Take, for instance, October 1, 1970, National Day. On this day, Mao Zedong invited American journalist Edgar Snow to stand by his side during the Chairman’s review of the parade. The large photograph of Mao and Snow standing together was printed on the front page of the People’s Daily newspaper, and it was meant to imply that China was ready to renew its relationship with the United States. But the signal was missed by the Nixon administration. China had overestimated Snow’s influence, and the Americans were clueless to the way the Chinese expressed these types of messages. It was not until a year later, when Henry Kissinger made his first secret visit to China, that the US became aware of the intentions behind the gesture.
In 1980, shortly after reform and opening up was launched, an “anti-personality cult campaign” swept across the country and large portraits of Mao Zedong were removed from many public places in China, including the one hanging at the entrance of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. In August of the same year, Italian journalist Oriana Falacci had an exclusive interview with Deng Xiaoping, the paramount Chinese leader and the architect of the reform and opening up. Falacci asked Deng a rather provocative question, “Will the portrait of Chairman Mao on the Tiananmen Gate be there forever?”
“It will be kept there permanently,” answered Deng. “In the past, we had too many portraits of Chairman Mao everywhere. This is not that serious and not necessarily a show of absolute respect for Chairman Mao. Although Chairman Mao made mistakes, he is the founder of the Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Republic of China.”
Mao Zedong’s huge portrait remains. However, the portraits of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin erected at Tiananmen Square during national holidays have not been there since the 1980s.
Although Tiananmen Square was defined as “the people’s square” by the founders of the Republic, all celebrations and massive assemblies before the mid-1970s were organized by the government. There were hardly any spontaneous public gatherings.
But, in early 1976, Premier Zhou Enlai passed away, and on April 5, or the day of the “Pure Brightness Festival,” when Chinese pay homage to the dead, more than 1 million people converged on Tiananmen Square to pay their respects to the late premier and to demonstrate their anger for the ultra-leftist “Gang of Four.” The rally eventually turned into a mass protest against the Gang of Four, becoming the prelude to the end of the 10-year catastrophic Cultural Revolution.
This marked the first time that Tiananmen Square became a real “people’s square.” Since then, the political significance of Tiananmen has become even stronger.
As the nation celebrates the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China, we’d like to share with our readers the story of the people’s republic and the people’s square. During the past 60 years, Tiananmen has witnessed the ups and downs of this incredible nation: from the expectations of the founding ceremony of the New China, to the fanaticism of the Cultural Revolution; from the passion and aspiration of the reform and opening up, to the sorrow and trauma of June 4, 1989…
It was here that these major events had a home, and it is here that history continues on its unstoppable drive towards tomorrow. Overseeing it all from the perfect vantage point at the center of Tiananmen Gate, in the heart of the “Middle Kingdom” is the helmsman who founded a nation. What that nation has become, however, goes far beyond anything Mao Zedong could have ever imagined.
October, 2009