The New York Times, by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

By Nicholas D. Kristof

BEIJING, April 16— In a nation where there are no opinion polls to assess the popularity of national leaders, what people do with small bottles may be the best indication of the remarkable rise and fall in the popularity of Deng Xiaoping.

''Xiaoping'' in spoken Chinese can mean ''small bottle'' - although the written character for ''ping'' in Mr. Deng's name is not the one used for ''bottle'' - and people seized on the symbolism a decade ago, when Mr. Deng was struggling to power and embodied the nation's hope for non-revolutionary prosperity. At that time, ordinary people registered their support for Mr. Deng by leaving small bottles in conspicuous places. These days, some people are expressing their feelings by smashing small bottles.

A decade ago, it was more talk than action, and these days, too, more people speak of breaking bottles than actually smash them. ''What's the point?'' explained a young man in Beijing. ''If you smash it in public, you might get arrested, and if you smash it at home, you just have to sweep it up.''

In any case, even Communist Party officials acknowledge that the public is growing tired of Mr. Deng. Some of the pent-up hostility has come into the open after the death Saturday of the former party leader Hu Yaobang, who was ousted two years ago after being criticized by Mr. Deng for tolerating intellectual dissidents and student unrest. Deng's 'Stature Isn't Going Up'

In the early hours this morning at Tiananmen Square, the center of Beijing and the political focal point of China, white paper flowers fluttered in the breeze where mourners had left them to honor Mr. Hu. The only sign of litter was a freshly broken small bottle.

Public criticism of Mr. Deng remains a taboo in China, but in private it seems that few people have a kind word about him. Farmers blame him because they cannot get fertilizer. Workers blame him for the widespread corruption. Intellectuals blame him for ignoring education. And everybody blames him for rapidly rising prices.

''Everything is going up,'' according to a ditty now making the rounds in the capital. ''Only Xiaoping's stature isn't going up'' - a mocking reference to the fact that he is barely five feet tall.

The wave of discontent directed at Mr. Deng is an extraordinary come-down for a man who since 1978 has personally engineered China's ''second revolution,'' including a policy of economic liberalization that has doubled people's real incomes in just a decade. Few people in the 20th century have changed so many people's lives by so much, overwhelmingly for the better. Reasons for Deng's Slump

Interviews in the last week with Chinese and with foreign diplomats and scholars suggest three reasons for the slump in Mr. Deng's popularity:

* There is general discontent over inflation, corruption, crime and shortages, and people blame Mr. Deng since he is the most powerful person in the nation. Incomes and living standards have risen enormously in China over the last decade, but aspirations have increased even more quickly.

* Many people believe that several of Mr. Deng's children have capitalized on their father's position in their business activities. Mr. Deng no longer seems to rise above the petty corruption and influence-peddling that people see all around them.

* Some say that Mr. Deng, 84 years old, has held onto power too long. People often compare him to the aging Mao Zedong of the mid-1970's, and say that he should completely retire and leave the stage. Called Victim of His Success

Implicit in many of the criticisms is the general perception that Mr. Deng has been superseded and outdated because of the very success of the liberalization process that he initiated.

''Deng may have been right for China a decade ago, but now the people have gone beyond him,'' a Chinese journalist said. ''It's a measure of how much China has changed in the last 10 years.''

At Beijing University, where students have put up illegal posters mourning the death of Mr. Hu, there is an unmistakable edge to their grief.

''Overthrow the dictator,'' read one poster erected this morning. The authorities pulled it down hours later.

Another, pasted up Saturday night and meticulously copied by scores of students in small notebooks, bluntly declared, ''The wrong person died.''

When more than a dozen Beijing University students were loudly and simultaneously discussing their views with a foreign reporter on Saturday night, there was a sudden hush when the visitor asked what they thought of Mr. Deng. After a long pause, a woman asked, ''Can't you tell?''

Wu Jiaxiang, a 34-year-old rising star in the central party organization and the author of a laudatory biography of Mr. Deng, said he is convinced not only that Mr. Deng is a great statesman but that after 50 years the Chinese people will recognize his greatness in history. But for now, he said, the problem is that the Chinese are not used to leaders who spurn divine status.

''It's an irrational attitude,'' Mr. Wu said in an interview. ''If he's not a god, he's a devil. Chairman Mao was a god, and ordinary people wanted another god. But they find out that Deng Xiaoping is a human being. No one could assume that role of a god, and so they think of him as a devil.''

