Tank man in 1989

I can remember vividly the photo of “Tank man” on June 5, 1989. This iconic photograph, taken by Jeff Widener of the AP, showed one man standing in the way of a tank in Tiananmen Square. This picture was all over TV news. This Tank Man, also known as the Unknown Protester or the Unknown Rebel, was the nickname given to an unidentified individual, presumed to be a Chinese man, who stood in front of a column of Type 59 tanks near Tiananmen Square in Beijing on June 5, 1989. This confrontation occurred one day after the government of China forcibly cleared the square following six weeks of pro-democracy demonstrations, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of people, primarily in areas surrounding the square. That day, a long column of tanks proceeded after the military’s clearing operations. A lone man carrying shopping bags stepped into the path of the lead tank and refused to move. When the tank attempted to steer around him, he repeatedly shifted positions to block its movement. The tanks came to a complete stop rather than run him over. The man then climbed onto the lead tank, where he appeared to speak with members of the PLA inside, before returning to the road. This moment was captured by international photographers and television crews watching from balconies and hotel rooms overlooking the avenue. Broadcast around the world, this scene quickly became one of the most iconic and widely recognized images of all time. Inside China, this image and the accompanying events were the subject of censorship. Multiple documentaries and exhibitions related to the Tiananmen protests highlighted the tank confrontation. The figure of “Tank Man” has become an enduring symbol of nonviolent resistance, although his identification has never been confirmed, remaining unknown, despite various news organizations who have reported different speculative names. In 2006, “Frontline” produced a detailed documentary focusing on the events surrounding the incident. In April 1998, Time magazine included “The Unknown Rebel” in its list of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century. Life magazine’s 2003 book 100 Photos That Changed the World also featured the photographs of the man and the tank confrontation. Despite the image’s global status as a symbol of individual courage, the Chinese government continued to restrict the distribution and discussion of the photographs, as well as broader protests on the Internet. Little reliable information exists regarding the fate of either the protester or the crew of the lead tank. Witnesses have reported that other individuals also attempted to block the tank column at different points during the demonstrations. It has been suggested that this “Unknown Rebel,” if still alive, may be unaware of his international recognition. In addition to the still photography, video footage of the scene was recorded and transmitted across the globe. In the 1999 Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young song “Stand and Be Counted,” from the album Looking Forward, David Crosby sang of his gratitude to Tank Man, whose photograph he had framed and mounted. Do you remember Tank man?

The Chinese 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing

Just as the Communist Soviet Union was breaking apart, the Chinese Communist Party would have none of this protest stuff. The Tiananmen Square protests, known within China as the June Fourth Incident, were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, lasting from April 4 until June 5, 1989. After weeks of unsuccessful attempts between the demonstrators and the Chinese government to find a peaceful resolution, the Chinese government deployed troops to occupy the square on the night of June 3, in what is referred to as the Tiananmen Square massacre. The events were sometimes called the 1989 Democracy Movement, the Tiananmen Square Incident, or the Tiananmen uprising. The protests were precipitated by the death of a pro-reform Chinese Communist Party (CCP) general secretary, Hu Yaobang, in April 1989 amid the backdrop of rapid economic development and social change in post-Mao China, reflecting anxieties among the people and the political elite about the country’s future. Common grievances at the time included inflation, corruption, limited preparedness of graduates for the new economy, and restrictions on political participation. Although they were highly disorganized and their goals varied, the students called for things like greater accountability, constitutional due process, democracy, freedom of the press, and freedom of speech. Workers’ protests were generally focused on inflation and the erosion of welfare. These groups united around anti-corruption demands, adjusting economic policies, and protecting social security. At the height of the protests, about one million people assembled in the square. As the protests developed, the authorities responded with both conciliatory and hardline tactics, exposing deep divisions within the party leadership. By May, a student-led hunger strike galvanized support around the country for the demonstrators, and the protests spread to some 400 cities. On May 20, the State Council declared martial law, and as many as 300,000 troops were mobilized in Beijing. After several weeks of standoffs and violent confrontations between the army and the demonstrators had left many on both sides severely injured, a meeting held among the CCP’s top leadership on June 1 concluded with a decision to clear the square. The troops advanced into central parts of Beijing on the city’s major thoroughfares in the early morning hours of June 4 and engaged in bloody clashes with demonstrators attempting to block them, so that demonstrators, bystanders, and soldiers were killed. Estimates of the death toll vary from several hundred to several thousand, with thousands more wounded. Western countries imposed arms embargoes on China. Various Western media outlets labeled the crackdown a “massacre.” In the aftermath of the protests, the Chinese government suppressed other protests around China and carried out mass arrests of protesters. The government also invested heavily into creating more effective police riot control units. More broadly, the suppression ended the political reforms which began in 1986 as well as the New Enlightenment movement. This massacre halted the policies of liberalization of the 1980s, which were only partly resumed after Deng Xiaoping’s Southern Tour in 1992. Considered a watershed event, reaction to the protests set limits on political expression in China that have lasted up to the present day. These events remain one of the most sensitive and most widely censored topics in China. What do you recall about Tiananmen Square?

