39°54′22″N 116°22′05″E / 39.9061°N 116.3681°E / 39.9061; 116.3681Wei Jingsheng (Activist, writer)Li Yizhe (Pen name) Chinese Communist PartyDeng Xiaoping Hong Kong Macau Republic of China (Taiwan)(groups of pro-Chinese identity) Hong Kong Republic of China (Taiwan)(groups of pro-Chinese identity) Current Former From November 1978 to December 1979, thousands of people put up "big character posters" on a long brick wall of Xidan Street, Xicheng District of Beijing, to protest about the political and social issues of China; the wall became known as the Democracy Wall of Xidan (Chinese: 西单民主墙; pinyin: Xīdān mínzhǔ qiáng).
Under acquiescence of the Chinese government, other kinds of protest activities, such as unofficial journals, petitions, and demonstrations, were also soon spreading out in major cities of China.
[1] In 1966, when Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution, millions of middle school, high school, and college students answered Mao's call, being organized as the "Red Guards" to rebel and root out the "capitalist roaders" from within the Chinese Communist Party.
In 1971, Lin Biao's attempted coup and death deeply shook the collective peoples' faith on Mao and the Cultural Revolution's ideology.
The 67 pages of the paper focused on: (1) Damage to the citizens caused by bureaucratic corruptions of the Chinese Communist Party during the Cultural Revolution; and (2) the need to practice democracy and a legal system in China.
[2][3] This big character poster proved that people started to re-evaluate the Cultural Revolution and political system of China.
They wrote poems and put up big character posters in Tiananmen Square to mourn for Zhou and express their anger towards the impious Gang of Four and the destructive Cultural Revolution.
On April 7, Mao Zedong proposed that the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CCP denounce Deng Xiaoping's official positions and that Hua Guofeng would assume Deng's positions as Prime Minister of the State Council and the Vice-Chairman of the CCP.
On October 6, under the support of Ye Jianying, Li Xiannian, and other members of the Politburo, Hua Guofeng arrested the Gang of Four.
[16] These journals likewise discussed a wide range of topics and ideological stances, including commentaries on socialism, democracy, Marxism, civil rights, and morality, socioeconomic conditions (including wage reform, inequality, and consumer and housing shortages) as well as artistic and literary matters.
[11] Some participants, however, revived the Cultural Revolution-era “ultra-left” argument against China’s “bureaucratic class.”[17] Under the influence of the official discussion, the general public also started to put up big character posters to cause a debate.
On August 18, 1977, the 11th National Congress of the CCP recommended adding the "Four Freedoms" (Chinese: 四大自由) to Article 45 of the constitution.
The posters were initially encouraged to criticize the Gang of Four and previous failed government policies as part of Deng Xiaoping's struggle to gain political power.
On November 23, Lü Pu (Chinese: 吕朴) posted his writings on the Democracy Wall in Xidan.
He critiqued Mao Zedong and pointed out that the real reasons behind the April 5 Movement were a backward economy, rigid thought control, and the poor living conditions of the people.
Two days later they gathered at Xidan Democracy Wall and led a public march to Tiananmen Square.
[18] Until this period, most of the big character posters were criticizing the Gang of Four, Mao Zedong, and Hua Guofeng, rather than Deng Xiaoping.
[19] On November 26, he told the Japanese delegates of the Democratic Socialist Party that, according to the Constitution, the Democracy Wall activities were legal.
On January 28, the members of seven unofficial journals in Beijing organized a joint conference to counter the criticism against their literature on Democracy Wall.
As, for example, the editors of People's Reference News (Chinese: 群众参考消息) calculated in May 1979, they had some 300-400 subscribers and had received almost 1000 letters from readers in two months.