Almost a Revolution

By Shen Tong and Marianne Yen

Book Overview

In his groundbreaking memoir about China's democracy movement and the massacre at Tiananmen Square in June 1989, student leader Shen Tong offers us a rare look at a bold and daring new generation of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0395546931
• ISBN13: 9780395546932
• Release Date: January 1990
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Length: 342 Pages
• Weight: 1.54 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 5.9" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

An inside look at the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests with a background of growing up in China during

This book presents a good inside look at the 1989 democracy movement from the viewpoint of a key student leader. The reader learns about some aspects of the movement that have not been widely publicized, including the trials and tribulations of one of the principal organizers of the movement. Also, a good documentary film about the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests is Carma Hinton's "The Gate of Heavenly Peace." A condensed version of this film was broadcast on PBS Frontline in 1996.

"We only want the government to talk with us and to say that we are not traitors."

So said one of the student leaders, as quoted by Shen Tong (himself a leader) in "Almost a Revolution." This is a very fluidly written, personal account of the events leading up to the killings of workers & students by Chinese soldiers in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, on June 5 1989. Fortunately, with more recent events in Ukraine, "Soviet" Georgia, Tajikistan, even Lebanon (not forgetting Eastern Europe), we have seen how revolutions gain strength, often like tropical storms that develope into hurricanes with surprising rapidity. Meteorologically, we can explain such happening on the weather front ONCE THEY OCCUR, but we're rarely capable of predicting such developments until they are almost in our faces, so to speak. The event that sparked events in China was the death of Hu Yaobang on April 15th. "Hu Yaobang had become something of a hero since he had been made the scapegoat of the 1986 student movement and ousted as general secretary, and many of us," says the author, "had hoped that he would be brought back someday to lead China on the road to reform." Acknowledgment of his passing by many, however, soon began to be read by the government as a renewed call for reform. Thus began the chain of events that resulted in students' boycotting classes, printing flyers, and finally, camping out in Tiananmen Square. In the author's view, "there was clearly an internal struggle going on between Li Peng [a hardliner] and Zhao Ziyang [a Chinese leader who had declared on May 7th his openness to a dialogue with the students]." Evidence of such was the fact that "starting May 17, the press in China operated without censorship from the goverment for a few days." Mikhail Gorbachev had arrived for a visit 2 days earlier and the Chinese government was seemingly caught off-guard in the headlights of the world's media for a moment while it contemplated how to respond a mass protest in Beijing's central square. The one fault of this book (besides no index) is that the author has nothing to say about this visit by Gorbachev. He mentions the Soviet leader's arrival and departure, but literally nothing otherwise; no impressions or anything how such a visit affected events on the ground in Beijing, or within the corridors of the Chinese government. This was before the collapse of Eastern Europe, mind you, but I find it hard to believe that the issue of Gorbachev (glasnost/reform) wasn't a topic of discussion amongst at least some of the student leaders arrayed around Shen Tong. Back to events: Martial Law was declared on May 20. On May 21 word began to filter out that Zhao Ziyang had been removed as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (though it wasn't announced until May 26th). The crackdown came soon after, but the author wasn't as much a witness & participant to this aspect as he was in all the events leading up to it. He doesn't, consequently, write much about the tanks entering Beijing (or the famous photograph of the solitary man courageously stan

A students account of the events leading up to June 1989

I found this book very informative about the events leading up to the Tiananmen Square occupation by the students and workers in June of 1989. Since traveling for one month in China this past year, I have been reading alot of personal accounts on China by people who have escaped or left the country. This was a nice change; a book speaking of the efforts by the citizens to change the way things are there and by peaceful means. This book really makes one appreciate the freedoms and democracy that we take for granted in this country.

Moving story of Chinese family life and the student movement

There are two wonderful things about this book: first, Shen Tong's charming account of life growing up in Beijing in an exceptional Chinese family; and then the deeply moving story of the growth of the student movement and its tragic surpression. The courage of the students, and later people from all walks of life, in their struggle for a more open society is very impressive. This book should not be out of print.

well written story of modern chinese revolution

Very easy to read account of growing up in China in the late 20th Century, and the background of student revolutionaries of Tienamen Square. The author does not exhibit his part in a boastful way, but we get to experience the Student Movements from the epicenter. He makes these historic times seem everyday......but it is an interesting and insightful read.