Before the opening of the Berlin Wall signalled an end to decades of oppression in Eastern Europe, the democracy movement in China once seemed the paradigm for effective peaceful protest against a totalitarian regime.

For a brief moment last spring, the "Goddess of Democracy" raised her lamp to illuminate the golden door of liberty. But that was before blood and fire stained Tiananmen Square.

The June 4, 1989, crackdown surprised and shocked the world. At the time it seemed almost incomprehensible that the government chose to massacre its own people, especially since millions of ordinary citizens had filled the streets of Beijing in the previous weeks to prevent the army from reaching the protesters.

One year later, though, there seems a certain inevitability to the events in Tiananmen Square. Looking back, the violent reaction appears as the only logical move the regime could have made. The Communist government that had gained its throne at the price of blood had made it clear that it would not flinch from killing to maintain its power.

Professor of Government Roderick MacFarquhar, who directs the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, describes Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping as a first-generation revolutionary who, like Cuba's Fidel Castro, will never voluntarily surrender power.

"He is fighting for the right of his cohort to lead China. He was not about to give up that right to a bunch of college students," MacFarquhar says. "Deng Xiaoping thought this was potentially a rerun of the Red Guard menace of the Cultural Revolution."

The crackdown was not surprising, MacFarquhar says, given the demands of the protesters for Deng's ouster. What was most unusual, he says, was that the protests continued for so long in defiance of Party orders. At the time the government tried to stamp out the demonstrations, but could not because of the tremendous outpouring of support for the students from the workers of Beijing.

MacFarquhar says it is highly significant that the government launched the actual attack at the democracy movement's weakest moment, when many people were asleep and after many students already had drifted out of Tiananmen Square.

"The difference between this and previous protest movements is this is the first time you see a strong protest movement rallying against a strong government for a period of several weeks," MacFarquhar says.

`Shreds of Legitimacy'

One year later, the political climate is still repressive, but the government has lost its former ability to maintain total control over Chinese society. Although the communist government's reputation eroded significantly during the Cultural Revolution of the late 1960s, never has its popularity been at such a low ebb, China scholars say.

"On June 4, 1989, the regime lost its last shreds of legitimacy," MacFarquhar says, "When the government ordered the army to turn its guns against its own people."

"There's really not a reign of terror, but this is not because of any goodwill on the part of the leadership," says Professor of Sociology Andrew G. Walder.

In the past, MacFarquhar says, campaigns of criticism forced people to turn against one another, and government criticism even pushed some to suicide. Since the massacre in Tiananmen, the government has lost its ability to control people merely through fear, MacFarquhar says. "They're going through the motions only because they don't want to be sent away to spend a nasty spell in prison," he explains.

MacFarquhar points out that many on the leadership's "most-wanted" list remain at large. "In the old days," he says, "the network of informers was so efficient that within 24 to 48 hours any fugitive would be arrested."