Why didn't the Tiananmen Square protests succeed?

Looking to Communist Europe, 1989 was the year peaceful protests worked. Many governments stepped down and let democracy take over without military action. Now why didn't the Tiananmen Square protests work? Was it because of something cultural within the internal communist leadership? Or was it something else?
 
Because the protests and its message never rang true for the majority of the population, Deng was particularly sure his idea of how to rule China was right, and he was willing to use military power to enforce it. If 1989 came during the reign of the Gang of Four this would've been a very different story.
 
China's situation was vastly different from that of Eastern Europe. As @zeppelinair says, they thought things were getting better and not just delaying the inevitable, so they were willing to use force when those in East Germany and Czechoslovakia really weren't anymore.
 
The protesters weren't entirely clear on what they wanted. Plus, the Chinese economy had seen definite material improvements over the most recent 10 year period (since Deng's reforms in the late 70's) whereas the Soviet economy had been moving the other direction. The CCP could (and still does) point to the material gains as the basis for their legitimacy. Most people, when it really comes down to it, will choose prosperity over freedom.

Additionally the Tiananmen Square protesters didn't have any alternative power structure in place either. The Soviet Empire wasn't overthrown, if you recall, it disintegrated. The local power structures just started ignoring the metropole en masse. There were no local/alternative power structures in China.
 
Prague Spring was met with tanks, and was crushed. Tianamin was met with tanks and was crushed.

It depends on a couple of things. Basically, if the military is willing to fire machine guns or drive tanks into crowds of peaceful protesters, it is incredibly hard for protests to succeed. By 1989 the communist regimes in Europe had lost enough legitimacy that the military refused to fire on civilians.

Harry Turtledove did a short story 'The Last Article' which has Nazi tanks rolling into India, and Gandhi's nonviolent protest is crushed.

Also. If footage of such repression gets widely seen (which requires non-governmental resources) the repressive authorities have a much harder time.

Film footage of Vietnam and the Civil Rights protests made it hard for US authorities (including State governemts) to be repressive.

The lack of a widespread internet in China at the time meant Tianamin footage wasn't widely seen. I suspect a similar protest today would be far more effective.
 

RousseauX

Donor
Because the protests and its message never rang true for the majority of the population, Deng was particularly sure his idea of how to rule China was right, and he was willing to use military power to enforce it. If 1989 came during the reign of the Gang of Four this would've been a very different story.
Neither was 1917 or 1776 really, revolutions do not require a majority of the population to support it to succeed
 

RousseauX

Donor
The protesters weren't entirely clear on what they wanted. Plus, the Chinese economy had seen definite material improvements over the most recent 10 year period (since Deng's reforms in the late 70's) whereas the Soviet economy had been moving the other direction. The CCP could (and still does) point to the material gains as the basis for their legitimacy. Most people, when it really comes down to it, will choose prosperity over freedom.
China's situation was vastly different from that of Eastern Europe. As @zeppelinair says, they thought things were getting better and not just delaying the inevitable, so they were willing to use force when those in East Germany and Czechoslovakia really weren't anymore.
Except in 1989 prosperity for the urban half didn't seem all long lasting, inflation was at 25% in major chinese cities at a time when wages were fixed because price liberalization and there was major popular protests in almost every major city. And you can see why because if your salary stays the same you are basically getting paid 1/4 less each year. I think we over depend on economic explanations when it wasn't all that clear what the average Chinese urban dweller thought about the economic future in the summer of 1989.

Additionally the Tiananmen Square protesters didn't have any alternative power structure in place either. The Soviet Empire wasn't overthrown, if you recall, it disintegrated. The local power structures just started ignoring the metropole en masse. There were no local/alternative power structures in China.
That's not quite what happened either, the dissolution of the Soviet Union came from Russia and not the peripheries outside the baltics.
 

RousseauX

Donor
Prague Spring was met with tanks, and was crushed. Tianamin was met with tanks and was crushed.

