From November 1978 to December 1979, thousands of people put up "big character posters" on a long brick wall of Xidan Street, Xicheng District of Beijing, to protest about the political and social issues of China; the wall became known as the Democracy Wall of Xidan (Chinese: 西单民主墙; pinyin: Xīdān mínzhǔ qiáng). Under acquiescence of the Chinese government, other kinds of protest activities, such as unofficial journals, petitions, and demonstrations, were also soon spreading out in major cities of China. This movement can be seen as the beginning of the Chinese Democracy Movement. It is also known as the "Democracy Wall Movement". This short period of political liberation was known as the Beijing Spring.

In 1966, when Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution, millions of middle school, high school, and college students answered Mao's call, being organized as the Red Guards to rebel and root out the capitalist roaders from within the Chinese Communist Party. But, in 1969, after using students in restoring the social order, Mao launched the Down to the Countryside Movement to exile the student Red Guards to rural areas. This movement caused a lot of red guards to feel purposely abandoned by Mao.

In 1971, Lin Biao's attempted coup and death shattered the widespread belief in Mao's infallibility and in the Cultural Revolution's success.

On November 10, 1974, Li Yizhe's big-character poster entitled "On Democracy and Legality under Socialism" appeared on a wall at an intersection on Beijing Road in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province. The 67 pages of the paper focused on: (1) Damage to the citizens caused by bureaucratic corruptions of the Chinese Communist Party during the Cultural Revolution; and (2) the need to practice democracy and a legal system in China. This big-character poster proved that people started to re-evaluate the Cultural Revolution and political system of China.

The core of the Democracy Movement was composed of former Red Guards.

Premier Zhou Enlai, a widely respected senior CCP leader, died on January 8, 1976. On April 5, at the Qingming Festival, thousands of Beijing's residents gathered in Tiananmen Square. They wrote poems and put up big character posters in Tiananmen Square to mourn for Zhou and express their anger towards the impious Gang of Four and the destructive Cultural Revolution. In response, Mao ordered the police and the PLA to disperse the people, and around four thousand were arrested. This incident was also called the April 5th Movement. Deng Xiaoping was announced as the "black hand" of the movement. On April 7, Mao Zedong proposed that the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CCP denounce Deng Xiaoping's official positions and that Hua Guofeng would assume Deng's positions as Prime Minister of the State Council and the vice-chairman of the CCP. The committee adopted both proposals.

After Mao Zedong's death occurred on September 9, 1976, with Hua Guofeng as Mao's successor, he felt threatened by the politically domineering Gang of Four. On October 6, under the support of Ye Jianying, Li Xiannian, and other members of the Politburo, Hua Guofeng arrested the Gang of Four. On the following day, Hua was voted in as chairman of the CCP and chairman of the Central Military Committee by a joint meeting of the First Secretaries of the Provincial Party Committees and the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CCP. For proving his legitimacy, Hua instructed Wang Dongxing to let the People's Daily, People's Liberation Army Daily, and Red Flag magazine to publish an editorial now known as the Two Whatevers. Hua claimed that they would honor Mao's policy and his instruction to the full extent. On the other hand, on July 21, 1977, during the 3rd Plenary Session of the CCP's 10th Central Committee, Deng Xiaoping resumed his positions as Prime Minister of the State Council and vice-chairman of the CCP. After Deng came back to work, he started to fix some political decisions of Mao's era. During the spring of 1978, 130,000 victims of the Anti-Rightist Movement who had been removed from their positions in 1957, recovered their social statuses. Deng continued to challenge Hua's legitimacy and fight for the domination in ideological field. For example, Deng wrote an essay on May 24, 1977, titled "The 'Two Whatever' Policy Does Not Accord With Marxism". Under the support of Deng Xiaoping, Hu Yaobang indicated a party journal, Theoretical Trends to publish the article "Pragmatism is the Only Standard in Measuring Truth" on May 10, 1978, which marked the key difference between Deng and Hua. This article was re-published in Guangming Daily, People's Daily, and People's Liberation Army Daily and soon caused a huge discussion movement in China, which was called The Discussion on Criteria of Truth .

The Democracy Wall movement framed the key issue as the elimination of bureaucratism and the bureaucratic class. However, the movement lacked ideological cohesion. It involved many individuals and small groups with diverse political views and areas of concern. "From an organizational standpoint, there was no single movement" and ideological views were often sharply-divided. While Democracy Wall participants agreed that "democracy" was the means to resolve the conflict between the bureaucratic class and the people, the nature of the proposed democratic institutions was a major source of disagreement. A majority of participants in the movement viewed the movement as part of a struggle between correct and incorrect notions of Marxism. Many participants advocated classical Marxist views that drew on the Paris Commune for inspiration. The Democracy Wall movement also included non-Marxists and anti-Marxists, although these participants were a minority.