Perhaps, but I talk more in strategical terms than tactical ones: surely China gov. can order a general massacre of Shanghai peoples and that might succeed in t

Perhaps, but I talk more in strategical terms than tactical ones: surely China gov. can order a general massacre of Shanghai peoples and that might succeed in tactical terms. But they can't hide it. They have power but they have rivals and people, so the news of such event will travel far more than the Tian'anmen massacre. The bigger the initially repressed unrest the faster and spread the news will be. At that point dictators are already dead: they have lost their people faith and no new narrative to calm them can be easily forged. That's why if the initial movement is large/fast/resolute/extreme enough at start they can materially repress them but they can't strategically do so, in that case their best option is a compromise and some head to blame, that might not solve the issue but make time, time usable to forge other truth and divert/disperse the rioters by their own choice. The issue with "Liberty or Death!" is more in "generic people vs emerging new leaders", generic people might accept big sacrifice for big promises but for a short period of time. You can't tell a crowd "we will fight and loose for a decade, BUT thanks to that struggle in the next decade we will win" almost no one will follow. So you have to deceive the crowd pushing some "expendable" to the extreme to gain a position useful for others. That's why IMVHO no "revolution" was really done from the people but from the middle class witch use the mass of peoples to revolt against the élite in power. That's why I say that Marxist are not much more "for the people" than the nazi, they promise power but in Marxism power never goes down to the people while the vast and divided middle class is erased. That's the mechanism that kill the Mensheviks making the Bolsheviks rise. That's why the SA was killed by SS in nazi German etc. BUT there are situation when a flock stampede, in those moments no one can stop the riot. Some cowboys might mass shooting cows for our life but if cows are enough they'll run out of ammo before the end of the stampede, mass hunger is a thing that makes such event...