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989

The Berlin Wall was 15 feet high and 96 miles long, originally built in 1961. There were 302 watchtowers to prevent East Germans from going into West Germany. On November 8, the East German Politburo enacted draft travel regulations addressing permanent emigration immediately. The announcement of the regulations which brought down the Berlin Wall took place at an hour-long press conference led by Gunter Schabowksi, the German Communist leader, at 6 PM on November 9, that was broadcast live on East German television and radio. Thus, the Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989, during this Peaceful Revolution, marking the beginning of the destruction of the figurative Iron Curtain. The Berlin Wall had been the symbol of the Cold War. East Berlin transit restrictions were overwhelmed and discarded. Sections of the wall were breached, and planned deconstruction began the following June. An end to the Cold War was declared at the Malta Summit in early December, and German reunification took place in October, 1990. Crucially, a journalist had asked if this new regulation also applied to the crossings into West Berlin. Schabowski shrugged and confirmed that it did. After the press conference, Schabowski sat for an interview with NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw in which he repeated that East Germans would be able to emigrate through the border effective immediately. The news began spreading quickly. After hearing the broadcast, East Germans began gathering at the Wall, at the six checkpoints between East and West Berlin, demanding that border guards immediately open the gates. The surprised and overwhelmed guards made many hectic telephone calls to their superiors about the problem. Pictures of people on the wall were all over TV. I remember them as odd. Television coverage of citizens demolishing sections of the Wall was soon followed by the East German regime announcing ten new border crossings. The Brandenburg Gate in the Berlin Wall was opened on December 22, 1989. On that date, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl walked through the gate and was greeted by East German Prime Minister Hans Modrow. On June 13,1990, the East German Border Troops officially began dismantling the Wall that was completed in 1994. On July 1, 1990, the day East Germany adopted the West German currency, all de jure border controls ceased. French President François Mitterrand and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher both opposed the eventual reunification of Germany, fearing potential German designs on its neighbors using its increased strength. On December 25, 1989, Leonard Bernstein gave a concert in Berlin celebrating the end of the Wall, including Beethoven’s 9th symphony (Ode to Joy) with the word “Joy” (Freude) changed to “Freedom” (Freiheit) in the lyrics sung. On November 9, 1999, the 10th anniversary was observed with a concert and fireworks at the Brandenburg Gate. Berlin celebrated the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall with a “Festival of Freedom” with dignitaries from around the world in attendance for an evening celebration around the Brandenburg Gate. Berlin had a week-long arts festival from November 4 to 10, 2019 and a citywide music festival on November 9 to celebrate the 30th anniversary. Walls can be powerful symbols. Remember the falling of the walls of Jericho. Where were you when the Berlin Wall fell?

