Throughout the day on May 17, 1989, with student-led protests occupying Beijing's Tiananmen Square and paralyzing much of the country, several of China's most powerful figures dropped by the home of the most powerful of them all, Deng Xiaoping, to discuss what to do.
''If things continue like this, we could even end up under house arrest,'' Deng warned his old comrades, according to a book of documents that its editors describe as classified Communist Party archives smuggled out of China. ''After thinking long and hard about this, I've concluded that we should bring in the People's Liberation Army and declare martial law in Beijing.''
The documents, which number in the hundreds and have been deemed authentic by several experts, appear in ''The Tiananmen Papers,'' which will be published on Monday. [Excerpts, Page A6.] They depict how China's rulers decided to order a military crackdown that in June 1989 killed hundreds and put China's present leadership in place. They also suggest how deeply divided the top leaders were and how close the country came to embracing political change rather than crushing it.
Provided to American scholars by a shadowy Chinese figure who says he represents people in the Communist Party favoring more rapid change, the materials paint a vivid picture of the leadership during the Tiananmen crisis. While largely confirming impressions of how the crackdown came about, the documents detail internal arguments, the fears of the elderly leaders and the ways officials used those fears.
Inevitably, a central question is how certain one can be of the authenticity of the documents, which were provided as computer printouts. They include Politburo minutes, army and intelligence reports and memorandums of meetings that Deng held with his comrades.
Several times in recent decades, Chinese documents initially hailed as important were later discredited. For example, a supposed inside account of the 1971 fall of Mao's designated successor, Lin Biao, was published to great interest in 1983 but is now of dubious credibility.
But in interviews, the scholars who have pored over the Tiananmen documents and helped translate and edit them -- and who have intensely questioned the Chinese man who handed them over -- have expressed the firm conviction that the material is authentic. Even so, they said, they are less certain that it accurately captures the reality of the period.
''I believe that the documents are authentic,'' said James R. Lilley, the American ambassador during the protests and one of few experts besides the volume's editors to have examined the materials. ''But I don't rule out the possibility that people might have played with the language to score certain points. In addition, the documents themselves contain material that is not true. For example, the reports on the C.I.A. are exaggerated and inflammatory to appeal to the paranoia of the Chinese leadership.''
The documents indicate that the officials who formally held the top posts -- the members of the Politburo Standing Committee -- were split two to two, with one abstention, over whether to use force to end the protests. Without a majority, the hard-liners lacked standing to call in the troops.
But, according to the documents, the deadlock was broken by Deng and his octogenarian comrades, who had retired from most of their official posts but still held ultimate power. In this sense, the papers suggest an important conclusion, surmised before but now emerging more forcefully: that had it not been for Deng and the other elders, the moderates might have prevailed in the power struggle, averting bloodshed and inaugurating a period of greater political openness and economic liberalization.
There seems little doubt that the documents, which are to be published in Chinese in April and sold in places like Hong Kong, will slip into China and stir intense interest there, despite an almost complete ban on public discussion of the Tiananmen incident. Disclosure of the documents could erode the authority of two top Chinese leaders.
One is Jiang Zemin, China's president and Communist Party general secretary, who was awarded the top posts after Deng and the elders dismissed the former party chief, Zhao Ziyang, for opposing martial law. The other is Li Peng, now the chairman of China's Parliament and the second-ranking figure in the Communist hierarchy, who was prime minister in 1989. Mr. Li in particular is depicted in the documents as manipulating information to encourage a crackdown.
''The hard-liners that pushed the decision to use force, especially Li Peng, are still vulnerable on these issues, and these papers show how they acted,'' Ambassador Lilley said. ''They show Li to be this guy with very little tolerance of dissent.''
The Tiananmen protests began in mid-April 1989, at first to mourn the death of Hu Yaobang, a former party leader and a symbol of political reform. The mourning turned into vast demonstrations for a free press, more open and representative government, a crackdown on corruption and inflation, and independent labor unions.