While ordinary Chinese principally complain about Mr. Deng on pocketbook issues, like inflation, some intellectuals make unflattering comparisons with Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader. They note that Mr. Gorbachev has gone much further in opening up the political system than has Mr. Deng, and they seem slightly embarrassed that they should envy anything in the Soviet Union.

Harry Harding, a China scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said that some of the most enthusiastic proponents of further liberalization also have been disappointed because they no longer regard Mr. Deng as firmly in their camp.

''What a lot of the reformers complain about is the way Deng is obstructing reform,'' Mr. Harding said. ''Obstructing leadership reform by failing to retire, and obstructing political and economic reform by his willingness to retrench rather than push forward at this critical time.''

Mr. Deng is not the only Asian leader who has been accused of staying on too long. In several of the rapidly developing countries in the region, particularly in Singapore, where Lee Kuan Yew has shaped and dominated politics for three decades, some domestic and foreign critics have argued that economic and education development have been so successful that the architect of the success should step down and give way to a younger, less authoritarian leader. Concern Over Succesion

Yet in China the equation is far more complex, because people are apprehensive as well as impatient for the day when Mr. Deng will entirely give up control, especially if it happens suddenly on his death. Many Chinese worry that after Mr. Deng dies, no one may be able to control the nation and that the military might intervene.

Meanwhile, there is no indication that Mr. Deng's health is in trouble. Those who have met him say that while his hearing is failing and he is easily fatigued, he does not seem ill and his mind is still sharp. He is said to play bridge as well as ever.

Mr. Deng is said to spend his days at a heavily guarded house behind an iron gate near the Dianmen district in the center of Beijing. The two alleys on either side of the walled home are blocked to cars, although pedestrians are allowed, and a nearby garage brims with more than half a dozen limousines with the A01 license plates that are the prerogative of Chinese leaders. Mr. Deng is said to spend the mornings on affairs of state and the afternoons playing with his grandchildren, while evenings are often reserved for bridge.

By Sheryl WuDunn

BEIJING, May 17— Sirens wailed as ambulances whizzed by, carrying hunger strikers who have fainted after five days without eating, when the gray-haired school teacher suddenly pulled out her handkerchief and cried.

''Our hearts bleed when we hear the sound of ambulances,'' she said, her voice breaking. ''They are no longer children. They are the hope of China.''

The teacher, like more than a million other people in the capital, had taken to the streets to support the hunger-striking students and express her demands for democracy. When a group of students approached, passing around a cardboard box to collect money for their cause, she reached into her faded purse and pulled out the equivalent of $5 - a week's wages for her - and put it into the box. 'They Represent Our Hopes'

''I want to thank them,'' she said, sniffling. ''They represent our hearts. They represent our hopes.'' Scenes like that near Tiananmen Square - the Square of the Gate of Heavenly Peace - occurred all over central Beijing today, as office clerks, factory workers, bank tellers, journalists and taxicab drivers fought through vast seas of people to get near the enclave of hunger-striking students, now the center of China's swelling democracy movement.

The twist and tangle of people, bicycles, pedicabs, cars and banners froze the steady flow of traffic, and when protesters had no room to march, they cheerfully walked around in circles. Clear Lane for Ambulances

But as confusion bordering on chaos spread across the capital, with more and more people leaving their dank offices and small homes for the open air, a certain order is evident on the streets, revealing the touch of a tightly run organization of students.

Specially designated students used long ropes to keep a single lane free on the otherwise jammed Avenue of Eternal Peace and on Tiananmen Square, so that spectators did not get in the way of ambulances carrying hunger strikers.

The result is that the ambulances dash by at 40 miles an hour, while all around them are pedestrians who struggle even to inch forward through the mass of demonstrators. Human Rings of Protection

Just a week or two ago, many Beijing residents patronized the students, saying they were a bit too idealistic and too inclined to tie up traffic with their demonstrations. But now the city's citizens, from the young entrepreneurs in business suits to the old ladies sitting in front of their homes, compete in praising the students.

''The student movement is terrific!'' an elderly police officer shouted to a group of high-school students and workers who had gathered to listen. ''If the Government commands a crackdown, will I obey their order? No, I will go against it.''

