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Soviet Invasion Of Afghanistan 1979 And Rise Of Islamic Jihad

Afghanistan is where the last of the Cold Wars were fought. And it is where the modern threat of Islamic terror was spawned. In 1979 the Soviet Union made its last attempt at muscle flexing when it invaded Afghanistan. It took ten years for Russia to realise that the Soviet system was falling apart and that it had no money to finance its international adventures.


America helped Russia in that comprehension by financing Islamic Mujahideen who made life miserable for the Russians in Afghanistan. If the US thought in 1989 that it had acted very cleverly by doing this, it was wrong.

A few years later the monster it had created to kill the earlier monster of Russian communism came back to haunt America. The roots of Al Qaeda lay in the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

The Russians in 1989 were very relieved to get out of a quagmire called Afghanistan

WHY DID THE INVASION COME ABOUT?

In Christmas 1979, Russian paratroopers landed in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. The country was already in the grip of a civil war. The prime minister, Hazifullah Amin, tried to sweep aside Muslim tradition within the nation and he wanted a more western slant to Afghanistan. This outraged the majority of those in Afghanistan as a strong tradition of Muslim belief was common in the country.

Thousands of Muslim leaders had been arrested and many more had fled the capital and gone to the mountains to escape Amin's police. Amin also lead a communist based government - a belief that rejects religion and this was another reason for such obvious discontent with his government.

Thousands of Afghanistan Muslims joined the Mujahideen - a guerilla force on a holy mission for Allah. They wanted the overthrow of the Amin government. The Mujahideen declared a jihad - a holy war - on the supporters of Amin. This was also extended to the Russians who were now in Afghanistan trying to maintain the power of the Amin government. The Russians claimed that they had been invited in by the Amin government and that they were not invading the country. They claimed that their task was to support a legitimate government and that the Mujahideen were no more than terrorists.

Guidetorussia


VIDEO: Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan: PART 1




End of the nightmare. Russian troops come home.

Mikhail Gorbachev took Russia out of the Afghanistan fiasco when he realised what many Russian leaders had been too scared to admit in public - that Russia could not win the war and the cost of maintaining such a vast force in Afghanistan was crippling Russia's already weak economy.


VIDEO: PART 2




Soviet Union's pet dog, the stooge Afghan regime in Kabul, had to be left behind to the wolves

 According to this 1998 interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, the CIA's intervention in Afghanistan preceded the 1979 Soviet invasion. This decision of the Carter Administration in 1979 to intervene and destabilise Afghanistan is the root cause of Afghanistan's destruction as a nation.

Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?
Brzezinski: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?

Q: Some stirred-up Moslems? But it has been said and repeated Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today.
Brzezinski: Nonsense! It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn't a global Islam. Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers. But what is there in common among Saudi Arabian fundamentalism, moderate Morocco, Pakistan militarism, Egyptian pro-Western or Central Asian secularism? Nothing more than what unites the Christian countries.

VIDEO: PART 3






Often tanks are of little use against a determined adversary.

THE EVENTS AS THEY HAPPENED

1978

27 April: Afghanistan's communist People's Democratic Party seizes power in a coup but begins internal feuding. The country is renamed Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA). An Islamic and conservative insurgency soon begins in the provinces.

5 December: A friendship treaty is signed with the USSR, building on Soviet economic and military support given to Afghanistan since the early 1950s.

1979

March: The USSR begins massive military aid to the DRA, including hundreds of advisers, as the US scales down its presence after the murder of its kidnapped ambassador. Afghan soldiers mutiny in Herat, massacring Soviet citizens before their rebellion is crushed.

September: Hafizullah Amin emerges as DRA leader from a bout of bloodletting in the government during which President Nur Mohammed Taraki is killed.

Soviet armour moves past Afghan civilians during withdrawal in 1988
The USSR said it had no troops left in Afghanistan after February 1989

24 December: The Soviet defence ministry reveals orders to senior staff to send troops into Afghanistan, following a decision taken by the Politbureau's inner circle on 12 December. Commandos seize strategic installations in Kabul.

