, I remember! But first, let me tell you about my grandchildren . . .
. . . and so that’s how I got gout! Now, what was your question? Sure, I remember! But first, let me tell you about my grandchildren . . . what’s that? I just told you about them? Oh.
Anyway, sometime in the afternoon I started to get calls from what seemed like half of the unit commanders in the army. It was the same story, over and over: Either Premier Li Peng, or one of the Immortals - Chen Yun’s name came up a lot - had sent urgent orders to move into Beijing and put down the disturbances. But the Standing Committee of the Politburo had issued orders NOT to move into Beijing, and the Defence Minister was telling everyone to stand down. I tried to check in with the Central Military Commission - they were the ones to be ordering things like this - and was told that several members had called for a meeting, but the Chairman of the Commission [Deng Xiaoping] had sent word that he was indisposed, and you couldn’t very well have a meeting of the Central Military Commission without the Chairman of the Central Military Commission, could you? Granted, we stopped worrying about that stuff before long, but then it still seemed awfully important. Anyway, the orders were clearly illegitimate, so I sent a telegram round telling all units to remain at current stations. And I’m still not sure whether it was the right decision or not! Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for my nap . . .
**So I had the idea for this one over lunch, and spent a chunk of the evening banging it out while trying to figure out just how far offside Carlos Tevez was on that first goal. Wait, what was I talking about? Oh, right. Let me know what you think of this TL - the format is a bit different from what I’ve tried previously, and I’m not sure where I’ll go with this one in the event that I decide to write more. Thanks for reading.