Marchers and spectators, chanting and singing and screaming, shoved their way back and forth on the Avenue of Eternal Peace in front of Zhongnanhai, the Communist Party headquarters, where the country's leaders live. Even late at night, the entrance was packed with 2,000 workers, students, and other protesters shouting for the Prime Minister: ''Li Peng, come out! Li Peng, come out!'' In the afternoon, students formed a semicircular human fence to protect the leaders' compound from the possibility of being stormed by angry workers. Just inside the human ring, but outside the doorway, students turned the area into a place for resting and eating. Soda Water and Bread

Deep in the heart of Tiananmen Square, the nation's political center that the democracy fighters have now invaded, inside several rings of students, is a heavily guarded, peaceful, airy enclave where the senior student leaders confer with the hunger strikers and where the containers of water and stacks of medicines - glucose and aspirins and salt tablets - are dispensed.

Here, the nearly 3,000 strikers -sprawling on the ground from exhaustion, heat, lack of food and sleep - are fainting more frequently as the sun sears the square throughout the day.

Every so often, bicycle riders carting wagons of soda water and bread are allowed to penetrate the outer layers of the rings to bring in nourishment for students who are eating but still showing their support by occupying a spot on the square 24 hours a day. Some rise in the early morning, carrying old, dirty banners that they use to help sweep away the litter of the previous day's thousands of spectators. Support From the Workers

A makeshift loudspeaker system allows them to announce news of their latest plans or supporters - how much money they have raised, the condition of strikers, a letter of sympathy. They have a copying machine, and every time they distribute a stack of pamphlets, spectators fight for every scrap of paper.

The outpouring of sympathy stretches two miles in either direction, from the faces that peer out of office buildings, to the posters hanging out the windows, to the cars whose passengers lean out to wave banners or pictures of Zhou Enlai, the former Prime Minister who is now a hero for many young people.

Sensing that this is a historic time that they want to play a part in, many workers have come to help. Often that means buying food and drink for students, even if they don't ask for it.

''We're very moved by the people coming out to support us,'' said T. F. Wang, a Beijing University student who was carrying a watermelon and box of popsicles that people had handed to him. ''This turnout adds to the pressure on the leadership to come out and talk to us.''

By Nicholas D. Kristof

BEIJING, May 20— Huge throngs, possibly amounting to more than one million Chinese, took to the streets today to defy martial law and block troops from reaching the center of the capital, effectively delaying or preventing the planned crackdown on China's democracy movement.

Troops approaching Beijing on at least five major roads were halted or turned back by the largest crowds to have gathered so far in a month of almost continuous protests. Students and ordinary citizens erected roadblocks or lay in the path of army trucks, while others let the air out of their tires.

Reports from around the country indicated growing support for the democracy movement. The city of Xian was reportedly brought to a standstill by 300,000 protesters, and rallies were reported in Shanghai, Canton and at least half a dozen other cities, and even small villages. Mostly Peaceful Confrontations

A few clashes were reported, but the confrontations seemed to be mostly peaceful. More troops were reported to be making their way toward Beijing, however, and it was not clear that the people could continue to keep the soldiers out. So far, the troops have not tried very hard to enter Beijing, and a more concerted effort backed by the use of tear gas would almost certainly succeed. But after a full day of confrontation, questions were increasingly raised about the army's readiness to quell the protests. [ The Associated Press, in a report Sunday from Beijing, said soldiers had set up roadblocks to the center of the capital and occupied its train station. The report also said as many as 70,000 troopers may have moved into the city center by subway and followed connecting tunnels to the walled palace, the history museum and the Great Hall of the People on three sides of the vast Tienanmen Square. ] Prime Minister Li Peng, who early this morning ordered the military crackdown on the democracy movement, did not make an appearance or comment later today. Television stations repeatedly broadcast his speech calling for the military crackdown.

As the military crackdown seemed increasingly uncertain, there were signs that the Communist Party General Secretary, Zhao Ziyang, still had a chance of recovering his authority and elbowing aside Mr. Li and the senior leader, Deng Xiaoping, to become China's next leader in an intense and increasingly bitter power struggle within the Communist Party.

Communist Party officials with access to information at the highest level say Mr. Deng has stripped Mr. Zhao of his powers while leaving him with his title. In addition, they say a meeting of the Central Military Commission on Thursday effectively stripped him of his right to order troop movements.

