tiananmen square

In 1989, Chinese students and workers rose up against political repression and occupied Tiananmen Square in downtown Beijing. After a few weeks of hopefulness, Premier Deng Xaoping resorted to extreme measures to quell any potential nationwide workers’ revolution. He ordered Chinese soldiers to turn their guns on their own people, causing a bloody massacre.  SPIN sent reporter Mikali Myron to Beijing and she stayed in the square until the end, and filed a highly personal account for our August, ‘89 issue. This is an update on what happened to the chief protagonists of the uprising. What made 1 MILLION people, mostly students, crowd into a huge plaza in downtown Beijing, with no food, sanitation, running water, or other comforts, many choosing hunger strikes as their protest, while the worl...