Was the Tiananmen Square really a revolution?

Due to the lack of important revolution characteristics defined by the Bucklow and Russell theory, the events of the Tiananmen Square in 1989 cannot be considered a revolution. The Bucklow and Russell’s revolution theory and Hosbawm states that a revolution is triggered by the failure of government to introduce gradual reform which causes deep dissatisfaction amongst the people, this causes a large amount of opposition to the government lead by groups with leaders, the refusal to reform by the government follows which then causes the oppositions to overthrow the old government by force with violence which through the process of civil war. A new government with a different system is then introduced but this cycle can possibly repeat. The events from the Tiananmen Square shows us very different characteristics from the defined revolution including the triggers of the event, the peaceful way of approaching the government, the lack of civil war and the main characteristic of a revolution missing, where the old government gets overthrown.

The events of the Tiananmen Square massacre were triggered from the death of Hu Yaobang who was a capitalist and open to the idea of democracy, unlike the definition by Bucklow and Russell where a revolution is triggered by the failure of the government to introduce gradual reform. The government of China didn’t intend to introduce anything new, instead, due to the death of a capitalist triggered a group of students to fight for democracy. Similar to a revolution, the want for this new idea caused a large group of people deep dissatisfaction which resulted to unions with leaders being formed. However, the root causes of these characteristics were motivated by the opposes themselves and not any actions done by the government. In the Bucklow and Russell theory, the deep dissatisfaction and continual failure of government cycles for a while. This definition is understood that the cycle happens due to the fact the government is continuing trying to introduce a reform which contrasted to the case of 1989 where the government just responded with a very straight forward reply, which is by telling them to stop but the strikers continued to do what they were doing causing this cycle. A revolution is defined to be triggered by the government however in the case of 1989, the event was triggered by a death of a capitalist who had different views of the government and upraised by the oppositions themselves which has nothing to do the government’s actions.

The lack of violence towards the government from the strikers demonstrates another key element that contributes to a revolution which is missing. The striker’s main tactic of achieving what they want is by sit-ins at the Tiananmen Square which is a peaceful way of protest where they just sit there to remind the government they want something. This opposes from the Bucklow and Russell definition where the revolutionaries use force and violence towards the government to achieve what they want. This may include assassinations and bombing government property. However, the worst they did in the massacre was hunger strikes where they refused to eat until the government responded to them. This does not physically harm the government at all and they are only hurting themselves to try to get attention from the government. The lack of the characteristics of a revolution where violence towards the government isn’t present in the Tiananmen Square Massacre 1989, instead the strikers only sit-in and starve themselves to try to gain attention which is considered a fairly peaceful way of protesting.
A revolution is generally defined by the Hosbawm’s theory is to have a civil war between the government and it’s people where the government and opposes fight each other to maintain power over the country. However, this is not present at all in the Tiananmen Square 1989 event. During the massacre in 1989, the government used military force including firing at the crowd and tanks to run over anyone in the way in order to remove the strikers from the square. Instead of fighting back the government, the student strikers feared and panicked and evacuated the square within hours. Despite the fact that the strikers had no weapons, they didn’t try to fight back at all and surrendered as soon as they heard that there was real military action by the government. This is not a spirit of revolutionist where they are willing to give up their life and give all they got to fight against the government. Everything was back to normal all within a few days as if the event never happened. This is very unlike a key element to a definition of a revolution where there is ongoing civil war between the government and opposes, however, in the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre the protesters did not fight back or resist the government, instead they quickly evacuated the square and everything went back to normal.

The most important and main feature of a revolution is the overthrow of the government and a start of a new government, however this feature is missing in the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre. The government does not get overthrown at all, in fact the strikers got overthrown by the government which is the opposite of the definition defined by Bucklow and Russell. The government almost single handed got rid of all the strikers through the use of military action causing an evacuation from the square for the students. A new government did not get established and nothing changed from the old. The government being overthrown is a crucial part of revolution and is clearly missing the events of the Tiananmen Square Massacre 1989.

Overall, the events of the Tiananmen Square Massacre 1989 cannot be classified as a revolution due to many crucial characteristics missing. These crucial characteristics include the reason how a revolution should be started, the lack of violence and force towards the government, the missing event of a civil war and most importantly the un-present event of the old government getting overthrown.