Mikhail Gorbachev (1931-2022)

Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) was a Soviet and Russian politician who was the last leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 until the country’s dissolution in 1991. He served as General Secretary of the Communist Party from 1985, and additionally as head of state from 1988. Ideologically, he initially adhered to Marxism–Leninism, but moved towards social democracy by the early 1990s. Gorbachev grew up under the rule of Joseph Stalin. Gorbachev joined the Communist Party, which then governed the Soviet Union as a one-party state. Studying at Moscow State University, he married fellow student Raisa Titarenko in 1953 and received his law degree in 1955. Moving to Stavropol, he worked for the Komsomol youth organization and, after Stalin’s death, became a keen proponent of the de-Stalinization reforms of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. Gorbachev was appointed the First Party Secretary of the Stavropol Regional Committee in 1970, overseeing the construction of the Great Stavropol Canal. In 1978, Gorbachev returned to Moscow to become a secretary of the party’s Central Committee. He joined the governing Politburo as a voting member in 1980. Three years after the death of the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, following the brief tenures of Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, in 1985, the Politburo elected Gorbachev as the general secretary. Although committed to preserving the Soviet state and its Marxist–Leninist principles, Gorbachev believed significant reform was necessary for its survival. He withdrew troops from the Soviet–Afghan War, and embarked on summits with USA President Ronald Reagan to limit nuclear weapons and end the Cold War. Domestically, Gorbachev’s policy of “openness” and “democratization” allowed for enhanced freedom of speech and the press, while his “restructuring” sought to decentralize economic decision-making to improve its efficiency. Ultimately, his democratization measures and formation of the elected Congress of People’s Deputies undermined the one-party state. When various Warsaw Pact countries abandoned Marxist–Leninist governance in 1989, he declined to intervene militarily. Growing nationalist sentiment within constituent republics threatened to break up the Soviet Union, leading hardliners within the party to launch an unsuccessful coup against him in August, 1991. In the coup’s wake, the Soviet Union dissolved against Gorbachev’s wishes. After resigning from the presidency, he launched the Gorbachev Foundation, became a vocal critic of Russian presidents, Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin, and campaigned for Russia’s social-democratic movement. Considered one of the most significant figures of the second half of the twentieth century, Gorbachev remains controversial. The recipient of a wide range of awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize, he was praised for his role in ending the Cold War, introducing new political and economic freedoms in the Soviet Union, and tolerating both the fall of Marxist–Leninist administrations in eastern and central Europe and the German reunification. Critics saw him as weakening Russia’s global influence and precipitating an economic collapse in the country. In a little more than six tumultuous years, Mr. Gorbachev lifted the Iron Curtain, decisively altering the political climate of the world. What do you know about Mikhail Gorbachev?

The Revolutions of 1989

Various civil revolutions took place in 1989 that help end communism in Eastern Europe, since these revolutions against communist governments were mainly succeeded. These 1989 revolutions were a wave of liberal democratic movements that resulted in the collapse of many Marxist–Leninist governments in the European Eastern Bloc, and even other parts of the world. These revolutions were a key factor in the dissolution of the Soviet Union, one of the two world superpowers. The abandonment of communist regimes in many parts of the world happened peacefully, but there were some violent overthrows. These events drastically altered the world’s balance of power, marking the end of the Cold War that had existed since the end of World War II in 1945, almost 45 years of quiet bitterness between the two world powers, the USA and the USSR. Thus, the new post-Cold War era began. The earliest recorded protests, which led to these revolutions, began in Poland in 1980, with a massive general strike which led to the establishment of Solidarity, the first and only independent trade union in the Eastern Bloc, whose peak membership reached 10 million. The main area of the 1989 revolutions was in Poland, and Hungary, with experiments in power-sharing. The Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, and the overthrow of the communist dictatorship in Romania led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. These quiet revolutions continued in East Germany, Bulgaria, and Romania. In 1989, the Polish Solidarity party won an overwhelming victory that led to the peaceful fall of communism in Poland. Influenced by Poland, Hungary organized round table-format talks and began dismantling its section of the Iron Curtain. In August 1989, over a quarter of the Baltic states population protested the occupation by the Soviet Union. Austria and Hungary set in motion a peaceful chain reaction, in which the Eastern Bloc disintegrated. This led to mass demonstrations in cities of East Germany and the fall of the Berlin Wall in November, 1989, which served as the symbolic gateway to German reunification in 1990. Common to all these developments was the use of civil resistance campaigns, demonstrating popular opposition to the continuation of the one-party rule, adding pressure for change. Romania was the only country in which citizens and opposition forces used violence to overthrow its communist regime. The Soviet Union became a multi-party semi-presidential republic from March 1990 and held its first presidential election, marking a drastic change as part of its reform program. The Soviet Union finally dissolved in December 1991, resulting in seven new countries which had declared their independence from the Soviet Union, while the Baltic states had already regained their independence, along with Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. The rest of the Soviet Union continued with the establishment of the Russian Federation. Albania and Yugoslavia abandoned communism between 1990-92, by which time Yugoslavia had split into five new countries. Czechoslovakia dissolved three years after the end of communist rule, splitting peacefully into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993. North Korea abandoned Marxism–Leninism in 1992. The Cold War was considered to have ended on December 3, 1989 during the Malta Summit between the Soviet and American leaders. However, it was difficult to put a specific date, since this was an evolving process. Do you remember the revolutions of 1989?