Mr. Zhao submitted his resignation on May 17, after being outvoted 4 to 1 on the Standing Committee of the Politburo on his proposals to grant most student demands, the official said. The resignation was withdrawn the next day before it was acted upon. Proposals Get Support

In the meantime, Mr. Zhao's bold proposals - including a plan to disclose the income and assets of officials at the level of Deputy Minister and higher - have subsequently received the support of a second member of the Politburo Standing Committee, Hu Qili. Now an intense effort is said to be under way to lobby the crucial swing vote of a committee member, Qiao Shi, whose support would mean a majority for Mr. Zhao.

Mr. Zhao's future might also come up at a meeting of the full Politburo, which has not yet been scheduled, or at a meeting of the Central Committee, which had been expected at the end of this month. How the Politburo or Central Committee might vote is likely to depend on the success of the crackdown.

''Li Peng is now in charge of the party, so he'll be scheduling the meetings,'' an official said. ''So if he thinks he might lose, he will delay holding a meeting.'' The harshness of Mr. Li's speech seems to have galvanized much of Beijing's population to support the student democracy movement, and Mr. Li and Mr. Deng are now openly referred to as public enemies.

Protesters in Shanghai today carried banners reading ''Li Peng does not represent us'' and ''Li Peng, do not use the people's army against the people,'' Reuters reported. In most parts of Beijing, neither the police nor army troops could be seen today, but residents were in an exuberant frenzy to protect themselves from the threat of what is regarded as virtually an enemy invasion. All major intersections have been taken over by local residents who stand guard, waiting impatiently for the troops to arrive so they can implement careful plans to erect barricades and summon help.

''With the people behind us, we'll succeed,'' said Xu Shiyi, a student from Henan Province who has come to Beijing to support the movement. ''No Government can survive by using the army against its own citizens.'' Not Much Work in Beijing

While proposals in the predawn hours for a general strike seem to have been little heeded, it was clear that even if workers did not call formal strikes, they did not do much work. Beijing residents today had other things to preoccupy them, like how to keep the army out.

As rumors spread about where troops might be arriving, citizens rushed by car, bicycle and foot to do their part to turn the troops back. The crowds were larger than those last Wednesday and Thursday that the official New China News Agency had estimated at more than one million.

Truck drivers drove their vehicles in front of military convoys to block their way, and ordinary citizens lay down on the ground in front of army trucks. Many seemed to remember these tactics from the Philippine military coup that ousted President Ferdinand E. Marcos. Television footage of the ''people power'' revolution of the Philippines was widely shown in China at the time and now workers delight in saying that people power will defeat Prime Minister Li.

The most serious of the scattered clashes reported today occurred on a road in western Beijing, according to students, who said about 150 police officers used cattle prods to beat about 45 students blocking military trucks. Protests in the Provinces

Anti-Government demonstrations broke out in provincial Chinese cities and even rural towns today, witnesses said.

The ancient capital of Xian in northern China came to a standstill when 300,000 protesters, sympathetic citizens and onlookers packed the city's streets, a Western witness told Reuters.

On Shanghai's waterfront, 20,000 students flanked by thousands of sympathetic city workers protested for the fifth day running in support of 400 hunger strikers who have gone without food outside Government headquarters since Tuesday.

A large contingent of troops have been stationed in the European-style office buildings close to the waterfront but have not yet moved against the protesters, a reporter said.

Shanghai is also the host to a three-ship squadron of the American Seventh Fleet, which arrived for the second United States Navy visit to the port since the 1949 Communist takeover. Demonstrators have erected a 10-foot-high polystyrene replica of the Statue of Liberty in front of the Shanghai city government offices. The American sailors have been instructed to avoid the protests. Waiting in Tiananmen Square

In Beijing, nearly 100,000 people seemed prepared this evening to wait all night in central Tiananmen Square to protect student protesters from attack by troops. Even though there was no evidence of hostile troops within miles, many waited expectantly with clothes over their faces for the clouds of tear gas they have been told to expect.

The readiness to help has taken other forms. The Government today cut off the water supply to Tiananmen Square, but as word spread that the water fountains and taps in the area were no longer working, private business people from all over the capital contributed their motorcycles to carry buckets of water to the students.

