How Tiananmen Square massacre impacted Communist regimes around the world

The tremors of theTiananmen Square massacre were felt beyond the borders of China and it coincided with tectonic shifts in international politics even as at homeBeijing crushed the movement and toppled its symbol.

In the 1980s, Communist states across the world were starting to open up. The wave was led by the erstwhile USSR. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was pushing for reform.

To the Communist world, Gorbachev personified change. He visited Beijingin May 1989, just days before the Tiananmen Square massacre.

It was the first visit by a Russian president in 30 years. The protesters wanted to meet him. They submitted a request at the Soviet embassy butGorbachev declined.

However, what he saw in Beijing, bothered him. He reportedly told a member of his delegation that"some of those present here... have promoted the idea of taking the Chinese road. We saw today where this road leads. I do not want the Red Square to look like Tiananmen Square."

What he was referring to was Chinese authoritarianism. Gorbachev himself was taking his country towards reform. namely Glasnost and Perestroika. Gorbachev left Beijing on May 19 and what followed only reinstated his belief that Communist regimes needed to open up.

On June 4, Poland held its first partly free elections in over 40 years. It was on the same day as the Tiananmen Square massacre. Polish trade union--- solidarity-- won a landslide majority.

Protests erupted in Czechoslovakia between November and December of 1989. Thousands were rallying against the one-party Communist government.

Also in 1989, Hungary put an end to more than four decades of Communist rule. It transitioned into democracy. East Germany and Romania were also on the brink of collapse. China was watching very closely. These were fellow Communist states folding one after another. Then the Berlin wall fell on November 9, 1989.

In December next year, Romanian president and Dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was toppled.The USSR too was crumbling. The Chinese leaders went to great lengths to prevent the Soviet Union from disintegrating.

China viewed the USSR as a "pole"in a multipolar world. Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping used to refer to the USSR as the "polar bear".The USSR was also a model for other Communist parties and governments around the world. The Chinese Communist Party knit the survival of the Soviet Union very closely with its own legitimacy.

The Soviet Union collapsed in December 1991. It was one of the most pivotal events of the 20th century. The birthplace of the world's first socialist experiment had re-written its history.

The Soviet Union was no more and the Chinese Communist Party mourned itsdemise.