CONFIDENTIAL
based on legal provisions but on Qin's breach of party discipline (as a party member, though the paper was party publication). A more anodyne version, still dated 24 April, was also issued on 26 April. Jiang's political antennae had been quick to spot the hardening mood in Peking. While the decision was his, I believe he took a final reading from Premier Li Peng before going ahead with the dismissal.
4.
That move was seen by critics and supporters alike as entirely in the spirit of the 26 April People's Daily editorial, itself based on Deng Xiaoping's speech of 25 April attacking the student movement. The banners in Peking and Shanghai calling for press freedom now had a new specific target, the reinstatement of the editor. There were also banners here calling for Jiang's dismissal. But the growing momentum of the student movement meant that it soon had bigger targets in its sights: the dismissal of Li Peng and the effective retirement of Deng Xiaoping.
5.
The student demonstrations in Shanghai had from the start been in support of the students in Peking. There was also growing evidence of a degree of tacit collusion between the student movement and the Shanghai Government and Party. It was thus less surprising than it appeared at the time, that the local cause celebre became less prominent and that as the Shanghai movement grew in strength there was restraint in avoiding slogans which would have provoked a local political confrontation.
6.
The movement here never had a central focus like Tiananmen. The Party and municipal offices on the Bund and the open space of People's Square were the two main venues for demonstrations. Most students flowed daily in and out of central Shanghai on a few main roads, increasingly well-drilled in narrow lines to minimise disruption to traffic. There was never a continuous period of more than 12 hours when the Bund was blocked. Support from blue and white collar workers never approached the numbers or intensity of Peking. The public mood became more sombre as martial law in Peking cast its shadow over Shanghai, replacing the carnival atmosphere in which a population starved of entertainment, came out to watch the demonstrations. Shanghai also had its hunger strikers. But there was always a sense of being a side-show, even if fears of martial law being declared here were real (though exaggerated).
7.
After the massacre in Peking, Shanghai's students (the largest body outside Peking) and Government faced serious problems. For the students, how to pay fitting tribute to their dead comrades in Peking without provoking similar bloodshed? And for the Government, how to keep the student and popular reaction within bounds and minimise damage to Shanghai's economy? Both sides found solutions which drew on good sense and political maturity. For several days the Government generally turned a blind eye to the roadblocks and barricades put up during the day by students; while the students made no efforts to prevent enough of the
CONFIDENTIAL
/roadblocks
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