It depends on a couple of things. Basically, if the military is willing to fire machine guns or drive tanks into crowds of peaceful protesters, it is incredibly hard for protests to succeed. By 1989 the communist regimes in Europe had lost enough legitimacy that the military refused to fire on civilians.
Most of the Communist regimes did not even try to send the military against the people in 1989, in most of the east bloc the Communist parties agreed to peaceful dissolve themselves or give up power and transform themselves into electoral parties.

This reflects a lack of faith in themselves as well as their policies and ideologies, I basically agree with you that the key factor is that the regimes didn't shoot the protesters in Europe.

The only place where just shooting the protesters was really talked about were east Germany and Romania, and the party revolted against Hanueker in the GDR while the army revolted against ceausescu in Romania when his secret police moved against the crowds. And it's no accident that the fall of Romania was what made the Chinese leadership really nervous.
 
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Prague Spring was met with tanks, and was crushed. Tianamin was met with tanks and was crushed.

It depends on a couple of things. Basically, if the military is willing to fire machine guns or drive tanks into crowds of peaceful protesters, it is incredibly hard for protests to succeed. By 1989 the communist regimes in Europe had lost enough legitimacy that the military refused to fire on civilians.

Harry Turtledove did a short story 'The Last Article' which has Nazi tanks rolling into India, and Gandhi's nonviolent protest is crushed.

Also. If footage of such repression gets widely seen (which requires non-governmental resources) the repressive authorities have a much harder time.

Film footage of Vietnam and the Civil Rights protests made it hard for US authorities (including State governemts) to be repressive.

The lack of a widespread internet in China at the time meant Tianamin footage wasn't widely seen. I suspect a similar protest today would be far more effective.

That's the point. And as one of the eight so-called immortals explained after the repression : "it took forty million dead to establish the communist regime in China. One can't take power from us unless he is prepared to pay the same price."

These men would indeed not have hesitated to kill tens of millions of chinese people in order to retain their power and their material privileges.
 
That's the point. And as one of the eight so-called immortals explained after the repression : "it took forty million dead to establish the communist regime in China. One can't take power from us unless he is prepared to pay the same price."

Elders, actually.
 
There's an element of contingency to all this. The Tiananmen protests really *did* seriously threaten the CCP's rule on power. There were open splits, with some in the army mutinying, party leaders and local cadres expressing sympathy or joining the protests, unions nearly calling a general strike, etc.

It didn't succeed because the regime was able to crack down at the right moment. But it was a nearer-run thing than many remember now. Had Deng and the hardliners hesitated by even a few weeks, they could well have been overtaken by events. There were moves afoot internally to oust Deng, and had a general strike broken out and had the army refused orders to crack down, it could well have escalated.

Now, whether a post-Tiananmen regime turns out democratic is a harder question. Even though free elections weren't actually the main demand by protesters, it's very easy to see that a post-Deng regime - and the logic of revolution - leading to a political liberalization and elections by 1990 or '91. But whether that regime could consolidate is an open question. Quite possible that Zhao Ziyang ends up as China's Yeltsin and it lapses back into kind of an authoritarian Putin-like state.
 
The protesters weren't entirely clear on what they wanted. Plus, the Chinese economy had seen definite material improvements over the most recent 10 year period (since Deng's reforms in the late 70's) whereas the Soviet economy had been moving the other direction. The CCP could (and still does) point to the material gains as the basis for their legitimacy. Most people, when it really comes down to it, will choose prosperity over freedom.
There was widespread resentment at how party apparatchiks used their status to enrich themselves in the new market economy. For instance, entire navy transport units were being used to smuggle in Japanese cars. Many goods were being sold with two prices: one for government clients, and one for the private buyers, thus inviting corruption.

Additionally the Tiananmen Square protesters didn't have any alternative power structure in place either. The Soviet Empire wasn't overthrown, if you recall, it disintegrated. The local power structures just started ignoring the metropole en masse. There were no local/alternative power structures in China.
The student protesters in Beijing were hopelessly divided and spent so much energy arguing among themselves, they literally couldn't manage their dorm.

Source: two separate individuals who were both involved in the movement

Ultimately, Deng had to act decisively to reassert not just the Party's control over China, but also his own control over the Party. Without the crackdown, the protest likely would have petered out in disarray, but Deng himself would have been weakened.
 
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