There are still nearly 3,000 students engaged in a hunger strike on the square to back their demands for a dialogue with Government officials and for a reappraisal of the student movement. #30,000 Troops Deployed After the harshness of Mr. Li's speech, the lack of any strong military follow-through has raised questions about the extent to which the Prime Minister can force his will. About 30,000 troops from Inner Mongolia and Shanxi Province reportedly have been deployed, but they are vastly outnumbered by the more than one million people who took to the streets today.

Some of the troops today could be seen with tear gas canisters, and some reportedly had guns, but they seemed decidedly pacifist. Most of the soldiers seemed unwilling to openly violate their orders to advance on Beijing, but they seemed quite happy to be blocked along the way.

There also were some signs of dissatisfaction from within the party and the Government at the hard line against the students. Officials in the central party organization today circulated among themselves an appeal for a party meeting to discuss the crisis and to consider the possible retirement of Mr. Deng, according to a person who has seen the letter.

The Communist Youth League Central Committee sent a delegation to protest in Tiananmen Square, and the People's Daily newspaper today seemed to offer an implicit endorsement of Mr. Zhao over Mr. Li. The newspaper printed a photo of Mr. Zhao that was not only higher than Mr. Li's on the front page but more than twice as wide. The accompanying article included excerpts from Mr. Zhao's comments to students, and was calculated to inspire sympathy. Bitter Power Struggle

''Of course it's an endorsement,'' a senior party official said. ''That's as clear as it gets.''

The internal power struggle between Mr. Zhao and Mr. Li has taken a much more bitter turn in the last few weeks, partly because of furious disagreements over how to deal with the demonstrating students. But party officials say that perhaps the most important element was that Mr. Zhao took the unprecedented step of challenging his longtime patron, Mr. Deng.

While Mr. Zhao is said to have felt for some time that his patron should retire fully from politics, the conflict began after Mr. Deng reacted very harshly on April 25 to student demonstrators and organized a crackdown that later was aborted. When Mr. Zhao returned from a trip abroad he made a mild speech on how to deal with students. The speech won widespread support but was resented by Mr. Deng because it pursued a much more moderate strategy. Zhao Attack on Deng

Then, as pro-democracy demonstrations grew increasingly large, Mr. Zhao seemed to think that they represented an important constituency that he could use to gain an advantage. According to an account by an official familiar with the struggle, Mr. Zhao made his attacks, in classic Chinese style, by purporting to praise Mr. Deng. In his meeting Wednesday with Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, Mr. Zhao hailed Mr. Deng as an indispensable leader who still must sign off on every important decision.

Without consulting Mr. Deng, Mr. Zhao also disclosed that the Central Committee had formally adopted a resolution saying that Mr. Deng should be consulted on important matters. While the comments were all couched in praise, the effect was to remind people that the 84-year-old Mr. Deng still makes all of China's important decisions.

The next day's demonstration was full of posters denouncing Mr. Deng, but Mr. Deng himself recognized the ploy, officials said. Mr. Li weighed in in the increasingly bitter fight by saying, in a televised meeting, that his sons were not involved in official profiteering - a clear slap at Mr. Zhao, whose two eldest sons are widely regarded as having been suspiciously successful in business.

Then last Thursday Mr. Zhao made an early morning trip to the hunger-strikers in Tiananmen Square and apologized to them for not coming earlier. ''Things are very complicated,'' he said in what was widely taken as a reference to the difficulty of convincing Mr. Deng and Mr. Li of the need for compromise.

That was the last time Mr. Zhao has been seen in public.

By Sheryl WuDunn

BEIJING, May 20— When a small convoy of military trucks used to launch tear gas and to spray water on rioters rolled through eastern Beijing early this morning, the soldiers met their first unexpected challenge. An old woman street cleaner rushed up and lay down on the road in front of the trucks.

Several hundred students immediately dashed toward the convoy, and the soldiers found themselves surrounded by Beijing residents who showered them with questions about why they wanted to repress a democratic movement. The residents also offered the troops breakfast: bread, Coca-Cola and popsicles.

''We absolutely won't repress the people,'' an officer told the crowd. ''We are the people's soldiers.'' And then the soldiers, so moved that several were crying quietly, drove back the way they had come. Their Only Weapon

In an awakening of sorts, the Chinese people are tapping the only weapon they can to defend themselves and their struggle for democracy against the tens of thousands of military troops ordered by the Government to move into the city: what many residents were calling ''people power.''

