1. Excerpts from the most significant of the documents also appeared simultaneously in Foreign Affairs, adding to the attention given the release. Nathan, Andrew, “The Tiananmen Papers,” Foreign Affairs, 80, 1 (January–February, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. A more pedantically literal rendering would be: “True Picture of China's June Fourth.”

3. Li Zhisui, , The Private Life of Chairman Mao (New York, 1994)Google Scholar.

4. Trevor-Roper, Hugh, The Hermit of Peking: The Hidden Life of Sir Edmund Blackhouse (New York, 1977)Google Scholar.

5. See Hamilton, Charles, The Hitler Diaries: The Fakes that Fooled the World (University Press of Kentucky, 1991)Google Scholar. To be fair, Schell cites Trevor-Roper only on the coherence of the diaries. The other adjectives are from my own malice.

6. Ming-le, Yao, The Conspiracy and Death of Lin Biao (New York, 1983)Google Scholar.

7. Also possibly in this category is d'Ancona, Jacob, The City of Light, translated and edited by Selbourne, David (London, 1997)Google Scholar, which purports to be the writings of a Jewish merchant in China on the eve of the Mongol conquest. As with the Blackhouse and Yao accounts (but unlike Hitler's), no original manuscript has been produced.

8. Qiu, Jin, The Culture of Power: The Lin Biao Incident and the Culture of Power (Stanford University Press, 1999)Google Scholar.

9. For old examples, see The Politics of the Chinese Red Army: A Translation of the Bulletin of Activities of the People's Liberation Army, edited by Cheng, Chester (Hoover Institution Press, 1966)Google Scholar; Rural People's Communes in Lien-Chiang: Documents Concerning Communes in Lien-Chiang County, Fukien Province, 1962–1963, edited by Ch'en, C. S. and Ridley, Charles Price (Hoover Institution Press, 1969)Google Scholar. These sets of documents were captured in military raids; most are come by more prosaically.

10. Zhang Liang, as explained below, was one of the founding statesmen of the Han dynasty, around 200 BC. Xiao He was one of his colleagues. In a further comment on the work, Nathan says Zhang Liang told him Xiao He is the name of a “writing group” employed by the state council. “The Tiananmen Papers: an Editor's Reflections”, China Quarterly, 167 (09, 2001), pp. 724–737Google Scholar.

11. Sing Tao Jih Pao, May 28, May 29, and 06 1, 2001Google Scholar.

12. See Xu Jiatun Xianggang Huiyi Lu (Xu Jiatun's Memoirs of Hong Kong) 2 Volumes, (Taipei: United Daily News Publishers, 1993), pp. 372–373Google Scholar. Zhao spoke to Yang on May 6 and to Xu on May 4. He asked Xu to convey his feelings to Yang. The substance of what Zhao says to both men is, as might be expected, identical (Xu, however, summarizes much of what is quoted directly in the volumes under review here); the wording is very close, but not identical. When Zhao proposes that, to set an example in combating corruption, the behavior of his own children be officially investigated, Yang, says, “Xu Jiatun has already told me what you have said about this.” Papers, p. 174Google Scholar; True Story, p. 313Google Scholar. Xu himself has been quoted as saying the collection is “about 70 to 80 percent” accurate. CND-Global Editors, 06 29, 2001Google Scholar.

13. Wei Li, , Pye, Lucian W., “The Ubiquitous Role of the Mishu in Chinese Politics,” China Quarterly, 132 (12, 1992), pp. 913–936CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14. Some critics have complained that the various conversations do not sound like spontaneous speech: they are too well-worded and thought through. This, however, should not be surprising to anyone who has ever attended a meeting and then read the minutes of that meeting. At least one reviewer has even taken the stilted nature of the conversations as a mark of authenticity: a written record would eliminate repetitions, correct grammatical errors, and omit hesitations. Had the exchanges sounded more like actual speech, would this reviewer have pronounced the thing a fake?

15. The current collection does not carry Deng Xiaoping's most vicious alleged pronouncement reproduced at the time, rather early in the course of events, to the effect that the students needed to be taught a lesson, that a little bloodshed would put them in their place, and that while western countries would raise a fuss at first, within six months they would have forgotten all about it.

16. My guess is that the staffs of the major political figures leak information to independent reporters; the published accounts then feed back into the Chinese political process by being reprinted in internal reference materials.

