The protests of 1989 were massive, and the central government responded with a near equivalent level of force. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers were deployed in and around the capital city with hundreds of tanks and armored vehicles. On June 4, soldiers surrounded the protesters at Tiananmen. They were given orders, according to PBS, not to fire immediately but that no matter what the square should be empty by 6 a.m. the next day. The protesters, understanding the circumstances, held a vote — stay and face thousands of soldiers or stay alive by leaving. "It was clear to me," eyewitness John Pomfret told PBS, "that the stay votes were much, much, much stronger."
The massacre started later, when people returned to the square to look for relatives or friends. Soldiers opened fire, chasing them away, said journalist Jan Wong. "The commander would eventually give another signal ... and they'd shoot more in the backs." Across the city barricades erected by protesters were being torn down while the protesters themselves were forcibly dispersed.
By the next morning the square was quiet. Protesters had fled, the dead and wounded removed, and the soldiers were being ordered to other parts of the city. This is when the line of tanks met a lone, grocery-carrying stranger. It may seem strange, but Tank Man stopped the tanks from leaving the scene, not from entering. And nobody will ever know why.