The hypothesis tested in this thesis was whether there has been an evident evolution in the democratic thought of those engaged in China\u27s Democracy Movement in the post-Mao era. The activists of the Democracy Movement of 1978-79, following a long-standing tradition of remonstrance, were among those substantially influenced by the events of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. The activists initiated big character posters on Democracy Walls throughout China--but among the most influential was Beijing\u27s. Wei Jingsheng, though certainly not the only voice, represented the more vocal and extreme democratic position in his wall poster The Fifth Modernization: Democracy, which first appeared in late 1978 and which brought to the movement an aspect of the liberalism controversy that had not been expressed or defined previously