29 December: After a week of heavy fighting during which Soviet commandos kill Amin and ground forces pour across the border, Babrak Kamal is installed as the DRA's new Soviet-backed leader.

1980

Resistance intensifies with various mujahideen groups fighting Soviet forces and their DRA allies. The US, Pakistan, China, Iran and Saudi Arabia supply money and arms. The US leads a boycott of the Moscow Olympics.

1982

The United Nations General Assembly calls for Soviet withdrawal.

1985

Half of the Afghan population is now estimated to be displaced by the war, with many fleeing to neighbouring Iran or Pakistan. New Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev says he will withdraw troops from Afghanistan.

1986

The US begins supplying mujahideen with Stinger missiles, enabling them to shoot down Soviet helicopter gunships. Karmal is replaced by Mohammed Najibullah.

1988

The DRA, USSR, US and Pakistan sign peace accords and the Soviets begin pulling out troops.

1989

15 February:The USSR announces the departure of the last Soviet troops. Civil war continues as the mujahideen push to overthrow Najibullah, who is eventually toppled in 1992.

BBC

VIDEO: PART 4






SOVIETS THEN, AMERICANS NOW

After 10 years of fighting the Afghans, the Soviet Union finally pulled out and learned a hard lesson about Afghanistan and its people and its history of resisting empires.

This resiliency is the central fact of Afghan history and it seems America — its military and diplomatic leadership — has made little effort to understand the lessons of history learned by those empires that went before them, particularly the Soviets.

For sure, all wars are different. The Soviets invaded for different reasons on Dec. 24, 1979, than the U.S. did on Oct. 7, 2001, and the Soviets came with different intentions. But the fight they fought — and lost — on the ground is very similar to the one the U.S. is fighting — and losing — on the ground right now.

Back then it was a battle to control the road network just as it is today. The Soviets were crippled when insurgents cut off the supply lines. The U.S. is suffering the same fate.

Trenin, who is the director of Carnegie Moscow Center, served for more than 20 years in the Russian military during the time of the occupation of Afghanistan, and eventually taught at the war studies department at the Soviet Military Institute.

“When the Soviet Union went into Afghanistan, it was not thinking about the exit. It had a concept of what it wanted to bring to Afghanistan, and less of an idea of what Afghanistan wanted or even what it was all about. The Soviets learned the hard way what Afghanistan was all about and that what they were offering the country did not want,” Trenin said.

“The U.S. is making the same mistake. But they are also making some of their own unique mistakes. They are not all the same mistakes as the Soviet Union,” he said.

“The U.S. is going to withdraw from Afghanistan, and it will leave without having accomplished the mission set by Bush to create a democratic state,” said Trenin, referring to President George W. Bush.

“In the end, the U.S. will leave Afghanistan not having done much to effect change in the country. Afghanistan will change at its own pace, and that’s the lesson empires learn in Afghanistan.”



VIDEO: PART 5




 HOW THE DECISION TO INVADE WAS MADE

KGB officers on the ground argued that if Moscow did not intervene more aggressively, Amin would surely be overthrown and an Islamic government installed. I attended a meeting of KGB intelligence and Soviet military intelligence in which the GRU [Soviet military intelligence] chief, General Ivashutin, argued strenuously for an invasion. "There is no other alternative but to introduce our troops to support the Afghan government and crush the rebels," he said.
Foreignpolicy



CIA'S ASSESSMENT IN 1985

By 1985 when the CIA released its assessment of Moscow's performance, "The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan: Five Years After," the Red Army had suffered 8,000 fatalities in a sea of 25,000 casualties. Efforts to transform the country into a reliable client state met a stone wall. At best, occasional truces and bribery bought temporary loyalties. Things looked grim. "More than five years after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, they are bogged down in a guerrilla war of increasing intensity...The Soviets control less territory than they did in 1980, and their airfields, garrisons, and lines of communication are increasingly subject to insurgent attack."

