From November 1978 to December 1979, thousands of people put up "big character posters" on a long brick wall of Xidan Street, Xicheng District of Beijing, to protest about the political and social issues of China; the wall became known as the Democracy Wall of Xidan (). Under acquiescence of the Chinese government, other kinds of protest activities, such as unofficial journals, petitions, and demonstrations, were also soon spreading out in major cities of China. This movement can be seen as the beginning of the Chinese Democracy Movement. It is also known as the "Democracy Wall Movement". This short period of political liberation was known as the Beijing Spring.
Background
The Cultural Revolution
In 1966, when Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution, millions of middle school, high school, and college students answered Mao's call, being organized as the Red Guards to rebel and root out the capitalist roaders from within the Chinese Communist Party. But, in 1969, after using students in restoring the social order, Mao launched the Down to the Countryside Movement to exile the student Red Guards to rural areas. This movement caused a lot of red guards to feel purposely abandoned by Mao.
In 1971, Lin Biao's attempted coup and death shattered the widespread belief in Mao's infallibility and in the Cultural Revolution's success. On November 19, 1974, Li Yizhe's paper appeared on a wall in Guangdong Province. The 67 pages of the paper focused on: (1) Damage to the citizens caused by bureaucratic corruptions of the Chinese Communist Party during the Cultural Revolution; and (2) the need to practice democracy and a legal system in China. This big character poster proved that people started to re-evaluate the Cultural Revolution and political system of China.
The core of the Democracy Movement was composed of former Red Guards.
The Tiananmen Incident of 1976
Premier Zhou Enlai, a widely respected senior CCP leader, died on January 8, 1976. On April 5, at the Qingming Festival, thousands of Beijing's residents gathered in Tiananmen Square. They wrote poems and put up big character posters in Tiananmen Square to mourn for Zhou and express their anger towards the impious Gang of Four and the destructive Cultural Revolution. In response, Mao ordered the police and the PLA to disperse the people, and around four thousand were arrested. This incident was also called the April 5th Movement. Deng Xiaoping was announced as the "black hand" of the movement. On April 7, Mao Zedong proposed that the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CCP denounce Deng Xiaoping's official positions and that Hua Guofeng would assume Deng's positions as Prime Minister of the State Council and the vice-chairman of the CCP. The committee adopted both proposals. After Deng came back to work, he started to fix some political decisions of Mao's era. During the spring of 1978, 130,000 victims of the Anti-Rightist Movement who had been removed from their positions in 1957, recovered their social statuses. Deng continued to challenge Hua's legitimacy and fight for the domination in ideological field. For example, Deng wrote an essay on May 24, 1977, titled "The 'Two Whatever' Policy Does Not Accord With Marxism". Under the support of Deng Xiaoping, Hu Yaobang indicated a party journal, Theoretical Trends to publish the article "Pragmatism is the Only Standard in Measuring Truth" on May 10, 1978, which marked the key difference between Deng and Hua. This article was re-published in Guangming Daily, People's Daily, and People's Liberation Army Daily and soon caused a huge discussion movement in China, which was called The Discussion on Criteria of Truth .
Ideologies
The Democracy Wall movement framed the key issue as the elimination of bureaucratism and the bureaucratic class. It involved many individuals and small groups with diverse political views and areas of concern. "From an organizational standpoint, there was no single movement" While Democracy Wall participants agreed that "democracy" was the means to resolve the conflict between the bureaucratic class and the people, the nature of the proposed democratic institutions was a major source of disagreement. A majority of participants in the movement viewed the movement as part of a struggle between correct and incorrect notions of Marxism. Many participants advocated classical Marxist views that drew on the Paris Commune for inspiration. The Democracy Wall movement also included non-Marxists and anti-Marxists, although these participants were a minority.
Thus, demands for "democracy" were frequent but without an agreed-upon meaning. These journals likewise discussed a wide range of topics and ideological stances, including commentaries on socialism, democracy, Marxism, civil rights, and morality, socioeconomic conditions (including wage reform, inequality, and consumer and housing shortages) as well as artistic and literary matters.
Wall posters
Under the influence of the official discussion, the general public also started to put up big character posters to cause a debate. On August 18, 1977, the 11th National Congress of the CCP recommended adding the "Four Freedoms" (Chinese: 四大自由) to Article 45 of the constitution. ("Four Freedoms" or "Four Big" was a political slogan during the Cultural Revolution, which means people have the rights to freedom of speech, freedom of debate, and freedom of putting up big character posters.) From June to July 1978, big character posters were widely spread on major universities of Beijing. The posters were initially encouraged to criticize the Gang of Four and previous failed government policies as part of Deng Xiaoping's struggle to gain political power. In September, foreign journalists reported that they were allowed free contact with the Chinese people. This report was reproduced in the CCP's internal journal, Reference Information.
The beginning of the Democracy Wall
On October 1, 1978, the words "to liberate thought, to provide the best service to the people are the duties of CCP members", a theme for the CCP Party, was posted on the Xidan Wall in Beijing by civilians. Since then, people were allowed to post their opinions and free-style literature on street walls throughout the country. On November 23, Lü Pu (Chinese: 吕朴) posted his writings on the Democracy Wall in Xidan. He critiqued Mao Zedong and pointed out that the real reasons behind the April 5 Movement were a backward economy, rigid thought control, and the poor living conditions of the people. This poster was called the "Fire Lighter of Democracy Wall". On November 25, 1978, the Democracy Assembly Group was formed by Ren Wanding and eight other youths. Two days later they gathered at Xidan Democracy Wall and led a public march to Tiananmen Square. Over 10,000 participants demanded democracy and human rights for China. This date marks the beginning of the Democracy Wall. On November 26, he told the Japanese delegates of the Democratic Socialist Party that, according to the Constitution, the Democracy Wall activities were legal. However, he noted that some party comrades did not want to criticize Mao, and he agreed. Deng's attitude caused more and more people gathering in Democracy Wall and put up poster to express their opinions and support Deng.
"The Fifth Modernization"
However, besides the pro-Deng group, there was also anti-Deng voice. On December 5, 1978, the most famous poster of the Democracy Wall, "The Fifth Modernization: Democracy and Others" written by writer and activist Wei Jingsheng, was posted on Democracy Wall. This long article strongly criticized the undemocratic practice of Mao and Deng. It also emphasized that (1) the history of Germany, Russia and China proved that anti-democracy was the cause of the poor living conditions of the people; and (2) the political system of Yugoslavia would be a good model for bringing economic wellbeing to the people.
Petitioners' wall poster
Besides the big character posters, that talk about the democracy, freedom, and human rights, there were also many posters written by petitioners detailing the suffering and persecution endured during the Cultural Revolution and bureaucratic corruption of local officials. They put up their posters on the same walls and tried to draw attention from the central government to solve their individual cases. However, because this kind of posters were written by less educated people, except for some articles which were re-published in unofficial journals, most of the petitioner's posters were torn off afterwards.
Unofficial journals
Academic Liu Sheng-chi writes that the journals of the Democracy Wall movement fall into three categories: (1) the radical left, (2) moderates, and (3) the radical right. The activities were also seeking to organize together to form a stronger concentrated structure. On January 15, 1979, six leading unofficial journals announced their intention to fight for the basic constitutional rights: freedom of speech and freedom of the press without retaliation. These freedoms were never realized. On January 28, the members of seven unofficial journals in Beijing organized a joint conference to counter the criticism against their literature on Democracy Wall. These members then met weekly to discuss recent public issues.