Eyewitness in China
The events in Tiananmen Square, May-June 1989
by Steve Jolly
thirst for theory
On the next days I had further discussions with the leaders and many discussions around the tents.
And time and time again - it was something I have never experienced in political work in the Western world - I would just go up to a tent, start discussing, and once I explained who I was, immediately people would gather round, and offer cold drinks, cigarettes, pat me on the back, want my autograph as if I was some kind of pop star! But it wasn't done from a sycophantic "it's nice to know a Westerner", point of view, but because "you are the very first Western socialist I have ever met, and its a real privilege to meet you." Of course, really the privilege was mine, not theirs. And I cannot overstress that there was a real thirst for theory, if you want to put it in one sentence, as far as the students were concerned. And over and over again, in these discussions, we would end up in complete agreement on ideas and the way forward.
One thing that should be said was that there was a very good cultural level among these students: an absence of swearing, of drugs, of alcohol, and of sexism. In the Square female and male students would lie amongst each other, together, to sleep, without any hassles at all. People of different sexes treat each other with great respect.
At the end of Tuesday some of the students organised for me to speak at a meeting of the leaders. At that meeting I was privileged to be given the badge of Tiananmen Square. It's a badge of which only limited numbers were made for those students who had done heroic duties. To them it was like the equivalent of the Victoria Cross so far as British imperialism was concerned. I felt very privileged to be given this. A lot of the students I was meeting with hadn't got one and I think they were a bit jealous that I had! And that badge is one thing I'll never part with, unless perhaps someone offers $1000 to the Fighting Fund of the Australian Militant, then I might consider it! But short of that, I'll keep it forever.
Independent Trade Union
At the end of Monday something happened which was absolutely tremendous. Some of the students said: "Why don't you come with us and we'll introduce you to some workers who want to start an independent trade union movement." So they took me through the Square to the Forbidden City. Now I don't know if you have ever seen the movie The Last Emperor, but that film shows how the Forbidden City was identified with the old rule of the Chinese Emperors. So now I was taken to it, and there was this huge locked gate, about 10 meters high, in front of which were not students but workers, looking at the gate trying to get in. On the other side were six workers armed with baseball bats, a small workers' militia I suppose you could say, guarding the gate. Behind them were thirty workers' leaders who were preparing for the formation of an independent trade union, what they deemed to be Solidarity, Polish-style.
So my guide/translator and I, with a security pass from the students, pushed our way through the workers wanting to get through the gate, and when we got to the fence, the workers' militia looked at us very sternly. Probably they thought I was some kind of journo trying to get in for a story! But once they understood who I was they opened the gates to let us in - and all the workers tried to get in behind us, and had to be held back, such was the enthusiasm for the formation of an independent trade union movement, and to find out what was going on.
By the way, talking of enthusiasm to know what was going on, just walking down the streets, you would find groups of people gathered around a telegraph pole. At first I thought, this is very odd, what are all these people looking at a telegraph pole for? But when you got there, you would see underground newspapers taped onto the pole, or lamppost, and everybody would be reading these, and fighting their way to the front to do so. It was like something you read about the Russian Revolution in 1917. It was absolutely tremendous. And anybody who came out with leaflets was literally mobbed. It was like handing out 10 dollar notes in Sydney. I mean people would just come up and grab them off you. People would read almost anything. I happened to get my hands on a capitalist Hong Kong newspaper and even that was ripped to shreds. People were begging me for photographs from it, and so on. Such was the thirst for information and ideas.
So ... we got to the forbidden City. And once these workers' leaders found out who I was and what I was doing there, they literally went into a sort of a frenzy. I have never seen anything like it. It was even better than the students, the response. They were saying "This is fantastic". They pulled up six chairs, for me, for my translator, and for four of the workers' leaders. Not for bureaucratic reasons but because of a slightly more disciplined attitude than the students, they insisted only six people could come to that meeting ... and later I could talk to the rest of the thirty. The other workers were so annoyed that two of them burst into tears because they weren't allowed to sit with us to discuss the ideas.
One difference from discussing with the students was that all the workers took notes. They all had notebooks, and they took down every single word I said (because less of them spoke English than the students, I was speaking slowly through my translator). We discussed for three hours solid, mainly on the questions of the lessons of Solidarity in Poland. The workers, because they were very serious, quickly copped onto what I was saying. "Basically what you are saying is that we've got to overthrow the Communist Party", they said. The penny dropped much more quickly than with the students. That's no indictment of the students, by the way, but results from the class nature and role of the workers in society. Also, a lot of these people had families. They were literally putting their whole families' lives on the line.
One of the workers told me that he gives 80% of his salary towards the independent union. He said: "It's all I've got in life". I said: "You mean its like an investment for the future". So he said, "That's exactly what it is!" It reminded me of some of the reports I've heard from South Africa as to how workers look towards their union as the escape route from apartheid and capitalism.
With the students it was much easier to get basic agreement over the basic ideas, even full agreement on the full programme. With the workers, once it got to the question of overthrowing the Communist Party, and a new workers' and students' government, they weren't willing to swallow that unless they were totally convinced that I was serious in what I was saying. It was all very well for me to come from overseas and mouth off about that, but it was them who would have to implement it. So the discussion came back time and time again to the question of whether it was possible to win their demands within the framework of Communist Party rule. They needed to be convinced time and time again that it was impossible. And it was not easy to explain this lesson against the apparent example of something like Solidarity in Poland. But at the end of the three hours we had had a tremendous discussion. They said: "Tomorrow we are going to form our trade union. Would you like to come and speak at the founding meeting? Come back to the Forbidden City and we'll talk." I thought fine, I'll come back and offer our solidarity with this development, and discuss its future with these thirty workers. And I went away to have more discussions with students.
When I came back the next day, three of the four leaders I had spoken to had been arrested the previous night, and with their notebooks. This got me a bit worried to be quite honest! Why had they been arrested? In fact, over those days, discussion was going on within the bureaucracy about what they should do. "Should we crush the movement, should we send in the army, or should we let it wither away?" And in my opinion it was once they got wind of the potential development of an independent trade union movement - knowing from the experience of Solidarity how such a movement could develop quickly - that was the turning point. That was the point, in my view, when they decided, look, we've got to put the boot in here, we've got to clamp down. So the arrest of those three workers' leaders was no coincidence, because none of the students had been arrested at that stage, at least as far as Beijing was concerned. But these workers were arrested absolutely immediately, as soon as the bureaucracy got wind of what was taking place.
When I arrived at the Forbidden City on Tuesday, I was told of the arrests. Obviously I did all in our power, so far as having international links was concerned, to organise solidarity action to get these three released. By the way, they were released the following day - although most of them have been killed since then, but I'll get to that later. Developments were overtaken by events.
When I got to the Forbidden City that evening everybody was packing, preparing to leave. I said: "What's going on with the meeting." They replied: "The meeting's not going to be here. We are having it across the road." So I said: "Oh". We sat there for a couple of hours, till it began to get dark, and at about 7-8 o'clock we walked across the street from the Forbidden City into Tiananmen Square. It was nighttime, after work. And posters had gone up all around Beijing in the previous 24 hours, saying that an independent trade union was going to be set up tonight. So half a million people were in the square by 9pm. I would say a good 40=50% of them were workers.