My Sunday morning schedule

During the late 1980s, I developed a Sunday schedule. I decided to work every Sunday, unless I was doing something with the family or the band. It was a short day. We went from 11:00 AM-4:00 PM. I would get up early every Sunday morning and go to the 7:30 AM Mass at St. Lawrence O’Toole, in Matteson, usually not that crowded, maybe 50 people. Margaret and Joy usually went to the 10:30 AM Mass. After Mass, I would go over to the Holiday Inn, that is still there as the Holiday Inn Express and Suites, on the way home. They had a new French bakery there. Every Sunday morning, they had freshly baked French baguettes. There is nothing like freshly baked French bread. I bought one every Sunday morning. I had it for breakfast with butter, and made a sandwich for that day. The rest of it, I left for Margaret or Joy to have. Then I left at 9:30 AM and I was sure to get to work by 10:30 AM. I made the deposits from Saturday, before the store opened, and put them in the safe. I then turned on the TVs in the TV section. I was in charge. If anyone had a problem, they knew that they could find me in the TV section as I watched the various football games on and off. If it was not busy, it was a great day. Occasionally, there were some customer problems that I handled. I had a baguette sandwich for lunch and answered the phone if it rang. There were no deliveries on Sunday, so that there were no delivery problems. We then closed the store at 4:00 PM. I was home by 5:00 PM because the traffic was so good, for dinner with Joy and Margaret. After dinner, I always got to watch “Book Notes” with Brian Lamb on CSPAN. It was my favorite day of the week, besides Thursdays, when I had the whole day off, and just did carpools. What do you do on Sundays?

I hit a security guard

This was all my fault. I have no one to blame for this except myself. It was a Saturday morning sometime in the mid-1980s. I was in charge that day. We were busy just before noon. A customer came up to me to complain that they could not get their merchandise. The Montgomery Ward store shared a ramp to take stuff out to the parked cars with the warehouse behind us. They always had a security guard who checked out the stuff as it left our store and the warehouse. Normally, that was not a problem. I asked this customer, what the problem was. She explained that the security guard said that her paperwork was not correct. I thought maybe a salesman had made a mistake. I walked her out to the security guard. He explained that the numbers did not match. I looked at them again, and they did match. Then he complained that the writing was not that clear. I could agree with that. Anyway, she got her merchandise and left. About a half hour later, the carry-out guy told me that a customer had a big argument with the security guard. Once again, I went out to see him to see what the problem was. Once again, he complained about the paper work. This customer was also mad for taking so long. Then I saw that a lot of other customers were standing around waiting for their merchandise. I asked the security guard what the problem was. He said that he had to check everything out and there were a lot of discrepancies. I looked at all the papers and they were all correct. I just told everybody to take their stuff and go. Then the security guard got mad at me. He said that it was his job to check all the merchandise out before it left. I told him that he was harassing the customers. He told me that this was his job, and I could not tell him what to do. As he came near me, I hauled off and knocked his hat off. He told me he was going to report me. Then, I realized that I did something stupid. I was upset at myself. I should have tried to talk to him some more. Anyway, I said I was sorry. We got through the rest of the day without any more incidents. However, on Monday, I knew that I was in trouble. I went to the warehouse manager to talk to him about this. He said he knew about it. We, he and the security guard and myself met on Tuesday. I did not know what to expect. I thought that I might get fired for hitting a security guard. However, the opposite happened. The warehouse manager reprimanded the guard for his lack of concern about customer service. I was surprised, and felt bad for the security guard. Afterwards, I went to him again and apologized for what had happened and we became pretty good friends. The moral of this story is not to hit anybody, even if you are mad. Have you ever hit anyone at work?

