Premier Zhou Enlai, Mao's close associate and one of the great heroes of the revolution, died in January 1976. Zhou had been widely regarded as a moderate, more humane and tolerant than other top leaders, and the mourning for Zhou became an occasion for protest, a reproach to the hard-liners in power.

That April, during the traditional festival in honor of the dead, thousands of people gathered spontaneously in Tiananmen Square to lay wreaths in honor of Zhou Enlai.

Video clip from April 1976

Readings:

Excerpt on the Tiananmen Poems in Richard Curt Kraus, Brushes with Power