I've seen some good takes on this website before, e.g.
Tiananmen Square massacre is a myth; all we’re remembering are British lies
Wikileaks: no bloodshed inside Tiananmen Square, cables claim
Workers World: China’s Tiananmen Square
Tiananmen Square ‘massacre’ was a myth
What really happened at Tiananmen?
West hypes false Tiananmen death toll
The original fake news: Tiananmen Square massacre
The defeat of counter-revolution in China
WikiLeaks - LATIN AMERICAN DIPLOMAT EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT OF JUNE 3-4 EVENTS ON TIANANMEN SQUARE (1989)
Richard Roth - There Was No "Tiananmen Square Massacre" (2009)
Yenica Cortes - Tiananmen Square and the threat of counterrevolution (2009)
Tiananmen - the massacre that wasn’t
No, 10,000 were not killed in China’s 1989 Tiananmen Crackdown (anti-Chinese source, but still!)
Deirdre Griswold - Tiananmen Square ‘massacre’ was a myth (2011)
My understanding is: People protested in China, between 0 and 1 people died in the square, even western journalists were right there and saw nothing untoward. Somewhere between 0.6 and 5 people per city died as a result of the clashes with police over a 7 week period. The main demands of the protests were to halt the liberalization of the economy and erosion of welfare, and to address high inflation and political corruption. Some had other demands too, but those were far and away the main ones.
Is there a struggle session to be had about it really? Even Wikipedia agrees with the above statements, so that account of events is using pro-Western sources.
When you account for the real numbers, to call it a 'massacre' is little but anti-China rhetoric. Compare for example the '92 LA "Riots", where the deaths were up to 100x higher per capita, if the first was a massacre, what the heck do you call the second?
I don't like to use per capita measures to decide how bad an event was. That's the same reasoning as the "actually if you account for the difference in population, Oct 7th was like 50 9/11's in one day" talking point. But it is important to point out that it was definitely not a massacre because the bulk of the civilian deaths that occurred only happened after skirmishes in which police and soldiers had also been killed. It wasn't unilateral which I think is a pretty important part of a massacre.
Well, I'm using "per-capita" in the sense of "how many people were roughly involved or proximal to the events". Not just "how many people live in that country", as well as only comparing like-for-like (city-wide protests) events, to try avoid that kind of reasoning.
How much deaths in LA?