On the evening of May 24, 2025, the “Never Forget the CCP Massacre! 36th Anniversary of the June Fourth Series of Commemorative Activities” in the San Francisco Bay Area kicked off in San Jose. The first session was led by the leader of the June Fourth democracy movement, Feng Congde, speaking on “The Truth of June Fourth and Narrative Warfare: Reconstructing Historical Memory,” attracting over 60 attendees covering three generations, including the elderly, middle-aged, and youth, with many activists also in attendance.
Feng Congde started with the slogan of “White Paper Movement” and “It’s my duty!”, dissecting the historical memory of June Fourth and three narratives: the CCP official narrative, the narrative of united front warfare, and the narrative of courage and martial arts. He pointed out that the “united front narrative” is a false propaganda packaged by the CCP under the guise of democracy, aimed at covering up the truth, suppressing the courageous, and glorifying authoritarianism, leading the democracy movement astray and missing the opportunity for democracy.
As a witness, Feng Congde has been compiling information and establishing the June Fourth archives for over thirty years. He exposed the fictional content in “Tiananmen Documents” that denigrated the courageous individuals (such as Zhang Jian), criticizing that the failure of the 1989 democracy movement was due to the lack of a clear democratic revolutionary strategy and being misled by united front tactics. He criticized some intellectuals who superficially oppose the CCP but actually cooperate with it in advancing goals such as WTO accession and hosting the Olympics.
Feng Congde traced the CCP’s learning of Soviet united front strategies since 1922, weakening resistance through infiltration, division, manipulation of language and historical knowledge. He pointed out that the CCP implanted terms and logic of “cultural violence,” making opposition unconsciously use CCP terms like “pro-autonomy,” confusing historical understanding.
For the future, he advocated for a decentralized approach to democratic movements, promoting self-governing committees, using the 1946 ROC Constitution as a temporary constitutional basis, advocating for three pathways of democratic revolution – civic revolution, military revolution, and political revolution, drawing on Eastern European transition experiences, emphasizing the critical role of military revolution.
He emphasized the importance of awakening the slumbering to the impending crisis, combining economic or ecological crises to incite civic and military revolutions leading to political transformation.
He criticized the CCP for distorting “non-violence” as a trap that excludes the legitimacy of armed resistance, advocating for the restoration of the spirit of courage and martial arts in democratic revolution (such as the Wuchang Uprising of the Xinhai Revolution), dispelling the CCP’s rhetorical fog, and reinstating the spirit of courage and martial arts.
In the Q&A session, another June Fourth leader, Zhou Fengsuo, added that the public sentiment during the June Fourth movement was unprecedented, with a million Beijing citizens peacefully resisting against 250,000 troops, yet was covered up by CCP violence and lies. He praised Feng Congde for his long-term research and exposure of the truth, emphasizing that June Fourth was a nationwide peaceful democratic movement, while the CCP distorted history with united front narratives and fabricated videos to weaken the will to resist. He urged the overseas Chinese community for freedom to join hands in promoting the dissemination of truth and democratic transformation.
After the event, several young people surrounded Feng Congde to ask questions. Feng Congde candidly admitted that there were opportunists in the movement who were well aware of the CCP’s internal affairs, taking advantage, and seeking personal gain, causing lasting harm to the democracy movement. He reminded the young people that commemorating June Fourth is not only to honor the sacrifices of martyrs but also to rebuild a common belief in constitutionalism and justice.
Subsequently, in an interview, Feng Congde further pointed out that the CCP has accumulated wealth through appeasement policies and globalization, controlling a large part of China’s GDP, enhancing its “long-arm jurisdiction,” infiltrating Western political and business circles, and dissenting groups. He criticized the united front narrative misleading democracy activists, with some criticizing the CCP superficially while downplaying the June Fourth massacre. He pointed out that the CCP continues Soviet tactics, using “fake opposition” to export its narrative while employing violence and cultural control to confuse memory, leading to the concealment of truth and internal chaos within the democracy movement.
He called for the restoration of truth, exposing united front rhetoric, awakening young people, emphasizing that the CCP is not unshakable, and citing the democratic transitions of the Soviet Union and East Germany as proof of the importance of military revolution and constitutional goals.
Attending the event were democracy leaders Fang Zheng, Zhao Changqing, the founder of the “Tiananmen Mothers” Ding Zilin, the founder of the June Fourth Orphans Education Fund Tao Ye, and Zheng Yun, a director of the Chinese Democratic Education Foundation. The on-site exchanges were enthusiastic, and the audience was deeply inspired. ◇