Still, CIA analysts anticipated that Moscow would soldier on and augment what had become a 110,000 force with an additional 10,000 specialized combat and support units. The Agency speculated that frustration and the deteriorating situation could drive the Kremlin to add an additional 50,000 men. But the US analysts remained dubious. "Even then, however, they would not have enough troops to maintain control in much of the countryside as long as the insurgents have access to strong external support and open borders."

The analysts added that Kremlin "leadership miscalculated, and they acknowledge that they have paid a higher price than they anticipated. They are still searching for an effective way of pacifying Afghanistan short of a massive infusion of military forces." The objective, "to create a situation where the Afghan Communists can rule own their own country without a large Soviet military presence--and do so at the lowest possible costs in terms of Soviet lives and resources." The conundrum, "The insurgents are stronger than at any time since the invasion."

Despite repeated changes in Soviet tactics, an aggressive effort to restrict infiltration from Pakistan and Iran and to bolster the "illiterate, ill trained, unready for combat" Afghan army, Moscow found itself unable to generate an effective strategy. The divided and incompetent Afghan government complicated matters.

What the CIA did not foresee was the possibility that Moscow would retreat from Afghanistan. Rather its analysts concluded, "If the Soviet hold on Afghanistan were seriously threatened, we do not rule out a much more sizable reinforcement...." And what would that force require? "An increase of perhaps 100,000 to 150,000 [troops] might allow the Soviets to clear and hold major cities and large parts of the countryside to block infiltration from Pakistan and Iran, although it probably could not do both." To achieve both objectives, the Kremlin would require more troops, many more. "An even larger reinforcement of 200,000 to 400,000 men probably would allow Moscow to make serious inroads against the insurgency."

huffingtonpost




By 1982, the Mujahideen controlled 75% of Afghanistan despite fighting the might of the world's second most powerful military power. Young conscript Russian soldiers were no match against men fueled by their religious belief. Though the Russian army had a reputation, the war in Afghanistan showed the world just how poor it was outside of military displays. Army boots lasted no more than 10 days before falling to bits in the harsh environment of the Afghanistan mountains. Many Russian soldiers deserted to the Mujahideen. Russian tanks were of little use in the mountain passes.



THREE PHASES OF CIA ACTION

The CIA’s strategy in Afghanistan can be separated into three phases.

The goal of the first phase (1979-1984) was to harass and contain the Soviet occupation army. The mission was plausible deniability. Resistance groups were supplied with money, logistical support, and weapons originating in Warsaw Pact countries, and Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) acted as the middleman between the CIA and the mujahideen.

The goal of the second phase (1984-1989) was to roll back Soviet military power from Afghanistan. This was achieved by dramatically increasing funding, supplying the mujahideen with American weaponry, and beginning direct CIA-rebel contacts.

The goal of the third phase (1989-1992) was to ensure that the government of post-Soviet Afghanistan was not Moscow-oriented. The CIA’s sustained funding and support of various warlords and rebels was essential to this phase.





1979-1989: CIA'S BIGGEST WAR

During the Reagan years, the CIA ran nearly two dozen covert operations against various governments. Of these, Afghanistan was by far the biggest; it was, in fact, the biggest CIA operation of all time, both in terms of dollars spent (US$5 to US$6 billion) and personnel involved.

Its main purpose was to "bleed" the Soviet Union, just as the U.S. had been bled in Vietnam. Prior to the 1979 Russian invasion, Afghanistan was ruled by a brutal dictator. Like the neighboring shah of Iran, he allowed the CIA to set up radar installations in his country that were used to monitor the Soviets. In 1979, after several dozen Soviet advisors were massacred by Afghan tribesmen, the USSR sent in the Red Army.

The Soviets tried to install a pliable client regime, without taking local attitudes into account. Many of the mullahs who controlled chunks of Afghan territory objected to Soviet efforts to educate women and to institute land reform. Others, outraged by the USSR's attempts to suppress the heroin trade, shifted their operations to Pakistan.

