Obligatory: https://www.qiaocollective.com/education/tiananmenreadinglist

I also did my own research on this awhile back, and what I found was:

• There was no massacre in the square or anywhere else, full stop.
• There was violence elsewhere in the city, but it wasn’t as one sided as western media would likely portray and several soldiers were killed by rioters in addition to civilians killed.
• The official numbers of dead and wounded likely at least comes close to the official data released.
• The CIA was involved in pushing the protests, and then helped the protest leaders escape after the fact. In other words, it wasn’t just ordinary Chinese people protesting.
• There were legitimate grievances that helped fuel the protests. This also included many who were upset about China’s policies around economic liberalization and the problems that created, which flies in the face of the western narrative.
• There’s room for criticism regarding how it was handled, but again there’s no serious evidence that any “massacre” took place and there’s also evidence of intent to avoid violence in many cases.

Again, this is what I arrived at, but feel free to chime in if any of this is wildly wrong.