Students at Peking University and Tsinghua University and workers set up a tent camp in the square next to the Monument to the People’s Heroes and went on an indefinite strike. On April 27, university students in Beijing (up to 100,000 people according to various estimates participated in the action) marched through the streets of the city to the square. By May 13, two days before Mikhail Gorbachev’s visit to China, the students had gone on hunger strike to attract attention. More than 300,000 people had gathered in the square by this point. The protests took place not only in Beijing, but also in other Chinese cities.

On May 20, martial law was imposed in Beijing and troops were sent to the capital (a total of 250,000 troops arrived in the city). On June 3, unarmed troops were sent to storm the square, but they failed to capture it: students resisted and clashes broke out in the streets. On the same day, tanks and armored personnel carriers entered the city, which the demonstrators pelted with stones and Molotov cocktails.

On June 4, those gathered in Tiananmen Square were told over loudspeakers that they would “take any measures” to enforce martial law. Soldiers defending the square opened fire on the protesters – according to official figures, 241 people were killed, according to unofficial reports, between 400 and several thousand people were killed.

The protesters were declared criminals, and many of the activist leaders fled abroad. Other countries condemned the bloody suppression of the rally; in China itself, the protests caused a change in the government’s course – the liberalization of society that began in the 1980s was curtailed. The events on Tiananmen Square were followed by purges in the Party: Zhao Ziyang, the General Secretary who opposed martial law, was dismissed and put under house arrest back in May 1989, and his supporters were also dismissed. Jiang Zemin, the mayor of Shanghai, was appointed as the new general secretary, and the relaxation of control over internal politics would not begin until 1992.

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The student protests, joined by the workers, began in the winter and lasted several months. As the Olympics approached, the actions became more and more massive. On August 2, students formed a “National Council of Strikes” to organize protests, which was joined by students from 70 universities. Students demanded respect for university autonomy, the release of political prisoners, and punishment for officials responsible for the violent crackdown.

On October 2, 10 days before the competition, a massive peaceful protest began in Mexico City’s Tlatelolco neighborhood in the Plaza de las Cultras, with 10,000 people in attendance. In the evening, troops (5,000 soldiers and 200 armored vehicles) surrounded the square and helicopters patrolled it from above. According to official data, the protesters were the first to open fire, and the military only responded. But later (the investigation was opened 30 years later, in 1998) it became known that the first shots were fired by snipers from the houses surrounding the square. In the “Tlatelolco massacre” between 30 and 400 people were killed, according to various estimates, and many protesters were detained on the spot and sent to prison.

In 1970 Díaz Ordaz’s presidential term ended and he did not run for office again. The events in Mexico’s Three Cultures Square became a symbol of the struggle for civil rights and gave rise to democratic changes in society and the emergence of new activist groups.

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Events at Columbia University in New York took place in revolutionary 1968 almost simultaneously with the French. In 1967, students discovered that Columbia University was collaborating with the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), a research center under the Defense Department, involved in the unpopular Vietnam War in progressive circles. Another reason was the university administration’s plans to build a gymnasium for students on a park in nearby Harlem.

Protests on campus (which included activists from the “new left” organization Students for a Democratic Society, SDS) began in March. In late April, activists seized one of the university buildings – Hamilton Hall, where the classrooms and administration offices are located. The protesters did not fail to take a photo in the chancellor’s office: one of them was sitting at his desk wearing dark glasses and carrying a cigar [1]. At the end of the month, the university administration, after unsuccessful negotiations, let the police onto its territory, which stormed the buildings, more than 700 people were arrested. The protests and occupation of the buildings repeated in May and again were suppressed by the police, this time over 150 people were arrested.

The protests ended up achieving both the students’ goals – the plans to build a gym in Harlem, as well as the cooperation with IDA, were abandoned by the university administration. In addition, the protests showed Columbia and other university administrations that they do not live in an airless space and should listen to students.

The events at Columbia University were not the only student protests in the United States in the 1960s. In the same decade, large-scale actions took place in Berkeley, California, with participants demanding rights for blacks and opposing the Vietnam War: young people were also threatened by the possibility of the draft. As early as 1964, 1,500 students seized one of the university buildings. And in 1965, they held an anti-war march of 10,000 people in Oakland, one of the first major actions against the Vietnam War.

Tragic events occurred in 1970 in Kent, Ohio. On May 4, students staged a peaceful strike against the Vietnam War and the U.S. invasion of Cambodia. The National Guard arrived on the scene and opened fire on the demonstrators, killing 4 people and wounding 9 others.