As for the CIA, its aim was simply to humiliate the Soviets by arming anyone who would fight against them. The agency funneled cash and weapons to over a dozen guerrilla groups, many of whom had been staging raids from Pakistan years before the Soviet invasion. For many years, long after the Soviets left Afghanistan, most of these groups were still fighting each other for control of the country.

One notable veteran of the Afghan operation is Sheik Abdel Rahman, famous for his role in the World Trade Center bombing.

The CIA succeeded in creating chaos, but never developed a plan for ending it. When the ten-year war was over, a million people were dead, and Afghan heroin had captured 60% of the U.S. market.

 SOURCE



STINGER MISSILES

Heat-seeking, supersonic shoulder-fired "stinger" missiles and launchers were doled out generously by the CIA to inflict a humiliating blow on the Soviet Union.

From 1986 to 1989, the CIA distributed more than a thousand of these surface-to-air missiles to the Afghan mujihadeen, who used some of them to bring down 270 Soviet aircraft. The U.S. is still looking for the Stinger missiles, fearing they may be in the hands of Islamic extremists, like Osama bin Laden, or hostile foreign governments.

In a covert buy-back scheme, funded by the U.S. Congress, the CIA has offered up to $US175,000 apiece, five times their original cost, to get the missiles back. The scheme initially provoked a flood of responses from Afghan warlords and shady Pakistani middlemen. Hundreds of Stingers are believed to be still unaccounted for.

Pakistani technicians trained mujihadeen fighters to use the Stingers, which enjoyed a 79% strike rate.

The lion's share of missiles went to mujihadeen leader, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who became Afghanistan's U.S.-backed Prime Minister. He is now exiled in Iran.

China, Iran and North Korea are among the countries rumored to possess Stingers bought from Afghan commanders.


This could be a picture of Russia in the late eighties, if it were a person

THE GHOSTS COME TO HAUNT AMERICA


The American media recently started to use the term "blowback." Central Intelligence Agency officials coined it for internal use in the wake of decisions by the Carter and Reagan administrations to plunge the agency deep into the civil war in Afghanistan. It wasn't long before the CIA was secretly arming every mujahideen volunteer in sight, without considering who they were or what their politics might be--all in the name of ensuring that the Soviet Union had its own Vietnam-like experience.

Not so many years later, these "freedom fighters" began to turn up in unexpected places. They bombed the World Trade Center in New York City, murdered several CIA employees in Virginia and some American businessmen in Pakistan and gave support to Osama bin Laden, a prime CIA "asset" back when our national security advisors had no qualms about giving guns to religious fundamentalists.



The Mujahideen fighter lurks with a US supplied bazooka to hit a Soviet convoy

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY

Zbignev Bzezhinski in an interview to French Le Nouvel Observateur said: According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujaheddin began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, Dec. 24, 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it On July 3, 1979 US President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul...We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would. The day the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war... 

The mujahideen were a mix of Afghan resistance fighters, Afghan refugees who had crossed into Pakistan at the onset of the Soviet invasion and later been recruited to fight the Soviet infidels, and Islamists and Muslims from other Arab nations who answered the international call to jihad against the Soviets. Contrary to popular myth, most of the mujahideen were not Islamic radicals, but rather a group of loosely allied Afghan tribes. Two main portions of the mujahidin, however, were Islamic fundamentalists.

The mujahideen received significant financial and military support from various nations and individuals. The United States supported the mujahideen primarily through the CIA. This was controversial because the mujahideen clearly were not any more accepting of American modernity and culture then they were of the Soviet modernity. But, compared to the risks of the Soviet threat, "the relatively new threat of Islamic fundamentalism" was inconsequential, and "fighting communism was still first and foremost in the minds of U.S. policymakers" (Hartman). This was dictated by the Cold War world geopolitical code – defeating communism was part of the daily U.S. foreign policy routine on the global scale. Consequently, "The U.S. ignored the threat of Islamism and used it as a bulwark against communism and revolution" in Afghanistan. 







