'The Tiananmen Square uprising: when Chinese workers and students fought for freedom'. A discussion at Ideas for Freedom 2019, led by Dr. Camila Bassi (Sheffield Hallam University, Workers' Liberty)
30 years ago, an uprising of workers and students faced the military might of the Chinese state. What were the demands of the uprising, and why was it crushed so brutally? What are the lessons for those fighting for democracy against authoritarian regimes today?
Note: the text referred to but not read out at 39.50 can be found here:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1GDW0FlRzQVvIcUEvsZ6W3lJFUIHRxp0M
The novel referred to is Ma Jian's "Beijing Coma", the autobiographical account is "Almost a Revolution: The Story of a Chinese Student's Journey from Boyhood to Leadership in Tiananmen Square" by Shen Tong, and one of the other historians referred to is Rana Mitter
Check out this article workersliberty.org/story/2019-03-30/road-tienanmen-square-workers-and-students-chinafreedom
