ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the origins of the student campaign, identifies the factors that transformed the student protest into a mass movement, analyzes the behind-the-scenes power struggle within the Party hierarchy, and assesses the effects of martial law and the massacre. Zhao Ziyang's adoption of a conciliatory tone toward the student movement softened the stand of many students. The student movement became headline news for the world news media. On April 24, the Beijing Municipal Party Committee urged Wan Li, in the absence of the Party general secretary, Zhao Ziyang–who was on an official visit to North Korea–to convene an enlarged meeting of the Chinese Communist Party Politburo Standing Committee that day. Yang Shangkun's connections with the 27th Army, which was widely believed to have been the army responsible for the assault, sustained the theory that he had ordered the massacre.