17. While this may be subjective, from the Chinese version I get a much stronger impression of the growing cooperation between the aides of Zhao Ziyang and elements of the student movement following Zhao's purge from the leadership. This, I believe, is, if true, a genuinely new insight into the dynamics of the democracy movement.

18. For another recent sociological exploration of the movement, see Zhao, Dingxin, The Power of Tiananmen: State-Society Relations and the 1989 Beijing Student Movement (University of Chicago Press, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19. In the English version of the meeting discussing arrangements for the funeral of Hu Yaobang, Li Peng urges that a “close eye” be kept on the universities, and is reassured by the Party boss in charge of education that there will be no trouble there. Li Peng was actually in Japan at the time, and in the Chinese version his words are attributed instead to Zhao Ziyang (Papers, p. 22Google Scholar; True Story, pp. 108–109Google Scholar). In the English, Yang Shangkun tells Deng Xiaoping that General Xu Qinxian, commander of the 38^th Army who refused the order to enforce martial law, is the son of General Xu Haidong. The Chinese version adds a parenthetical comment to the effect that while this is what Yang actually said, the younger Xu is not really the son of the older. Papers, p. 219Google Scholar; True Story, p. 523Google Scholar.

20. .I would be inclined to enter one minor, unconstructive quibble: the old Cultural Revolution chuanlian (forming a union by linking together, as in a chain), revived by the students of 1989, is translated as “networking,” making the activists sound like brown-nosing yuppie careerists. But neither is there much to be said for the older renditions: linking up; making linkages…I certainly have nothing better to offer.

21. In Chinese the name of Zhang Liang's native state and the name of the dynasty are written with different characters and pronounced with different tones. The dynasty takes its name from a river in what is now central China.

22. Yang Shaoming, Shangkun's son, has publicly denied that he is Zhang Liang. Sing Tao Jih Pao, 06 2, 2001Google Scholar.

23. For Yang Baibing's continued sniping at Jiang, see Cheng Ming, 02, 2001, pp. 6–7Google Scholar.

24. As indicated above, General Xu Qinxian refused to carry out martial law. This may be the grain of truth behind journalistic speculation at the time concerning a coming clash between units of the Chinese army itself. Much of this speculation, however, seems to have come from journalists′ ignorance of the techniques of military deployment.

25. In the Soviet Union Stalin established the precedent that the Party's General Secretary was in effect capo regime, and by the 1980s this was virtually institutionalized. Mao, of course, was Party Chairman, but his position was not the source of his power. As the term implies, the main function of the chairman was to preside over meetings, and the position implied no direct executive power. In the 1950s Deng Xiaoping was Party General Secretary, and his position was clearly less important than that of Premier Zhou Enlai, the head of Government. In the early 1980s the title of Party Chairman was abolished in favor of the European style, Secretary General: but Secretaries General Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang, despite officially holding the number one rank in the regime, were disposed of with ease. Throughout the history of the People's Republic the position of head of Government, or Premier, seems to be more important and desirable than that of the head of the Party machinery (had he been able to choose, Zhao Ziyang would have stayed on as Premier, allowing someone else to head the Party). The Boss in China has owed his position to informal factors, rather than official position.

26. On the rivalry of the two and the mistreatment of Hu's followers by Zhao's people after Hu's fall, see Ming, Duan, Deng Xiaoping: Chronicle of an Empire (Boulder, 1994), pp. 175–176Google Scholar.

27. Zhang Liang has a passage where Deng whines to Yang Shangkun about how he is forced to bear the responsibility and blame for everything. Papers, p. 218Google Scholar; True Story, pp. 521–524Google Scholar.

28. The irony is that Deng had always been critical of the notion that leaders, including Mao, should be able to select their own successors, in the manner of the Emperors of old.

29. The documentary is particularly hard on those radical student leaders who postured about the grim necessity that blood be shed and who, when the crunch came, escaped from the Square and from China as fast as their pretty little legs could carry them; and who, since then, have been doing very well for themselves in the west.

30. Ellul, Jacques, Autopsy of Revolution (New York, 1974)Google Scholar.

31. Toward the end money began to flow in from Taiwan and Hong Kong to support the demonstrations. Human beings being what they are, this gave an additional reason to fight for positions of leadership.