The US and Pakistan's ISI trained and financed these men

The Mujahideen proved to be a formidable opponent. They were equipped with old rifles but had a knowledge of the mountains around Kabul and the weather conditions that would be encountered there. The Russians resorted to using napalm, poison gas and helicopter gun ships against the Mujahideen - but they experienced exactly the same military scenario the Americans had done in Vietnam. 






The Mujahideen pose on a destroyed Russian helicopter





The bad American who did the dirty work in Afghanistan. Charlie Wilson of the CIA was the one who looked after the arming of Islamic fighters. In the picture he looks smug. Today, one can say with certainty, he will be feeling far from smug

CHARLIE WILSON DIES: FEBRUARY 2010

Charlie Wilson, the Texan Democrat who championed covert CIA support for Afghan Mujahideen in the 1980s and whose life was chronicled in a Hollywood film, has died. He was 76.

As a long-time member of the House Appropriations Committee, Mr Wilson quietly helped to steer billions of dollars to the CIA, which distributed the funds to buy Afghan fighters high-tech weapons such as Stinger missiles, which were used to shoot down Soviet helicopter gunships.

"I just saw the opportunity to grab the sons o'bitches by the throat," the fiercely anti-communist Mr Wilson told the Dallas Morning News in a 2007 interview.


TIMESONLINE



The Stinger missile missed hitting the Russian copter


The Russians protect the Afghan highways


This is what the Mujahideen did to the Russians in the eighties and are doing to the Americans now

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June 4, 1989. China. TIANANMEN SQUARE: Democracy's Doomsday

Perhaps, the need for freedom is in man's genes. Why else would a war for freedom (Tiananmen was a war for independence, freedom; make no mistake about that) erupt in one of world's most totalitarian nation, China?

 A hope that was crushed in 1989 at Tiananmen Square (Image by Patrick Zachman)

The Events in May-June 1989 at Tiananmen Square, Beijing were unprecedented. Students openly defying the communist authorities and calling on soldiers of the People's Liberation Army to join them.

For a moment it seemed democracy would dawn in China. Then the tanks rolled into the square and crushed the cry for democracy. Literally.

Today's China in its mad pursuit for cars and bigger houses may have forgotten Tiananmen Square. But it lies deep in the Chinese psyche; dormant and simmering. The communist rulers are dreading the day when it will erupt once again. And may be the tanks will be of little use then.


Singing the Internationale as their own anthem of defiance, demanding the right to recall entrenched government leaders, speaking in passionate tones of rebellion, the rebels of Tiananmen faced a pitiless government unable to hear or respond. Many paid with their lives under the treads of the government’s tanks — as the occupation of the square was broken up by force in the depth of the night. Many were killed, the numbers are unknown. Many were imprisoned, the numbers are unknown. Many had careers ruined, the numbers are unknown. And millions felt their voices and hopes silenced — temporarily

POINTS TO PONDER: WHY IS CHINA UNSTABLE?

 The aim of individuals in any society is money and power. Societies that give equal chance to all its members to get them will be the most stable. That is why democracies are more stable than other systems of governance.

China after Deng's reform gave the chance to get rich but power is in the hands of an elite; the Communist Party of China. Membership to the party is at the whims of the local party bosses. This leaves out many people who crave political power dissatisfied and disgruntled. There in lies the roots of instability. The Party suppressed these demands once at Tiananmen in 1989. But force is hardly the way to deal with things like this.

WHAT WERE TIANANMEN SQUARE PROTESTS (OR MASSACRE?)

Beginning in April of 1989, thousands of students and other citizens started gathering in groups large and small, protesting many issues, centered on a desire for freedom and democratic reform. By mid-May of 1989, hundreds of thousands of protesters occupied the square, staging hunger strikes, and asking for dialogue. Chinese authorities responded with a declaration of martial law, and sent soldiers and tanks from the People's Liberation Army, preparing to disperse the crowds. Late on June 3rd, 1989, the tanks and armored personnel carriers rolled into the square, killing and wounding many, mostly civilians - estimates vary widely, from several hundred to several thousand dead.


