ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the dynamics and genesis of student movements after 1949. It focuses on the interpretation of general student activism in contemporary China rather than on a description of each movement. Since the mid-1950s, almost every youth protest movement in China has rallied against the Communist Party’s suppression of free speech and association. The chapter presents a brief analysis of each of the several cycles of the student movement from 1949 to the 1990s. It also focuses on the main trends in student attitudes and behaviors, not on descriptions of the cycles in detail. The main force behind the Democracy Wall seemed to be declassed youth. They were the “veterans” of the Cultural Revolution. The modal attitude of these youth was a deep sense of political alienation. In post-Mao China, the reactions of the young were virtually identical to the attitude of the Soviet youth after de-Stalinization.
