In the run-up to the 2008 Summer Olympics, which will be held in Beijing, the topic of human rights in China is especially actively discussed by the Western media. These discussions have fueled recent unrest in Tibet, during which at least 140 people are estimated to have died. The official attitude in our country to the observance of democratic freedoms in China differs markedly from the position of Western European countries and the United States. Meanwhile, the history of the opposition movement in China remains poorly understood. The opposition movement in China has its roots in the 70s of the last century. It developed with particular force after the Beijing public became aware of the reconstruction at a Working meeting of the CPC Central Committee in November 1978 of the events that received the name "April 5 movement" in the historical literature of the PRC (1976), a spontaneous protest of broad sections of Chinese society against the policy of the "cultural revolution" and attempts to revive it in 1976 - 1978 was called the "Beijing Spring" (by analogy with the" Prague Spring " of 1968). The theme of the "Beijing Spring" was not studied in either Soviet or subsequent Russian historiography, and its study in China is strictly prohibited. Taiwanese historians have been most successful in investigating this problem. We are talking about publishing a collection in 20 volumes, which, although far from complete, contains the "dazibao" period of the "Beijing Spring"1. Through the efforts of Taiwanese scientists, several books on various aspects of the "Beijing Spring" have been published in the "Study of Mainland China"series. In addition, much work has been done in this direction in Hong Kong (long before reunification with the PRC) .2 THE GANG OF FOUR AND DENG XIAOPING Formed in the early 1970s, an ultra-left factional group within the CCP, referred to in historical literature as the "gang of four" or simply the "four" (a group of CCP leaders - Mao Zedong's widow ... Read more