THE MASSIVE FALSEHOOD OF THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT

Since the bloody events that took place for 20 years, the Chinese authorities still do not recognize the fact of suppression of the uprising of students, saying they were merely expelled from Tiananmen Square, and that this was done without firing a single shot and that no one  was killed, and that all the photos and video that document the events of those days were forgeries.

Soon after the suppression of the students, at a press conference, an American journalist told the representative of the State Council of PRC Yuan Mu: "We have a videotape, showing the cruel massacre of soldiers over the participants of the protest." Without even thinking, and second, Yuan said: "In the development of modern technology can make any video. Then he continued: "I declare with all responsibility to the world that in Tiananmen Square no one was killed. And all those photos, which show how the soldiers shot at civilians, were fabricated using modern technology.

At the same press conference, the representative of the internal security forces, who participated in the suppression of the uprising, Zhang Kun, also said: "In Tiananmen Square not a single person was killed, not fired a single shot."

Chang Jiang said that the vast majority of Chinese know that "students have been expelled from the area, and none of them were hurt." This was reported and continue to be parroted in the Chinese media. Once the central television showed a middle-aged man, who was actively telling people surrounding him on events in Tiananmen Square, repeating the words: "The blood flowed in the river there." Then a very angry voice of the announcer warned viewers that they should be vigilant against this kind of falsehood, and if anyone sees this "liar", they should certainly inform the law enforcement authorities. About a week later on the same channel was shown a report in which the man sat in front of the police with his head bowed and confessed the "errors" he had committed, saying that he was spreading lies.

The first few years after the memorable "June 4", almost none of the Chinese people knew what really happened that day in Beijing, and what was the real scale and brutality of the oppression.
 BACKGROUND TO THE TIANANMEN SQUARE PROTESTS

Since 1978, Deng Xiaoping had led a series of economic and political reforms which had led to the gradual implementation of a market economy and some political liberalization that relaxed the system set up by Mao Zedong.

Some students and intellectuals believed that the reforms had not gone far enough and that China needed to reform its political system. They were also concerned about the social controls that the Communist Party of China still had. This group had also seen the political liberalization that had been undertaken in the name of glasnost by Mikhail Gorbachev, so they had been hoping for comparable reform. Many workers who took part in the protests also wanted democratic reform, but opposed the new economic policies. That is, there were both protesters supporting and against economic liberalisation; however, almost all protesters supported political liberalization, to varying degrees.

The Tiananmen Square protests were in large measure sparked by the death of former Secretary General Hu Yaobang, whose resignation from the position of Secretary General of the CPC was announced on 16 January 1987. His forthright calls for "rapid reform" and his almost open contempt of "Maoist excesses" had made him a suitable scapegoat in the eyes of Deng Xiaoping and others, after the pro-democracy student protests of 1986–1987. Included in his resignation was also a "humiliating self-criticism", which he was forced to issue by the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Hu Yaobang's sudden death, due to heart attack, on 15 April 1989 provided a perfect opportunity for the students to gather once again,


EVENTS AFTER TIANANMEN: WHAT AND WHY


--  Images of the protests along with the collapse of Communism that was occurring at the same time in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe would strongly shape Western views and policy toward the PRC throughout the 1990s and into the 21st century. There was considerable sympathy for the student protests among Chinese students in the West, and almost immediately, both the United States and the European Union announced an arms embargo, and the image throughout the 1980s of a China which was reforming and a valuable counterweight and ally against the Soviet Union was replaced by that of a repressive authoritarian regime.
--  The Tiananmen Protests seriously damaged the reputation of the PRC in the West. Much of the impact of the protests in the West was due to the fact that western media had been invited to cover the visit of Mikhail Gorbachev in May, and therefore were able to cover some of the government crackdown live through networks such as the BBC and CNN. Coverage was aided by the fact that there were sharp conflicts within the government itself about what to do about the protests, with the result that the broadcasting was not immediately stopped.

