Students started their demonstrations this year in Beijing with a commemoration of former party leader Hu Yaobang, who died. Hu had lost his job for being soft on the student movement in the past.
Toward the end of April, the CCP ordered the students to stop their disturbances in the streets, but hundreds of thousands ignored the CCP and continued their demonstrations. They maintained an occupation of Tiananmen Square for weeks and started a hunger strike which garnered widespread sympathy. By May 20th, one million people helped occupy the square. The government had reason to fear the movement's attacks on government corruption. The children of government leaders in particular were seen becoming wealthy and travelling abroad because of their special privileges. Out of 28 people with wealth exceeding 10 million Chinese dollars, 26 were found to be children of top officials in one investigation. One scholar found that a majority of those participants in the Cultural Revolution (1966- 1976) were ready for another campaign against government corruption. (Forward Motion, September 1989, 33)
One common poster in the demonstrations said that "Mao's son died in Korea." This referred to the fact that Mao gave his son no particular privilege. He died fighting for the communists in North Korea when China aided Korea in fighting the Western imperialist invasion.
Something of a Mao revival occurred with demonstrators carrying posters of Mao, especially outside Beijing. This is not to say that all the demonstrators sang the communist song "Internationale," which some did. There was also an important section of the movement dedicated to copying the West as the mock Statue of Liberty brought to Tiananmen proved.
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