CRAIG CALHOUN
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the last Chinese student protests of 1986-87, and had been dismissed for not
controlling the movement more forcefully. This had made him a sort of
martyr, even though he was by no means an advocate of everything the
students had stood for. Rather, somewhat like Zhao Ziyang, he was a re–
former and a proponent ofchanges pending on the goodwill and participation
of China's intellectuals. Hu was not mourned with a deep outpouring of
sentiment, such as that shown for Zhao Enlai; rather, his death provided a
pretext for demonstrations which had their roots elsewhere. Students carried
pictures of Hu, and no doubt there were sincere regrets at his death and
some suspicion about its causes (he died of a heart attack during a Politburo
meeting). But the signs are better understood as part of a carefully aimed
message for Deng Xiaoping and the hard-liners of the Communist Party.
As students took to the streets in growing numbers after April 15th,
this message was heard quite clearly by Deng and the other leaders. Stu–
dents were telling them they disapproved of their leadership and particularly
of their failure to listen more to students and intellectuals. The pictures ofHu
disappeared from the student demonstrations, for the most part, after May
4th. The messages of disapproval and the demand for a public voice became
ever stronger.
May 4th itself had been touted as a major demonstration, but was
lacking in novelty and drama. There was neither the confrontation of the
April 27th march nor the dramatic effect of hunger strikes or the statue of
liberty. Before these were introduced, the movement briefly went into low
gear. Students returned to classes for a week, celebrated their success and
waited to see what the government would do. The government offered a
dialogue with Yuan Mu, spokesman for the Council of State. Since the gov–
ernment was not in the habit of discussing policy issues with students this was
an achievement. But Yuan Mu was not very senior, rather too smooth for
most tastes (partly because he was a better television performer than his in–
terlocutors), and unwilling to get very deeply into what the students consid–
ered the key issues.
Things heated up again with the start of the hunger strike on May
12th and 13th and Gorbachev's visit to Beijing from May 15th to 18th. The
largest of all the demonstrations was held on May 17th, with more than a
million people crowding Tiananmen Square and the approach roads. At mid–
night on May 19th, after Gorbachev had left for Shanghai, the government
declared martial law, with
Li
Peng making the announcement in a particularly
poorly delivered (and received) speech. Ironically, that very evening student
leaders had decided to end the hunger strike; some even were calling for
withdrawal from the Square. Had the government waited a few hours, con–
frontation might have been avoided. That it occurred is testimony to the lack