-- Nevertheless, despite early expectations in the West that PRC government would soon collapse and be replaced by the Chinese democracy movement, by the early 21st century the Communist Party of China remained in firm control of the People's Republic of China, and the student movement which started at Tiananmen was in complete disarray.

-- The Tiananmen square protests dampened the growing concept of political liberalization that was popular in the late 1980s; as a result, many democratic reforms that took place during the 1980s were rolled back. Although there has been some increase in personal freedom since then, discussions on structural changes to the PRC government and the role of the Chinese Communist Party remain largely taboo.

-- One reason for this was that the Tiananmen protests did not mark the end of economic reform. Granted, in the immediate aftermath of the protests, conservatives within the Communist Party attempted to curtail some of the free market reforms that had been undertaken as part of Chinese economic reform, and reinstitute administrative controls over the economy. However, these efforts met with stiff resistance from provincial governors and broke down completely in the early 1990s as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union and Deng Xiaoping's trip to the south. The continuance of economic reform led to economic growth in the 1990s, which allowed the government to regain much of the support that it had lost in 1989. In addition, none of the current PRC leadership played any active role in the decision to move against the demonstrators, and one major leadership figure Premier Wen Jiabao was an aide to Zhao Ziyang and accompanied him to meet the demonstrators.

-- In addition, the student leaders at Tiananmen were unable to produce a coherent movement or ideology that would last past the mid-1990s. Many of the student leaders came from relatively well off sectors of society and were seen as out of touch with common people. Furthermore, many of the organizations which were started in the aftermath of Tiananmen soon fell apart due to personal infighting. In addition, several overseas democracy activists were supportive of limiting trade with mainland China which significantly decreased their popularity both within China and among the overseas Chinese community.

--  Among overseas Chinese students, the Tiananmen Square protests triggered the formation of Internet news services such as the China News Digest. In the aftermath of Tiananmen, organizations such as the China Alliance for Democracy and the Independent Federation of Chinese Students and Scholars were formed, although these organizations would have limited political impact beyond the mid-1990s. 





June 2, 1989 Some of the hundreds of thousands of Chinese gathering around a 10-meter replica of the Statue of Liberty, called the Goddess of Democracy, in Tiananmen Square demanding democracy despite martial law in Beijing. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of protesters were killed by China's military on June 3 and 4, 1989, as communist leaders ordered an end to six weeks of unprecedented democracy protests in the heart of the Chinese capital.



May 30, 1989. A student from an art institute plasters the neck of a replica of New York's Statue of Liberty dubbed the Goddess of Democracy in front of the Great Hall of the People (right) and the monument to the People's Heroes





Then came the armored personnel carriers. The students set them on fire.


Chinese students escort a soldier to safety as he was being beaten up by enraged crowds



A girl student being taken to hospital

This is June 6, 1989. The protests have been crushed, but nervous soldiers have taken up positions fearing renewed protests. They never came.



Beijing people curiously examine a burnt armored carrier


June 4, 1989. The two men in the foreground flee as the tanks trundle into the square. Notice one man calmly standing in the way of the tanks.



He stood firmly as everyone else had fled, fearing for their lives.





His name was Wang Dan. And incredible but true; he is still alive today. And he still wants to bring democracy to China.















People run helter-skelter as the troops start firing

This is how the tanks crushed the protests












Zhao Ziyang. The only moderate in the Chinese Communist party then was in favour of talks with the students. He was over-ruled and disgraced. And Deng sent in the tanks.

ZHAO ZIYANG

In 1989, Zhao, then the Communist Party's general secretary and the major architect of China's economic reforms, was such a victim. Zhao had argued for "dialogue" over martial law as a way to handle the pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing. On May 17, 1989, he was overruled, and on May 19 stripped of power. On June 4, soldiers fired on demonstrators in the streets of Beijing, killing hundreds. Zhao was charged with "splitting the party" and "supporting turmoil," and was confined to house arrest until his death in 2005.