A snowstorm in April during the 1980s

Margaret loved snow storms, since there would be no school, but a free day. She had grown up in South Dakota. For me, the less snow, the better. Like rain in the Chicago area, everyone drove slower. Well, I was working at Montgomery Ward sometime in the 1980s, maybe 1982. It was a nice sunny day when I went to work. However, about late morning, it began to snow in the first week of April. I assumed that it would be a dusting of snow, and be gone in a couple of hours. As the day went on, it continued to snow. Fewer customers came into the store. Finally, around three o’clock in the afternoon, a truck driver walked into our store saying that all the roads had closed. The cars and trucks were stuck on the road behind each other. At first, I thought about getting in my car and leaving, but the road out was blocked with other stuck cars. Then I thought the snow plows would come out and everything would be all right. I often worked to nine o’clock, so that I was not worried. However, it kept on snowing. All of us were stuck in the store. We could not get out. Some people from the warehouse came into the store also. We were going to have to stay overnight. Luckily, the snack machine in the warehouse cafeteria had some snacks to eat. Then we picked out a couch to sleep on. Finally, we all went to sleep around ten o’clock. I, with twenty or thirty other people, slept in the store that night. The next morning, I was anxious to leave, but Seymour Road was still blocked. We had to wait until the afternoon to leave. As soon as the road opened, I left. The store would be closed. I could not believe how many cars were abandoned on the road. I finally made it home. By the time I got home, most of the snow was melting, so that the next day, there was no problem. That was the one time that I slept on the job. Have you ever been stuck somewhere because of a snowstorm?

A box of wine

This problem was all my fault. We were going to a birthday party for one of Margaret’s teacher friends. She asked me to go out and get a bottle of wine. I said no problem. I went to some liquor store where they were selling wine in a box. I thought that it was a neat concept. I decided to buy a box of wine as a birthday gift. Margaret was horrified. What kind of birthday gift is a box of wine? She had asked for a bottle of wine. I should have gone and got a bottle or wine, but I was determined that people at the party would like the idea of a box of wine. How wrong I was. Everyone at the party laughed at it. Thus, I was going to show them. If no one was going to drink my box of wine, then I would drink myself. Instead of drinking Coke-Cola, like I usually did, I drank this box of wine by myself. You guessed it, I was plastered, drunk, and throwing up. Margaret had to drive home. The motto of this story is that a box is not a bottle. There is something aesthetically pleasing about a bottle of wine that a box cannot replace. I never bought a box a wine again. Have you ever bought a box of wine?

The toll road traffic jam

Another mis-adventure that I had sometime in the early 1980s was the continual Chicago traffic jams. I had become accustomed to the famous gapper’s bloc, when everyone slows down to see what kind of accident happened. Accidents happen. The other great season in Chicago is construction season, from April to November. Somebody is always fixing a road, but never expanding these roads. I had come to realize that they can at any time, with or without notice, start a road improvement project. Most of the radio traffic alerts are only good, way after it has happened. Thus, in my great wisdom, I decided to use the toll road as the best way, since there were less traffic accidents and less construction. However, there was one day when I was coming from O’Hare to Matteson, after five o’clock in the evening on I-294. This was the day that I swore off the tollway. In those days, you had to stop and pay the toll at each toll on the road. The fastest way through the toll was if you had exact change, which I had all the time. However, this evening I paid the toll, after being in the line to pay. I accepted that as reality. However, once through the toll, the traffic would normally return to normal speed, but not this day. I never went over 10 mph with stop and go traffic from one toll at O’Hare to the next toll. I was so angry, I decided never to use this toll road again. I could ride the congested local roads with red lights or the congested Kennedy without paying any tolls. I was not going to pay tolls for congestion. I would rather have free congestion than paid congestion. Have you ever been on a congested toll road?