ABSTRACT
As late as 19 May 1989, China, generally considered to be a leader in reform in the communist world, seemed to be poised for a democratic breakthrough. However, with the declaration of martial law on that day followed by the massacres in Beijing and Chengdu on 4 June, China brutually reversed its course. Throughout the summer of 1989 the apparent success of repression in China caused concern in some Eastern European countries that their regimes might be tempted to use similar methods, and indeed forcible repression was evidently considered in East Germany and was applied unsuccessfully in Romania. Since then, fortunately, European communism has passed China by. China now appears to be a victim of its own idiosyncratic politics as it was in the cultural revolution, rather than part of a general trend in the communist (or formerly communist) world. A reinterpre-tation of Chinese political reform in the 1980s is required by the sudden turn in Chinese politics, and the different course taken by European communism requires special attention to its comparative aspects.