ZHAO ZIYANG'S BOOK: PRISONER OF THE STATE The Secret Journal of Zhao Ziyang
(Source: Washington Post)
When Zhao Ziyang, the former Chinese premier who in 1989 had opposed using military force against student protesters, died four years ago, China's top leaders formed an "Emergency Response Leadership Small Group," declared "a period of extreme sensitivity," put the People's Armed Police on special alert and ordered the Ministry of Railways to screen travelers heading for Beijing. If this is how the men who rule China reacted to Zhao's death at home, how then will they respond to the posthumously published "Prisoner of the State," a book in which Zhao repeatedly attacks the stonewalling and subterfuge (and sycophancy, mendacity, buck-passing and back-stabbing) of people whose allies and heirs remain in power today?

Now, in "Prisoner of the State," a book timed to appear precisely 20 years since his purge, Zhao speaks from beyond the grave. He flouts the unspoken rule against public blame of others of the group. He skewers Li Peng, Li Xiannian, Yao Yilin, Deng Liqun, Hu Qiaomu and Wang Zhen repeatedly and by name. He complains that the meeting at which martial law was decided was in violation of the Party Charter because he, the general secretary, should have chaired any such meeting but was not even notified of it.

It is clearer here than elsewhere that Zhao was already in serious political trouble in 1988, before the democracy movement began; and that Zhao had bickered with Hu Yaobang over economic policy as early as 1982, even though the two reformist leaders needed each other. Deng Xiaoping appears more strikingly than elsewhere as a Godfather figure: Other leaders jockey for access to him, dare not contradict him and use his words to attack one another. Yet even Deng seeks to avoid responsibility for difficult decisions. The group has dictatorial power, yet is rife with insecurity.

In 1989, Zhao urged his fellow leaders to enter into reasoned dialogue with the student protesters, who, he insisted, were "absolutely not against the basic foundations of our system" but were "merely asking us to correct some of our flaws." Could it be that Zhao really believed this? Or was he using it, as the students themselves were, as protective cover? Of course the students knew that it would be dangerous -- indeed foolhardy -- to declare open opposition to the ruling system. But to conclude that they were interested only in flaws is a bit silly. When certain things could not be stated plainly in public, the students sometimes resorted to double entendre -- singing, for example, lines from the Chinese national anthem: "Rise up, oh people who would not be slaves. . . . China's most perilous hour is nigh." Even more mischievous was the singing of selected lines from the 1950s song "Without the Communist Party there would be no New China" -- where the singers intentionally left the meaning of "New China" ambiguous.

What it actually has, he observed near the end of his life, is continuing rule by "a tightly-knit interest group . . . in which the political elite, the economic elite, and the intellectual elite are fused. This power elite blocks China's further reform and steers the nation's policies toward service of itself." He saw that China's "abundant and cheap" labor had produced an economic boom. The society's rulers claim they have lifted millions from poverty, but in truth the millions have lifted themselves, through hard work and long hours, and in the process they have catapulted the elite to unprecedented levels of opulence and economic power. 

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This short but important battle played a key role in the decision to use atomic bombs when attacking Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The battle showed just how far Japanese troops would go to defend their country.


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Paulus didn't give the order to 6th Army to surrender, but his troops no longer had much fight left in them. Resistance faded out over the next two days, with the last die-hards finally calling it quits. One Red Army colonel shouted at a group of prisoners, waving at the ruins all around them: "That's how Berlin is going to look!
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Points to Ponder: Why Is China Unstable?

The aim of individuals in any society is money and power. Societies that give equal chance to all its members to get them will be the most stable. That is why democracies are more stable than other systems of governance.

China after Deng's reform gave the chance to get rich but power is in the hands of an elite; the Communist Party of China. Membership to the party is at the whims of the local party bosses. This leaves out many people who crave political power dissatisfied and disgruntled. There in lies the roots of instability. The Party suppressed these demands once at Tiananmen in 1989. But force is hardly the way to deal with things like these.

READ MORE: Tiananmen Square Massacre