Goddess of Democracy

The Goddess of Democracy, also known as the Goddess of Democracy and Freedom, the Spirit of Democracy, and the Goddess of Liberty (;

Construction

Near the end of May 1989 the Democracy Movement in Tiananmen Square, though still attracting huge throngs of participants, was losing momentum in the face of government inaction on reforms. One historian said the movement "appeared to have sunk to its nadir. The number of students in the Square continued to decline. Those remaining seemed to have no clear leadership: Chai Ling, tired and disheartened by the difficulties of keeping the Movement together, had resigned from her post...[the Square] had degenerated into a shantytown, strewn with litter and permeated by the stench of garbage and overflowing portable toilets... Tianamen, once a magnet pulling in huge throngs, had become only an unkempt campground of little interest to citizens, many of whom considered the struggle for democracy lost."

thumb|Vera Mukhina's [[Worker and Kolkhoz Woman sculpture (seen on a Russian stamp here on the right) influenced the creators of the Goddess of Democracy]]

When the time came to transport the pieces of the statue to the Square, the State Security Bureau, hearing of the students' intention, declared that any truck drivers assisting them would lose their licenses. The students hired six Beijing carts (similar to a bicycle rickshaw except with a flat cart instead of a passenger area). Four carried the statue segments, and two carried the tools required to install it. The students had leaked a false itinerary of the move to throw off the authorities and moved the statue's three segments from the Central Academy of Fine Arts to the Square by another route. Students of the other academies assisting in the construction linked arms around the carts for protection in case the authorities arrived. At dusk on May 29, with fewer than 10,000 protesters remaining in the square, the Art Students constructed bamboo scaffolding and then began assembling the statue. By the early morning of May 30, the statue was fully assembled in Tiananmen Square. It broke up the north–south axis of the Square, standing between the Monument to the People's Heroes, and the Tiananmen Gate (which it faced looking at its large photograph of Mao Zedong). Whether the students had intended it or not "dozens of television cameras expertly framed the ironic, silent confrontation between Goddess and chairman." Even as classes began by the statue, to the west of the square and at Muxidi thousands of students moved to block the oncoming 27th Army who were armed with tanks, assault rifles, and bayonets. Blood was spilled by 10:30 p.m.

Fall of the Goddess

The soldiers were able to fulfill their timeline of reaching the Square on June 4, 1989, by 1 a.m. through the use of tanks and armored personnel carriers. The Goddess of Democracy had stood for only five days before being destroyed by soldiers of the People's Liberation Army in the assault on Tiananmen that would end the Democracy Movement. It was "quickly and easily reduced to rubble, mixing with all the other rubble in the Square. To be cleared away by the Army".

Several replicas of the statue have been erected worldwide to commemorate the events of 1989:

A replica erected at a vigil attended by tens of thousands of people in Victoria Park, Hong Kong on June 4, 1996. It was removed 23 December 2021 by the Hong Kong police due to China's censorship of the Tiananmen Square events.
A bronze sculpture was begun in 1989, dedicated in 1994, by Thomas Marsh, leading a group of volunteers. Standing in Portsmouth Square, in San Francisco's Chinatown, it weighs approximately and bears the inscription, "Dedicated to Those Who Strive For and Cherish Human Rights and Democracy."
A copy at the University of British Columbia, erected by the school's Alma Mater Society. This is a epoxy and white marble dust mixture replica erected in 1991. In 2018, the UBC student newspaper detailed the tensions around the piece. In 2019, one of the Grad Class Gifts to the UBC Vancouver campus included "$5,000 to be allocated to the revitalization of the Goddess of Democracy and a Tiananmen Square 30-year recognition ceremony."
A gilded replica stood in the foyer of the Student Centre at York University in Toronto, Ontario. It was removed in 2011 (allegedly due to its deteriorating condition) and replaced outdoors by a smaller bronze replica outside the Student Centre in June 2012.
A replica of the San Francisco statue was erected in an outdoor museum in Freedom Park Arlington, Virginia, to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the protests.
An unknown artist's fiberglass copy was erected at the University of Calgary in 1995, commemorating students who died in the uprisings six years earlier.
A lantern sculpture of a figure wearing native Taiwanese dress, but standing in a two-handed torch-bearing pose recalling the Goddess of Democracy, was erected in advance of the 2009 World Games in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. The start of the games coincided with the twentieth anniversary of the events in China.
Two small-scale replicas were built and set up in Hong Kong in 2010 for the Tiananmen Square protests memorial gatherings, but were confiscated by the Hong Kong Police Force after a public display at Times Square Public Space. It was subsequently returned due to serious public opinion pressure, and was displayed at the vigil on June 4, 2010, at Victoria Park. After the candle night memorial gathering, the new 3-meter (10') bronze statue of the Goddess of Democracy was moved to the Chinese University of Hong Kong campus for permanent display at its entrance of University Train Station. The erection of this bronze statue of the Goddess of Democracy was not approved by the university administration but 2000 Chinese university students, staff and alum with many other Hong Kong citizen worked together after the Victoria Park gathering to guard the statue to move to Chinese University campus.
The Democracy Award given by the National Endowment for Democracy is a small-scale replica of the Goddess of Democracy.
A 10 ft (3-meter) bronze replica, Victims of Communism Memorial, is in Washington, D.C.
An augmented reality version of the statue created by the artists collective 4Gentlemen, part of Tiananmen SquARed, a two part augmented reality public art project and memorial.

Tsao Tsing-yuan, an advisor to the students who built the original, writes "I myself envision a day when another replica, as large as the original and more permanent, stands in Tiananmen Square, with the names of those who died there written in gold on its base. It may well stand there after the Chairman Mao's Mausoleum has, in its turn, been pulled down."