“The massacre at the University of Kent (as the media dubbed it, which is how the events have remained in history) did not frighten the students and only led to a new wave of protests.

In May there was a student strike in the U.S. that spanned more than 700 campuses across the country, with clashes with police at 26 of them. On May 9, 100,000 people marched against the Vietnam War.
As in other countries, students in the U.S. were an important part of the protests and actively advocated for democratic change in the country and against the Vietnam War (which did not end until 1975).

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The protests began three months before the French, in February, when students at the University of Rome seized several faculties. They held the buildings for almost a month, until February 29, when the police began to storm the buildings. The protests spread not only to Rome, but also to other cities across the country.

The protests culminated in the so-called “Battle of Valle Julia.” On March 1, police and up to 4,000 students met in fierce fighting in the square in front of the Faculty of Architecture in the capital’s Valle Giulia neighborhood. The students threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at the police, who responded with batons. Despite police action, protesters reoccupied several university buildings. About 500 students and 150 policemen were injured in the clashes.

The authorities and parties condemned the actions of the students; public sympathy was not on their side either. But then there was a split in the ranks of the protesters themselves: On March 16, communists and neo-fascists were involved in a mass brawl in Rome. In 1969, factory workers joined the protests, and in the summer hundreds of thousands of people took part in joint marches demanding better working conditions and democratic freedoms, chanting anti-capitalist slogans.

The aggressive actions of the students preceded the “leaden seventies” in Italy, a decade of street violence and terrorist attacks that began with the 1969 bombing of the Milan Bank.

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In France, as in many other Western countries, the 1960s were a time of economic growth and a post-war demographic boom: living standards became higher, the number of young people grew, and many of them had a university education, which became increasingly accessible (in 1958 France had 175,000 students, in 1968 there were already over 500,000).

But by the middle of the decade, the economic upturn had slowed down, wages, unlike the number of unemployed, were not rising, which was the cause of strikes in 1966-1967. The policy of the authorities and their methods of force, the war in Vietnam, a former French colony, and, above all, the figure of General Charles de Gaulle, who had been president for almost 10 years, since 1959, caused dissatisfaction among students. The popularity in the 1960s of leftist ideas, including radical ideas: there were anarchists and Maoists among the students also influenced the growth of protest sentiments.

The formal reason for the protests was the forthcoming higher education reform, which included restrictions on students’ freedoms. The May events began with protests at the University of Paris in Nanterre, a suburb of the capital. Its students were dissatisfied with the actions of the university administration, in particular the introduction of separation of students of different genders in dormitories. Then students from the Sorbonne and other universities joined the protesters, and new protests were dispersed by riot police who used tear gas and batons. The brutal crackdown did not stop the protests: French sympathies were now on the side of the students, and actions of solidarity with the students began across the country (for example, on May 13, a million people marched in Paris in solidarity with the students). Trade unions and workers joined the protests and began a spontaneous strike.

Events unfolded spontaneously: the center of Paris was engulfed in something like military action – students dismantled cobblestones and built barricades of stones.

Cars were set on fire in the streets and Molotov cocktails were thrown. In all, up to 10 million people participated in the May protests – out of France’s population of 50 million. Students and workers now demanded not only rights and freedoms for themselves, but also the resignation of de Gaulle and a change of government. One of the victims of the protests was the Cannes Film Festival: Jean-Luc Godard, who supported the left, and other French filmmakers said that in such a situation there was no time for shows.

On May 30 de Gaulle announced on the radio that he refused to resign, but that early parliamentary elections would be held in the country. The elections were won by supporters of the president, who feared a revolution and that the country would descend into chaos, and the protests gradually died down as early as June. True, de Gaulle did not last in power for long – already in 1969, after the defeat at the referendum, he resigned, and another year later suddenly died. Former Prime Minister Georges Pompidou became the new president and the country switched to “Gaullism without de Gaulle”.

After the student protests of 1968 (the significance of which is still debated to this day – they are called one of the most important events of the century, and the failed revolution) the course of the country changed, new political forces gradually came to power. In 1969, the Socialist Party, represented by presidents François Mitterrand and François Hollande, was founded. For several years, the current French President Emmanuel Macron was also a member, who then founded the social-liberal party “Forward, Republic!”.

What is certain is that the May events have left an indelible cultural mark – hardly any other protests have had so many films made about them.

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