a series of economic reforms, introducing a market economy under the theory of "Socialism with Chinese characteristics". Although this period initially saw a rise in living standards, it also brought an increase in cronyism and inflation, leading many workers to consider themselves "losers in the decade of economic reform" and began to respond with slowdowns and wildcat strikes. In response to increasing debates on the question of social alienation in the PRC, the Communist Party launched the Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign, which targeted the Marxist humanists of the "alienation school". Wang Ruoshui, a prominent proponent of the theory of alienation, argued that alienation continued to exist even after the socialist revolution, stating that "when the government turns into an overlord, refusing to accept the people's control and turning into an alien force, this is alienation." He even went as far as to propose that "to overcome alienation, one should take anarchism into account" and called for the institution of universal suffrage with the right to recall elected officials, which led him to be purged from his post at the People's Daily newspaper. The conservative party official Hu Qiaomu extensively criticized the humanism of Wang, claiming that the recognition of alienation could lead to people "abolish all social political powers, social economic organizations, ideological authority, and centralism and discipline". When the intensifying campaign threatened to undermine the continuing economic reforms, Deng Xiaoping ordered it to be wound down, although Wang would later be purged from the Communist Party ranks altogether. In spite of the repression against the democracy movement, pro-democratic ideas continued to spread throughout the 1980s, becoming increasingly popular among China's student movement. Towards the end of 1986, student demonstrations began to take place in a number of Chinese cities calling for political reforms, including the ability for citizens to nominate their own candidates for the National People's Congress rather than choosing from a government-approved list, as well as an end to political corruption and cronyism. With none of the students' demands being met by the government, the party responded by initiating a campaign against "bourgeois liberalization", stopping student protests and restricting political activity, with the reformer Hu Yaobang being removed from his post as General Secretary. Yaobang's death in April 1989 became the catalyst for the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, during which people called for democratic reforms, an end to corruption, and the reinstitution of the "four freedoms". The protests