On the contrary, the lack of a clear response from the Party emboldened the demonstrators. While Zhao was away for a week-long state visit to North Korea, the other leaders, headed by Li Peng, brought the problem to Deng Xiaoping. In the exaggerated version they told him, the students were aiming to overthrow the regime. Deng labelled the movement "turmoil" (dongluan) and said it had to be decisively denounced. His words were reflected in an editorial published in the April 26 edition of the People's Daily.
This was a second and larger mistake. The editorial was aimed at setting boundaries, warning the majority of loyal students not to be misled by a small group of radicals. But the label "turmoil" proved inflammatory.
The students believed that if they ended the demonstrations while the protests were still officially considered turmoil, they would be exposed to harsh punishment. Only if their movement was labeled "patriotic" and "democratic," they felt, could they safely withdraw from the Square to end their movement. So the paradoxical effect of Deng Xiaoping's verdict was to raise the stakes so high that the students became trapped in the Square. There they served as a magnet for others who joined them as the stalemate continued.
But Deng's involvement raised the stakes for the Party as well. On the one side, Zhao Ziyang felt that the crowds were not challenging the ultimate leadership of the Communist Party, that their central demands were for dialogue and for the Party itself to solve the problems the students had raised, and that to get to work on these goals, which the Party shared, the Party should withdraw the April 26 turmoil verdict. Deng was willing to consider his advice. But Li Peng argued, also with good reason, that the editorial had already made a clear distinction between an innocent majority and a guilty minority and that those who insisted on overturning the editorial were precisely the guilty ones whom the Party needed firmly to confront.