There is a sad truth about the 1989 Beijing Massacre. It is a truth that those of us who live in liberal democracies would rather avoid. But it is a truth nonetheless: in Beijing in 1989 repression worked.
Repression worked in that it put an end to a fundamental challenge to the state's authority and power. It worked in that a split within the ruling elite was resolved in favor of hardliners, and scapegoats, most notably Zhao Ziyang, were created. It worked in that the the state was able to redevelop its legitimacy through economic growth and material development. Thus, in the twenty years since that horrible night, June 3-4, 1989, there has not been a repeat popular mobilization of such massive scale. For younger Chinese people the "lesson learned" seems to be: don't protest, it can get you killed; better to study hard and find a way to make money in the expanding economy; don't rock the boat. Repression thus worked to preserve the Party's power.
When we compare Tehran today with Beijing of twenty years ago, we need to keep this in mind. The heady hopefulness of political change can be shot down by state power. And, if the regime plays its cards shrewdly, the movement can wither and fade.
The challenge for Iranian reformers, then, is: how to avoid such drastic repression, which might just kill the movement, while maintaining sufficient momentum and pressure to gain some sort of political victory? With the Revolutionary Guards threatened more deadly force, the reformers may have to back down, at least for a time, to avoid the worst outcome.
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