Martial law in some sectors of Beijing went into effect at 10 A.M. today. But by late tonight none of the special troops that have been brought in from outside Beijing had made much progress into the city. All over the capital, China's ''desperados'' and ''kamikazes'' - as they call themselves -were emerging from their silence and standing up for the university students' protest for democracy.

''We have towels for tear gas and maybe buckets of cement to make road blocks, but besides that, we come just as we are - people,'' said Kong Lingqi, a 39-year-old worker at Capital Iron and Steel Company.

Mr. Kong and the people around him in the Haidian district of Beijing were preparing for the coming of the troops, who they said were based about seven miles away. They were hoping that every inch of the seven miles would be lined with people prepared to bodily block the convoy of military trucks.

The residents tried to obstruct the soldiers with persuasion. They tried to engage soldiers in discussions about the democracy movement, and often they found that the troops had no idea at all of their cause. At least some of the troops said they had been told by their leaders not to read recent newspapers or watch television news. Massing of People on Roads

Flush with exuberance, crowds have massed along roads they think the troops may use to approach Tiananmen Square, the nation's political center. When five military helicopters encircled the area above Tiananmen Square today, thousands of fists went up in the air and angry shouts rose against the Government.

The crowd swelled at many intersections, and the hum of the crowd's voices rose into shrill shouts every so often when someone believed he had spotted the troops.

''We will lie beneath the wheels,'' said Wang Gang, a 30-year-old leader of a new workers organization whose members have taken an oath to risk their lives for the students. These 300 ''desperados,'' as they call themselves, wear white bandannas to distinguish themselves from the 400 ''deputies'' who wear red bandannas and take fewer risks because they have families to protect.

''We are not afraid of guns or bullets,'' Mr. Wang said. ''But we are not allowed to smash glasses, flatten the trucks' tires or beat the drivers.''

Mr. Wang, a sweater factory designer who has spent most of the last few days at Tiananmen Square, spent this morning planning where the men in his organization should be placed.

Similar volunteer groups have sprung up all over the capital as angry residents form neighborhood teams that link up with others to protect the area from soldiers. Spontaneous Teams

Often these teams form spontaneously. In the predawn hours today in the southern suburbs of Beijing, 48 armed personnel carriers and 17 trucks holding about 850 policemen found their path impeded by a truck driver who parked his large vehicle right in front of them and then ran around the neighborhood to get the help of neighbors, witnesses said.

''I'll never come again,'' a lieutenant in the convoy was quoted as saying. ''I'll never touch a hair of a student's head.''

When troops parked three supply trucks near the Beijing Steel Institute, students drained the gas from the tanks and deflated the tires of the trucks.

This evening, people were out on the streets discussing the political state of affairs and waiting for the troops to come.

In the Xizhimen district, thousands of people crowded around the train station because they had heard that the soldiers may be forced to come in by train since they were having difficulty entering by truck or tank.

''We are waiting here,'' said a film worker, Wu Jianping, ''because we hear there are tens of thousands of troops coming in by train.''

By Nicholas D. Kristof

BEIJING, May 25— Prime Minister Li Peng appeared on television today, declaring that his Government was in control, and there were more signs that at least for now he is gaining in the power struggle that is racking China.

In an indication that a military solution to the political crisis remains a possibility, Mr. Li also sent a letter to troops encircling Beijing, expressing the hope that ''the troops will overcome the difficulties confronting them'' and ''successfully impose martial law.''

Mr. Li's public appearance was the first by any of China's top leaders since the Prime Minister made a speech Saturday morning calling for a military crackdown on the nation's democracy movement. Demonstrators in Beijing and other cities have been holding large rallies calling for Mr. Li's ouster, and there were hints in official news reports earlier in the week that he might be in political trouble.

More Attacks on Li's Rival

Prime Minister Li's appearance today came amid further reports of attacks against the Communist Party leader, Zhao Ziyang, who favors conciliation with pro-democracy demonstrators.

The Foreign Ministry spokesman, Li Jinhua, said at a news conference this afternoon that Mr. Zhao was still General Secretary of the party and that there had been no changes in the nation's top leadership. But there seemed to be a growing feeling that changes were likely soon, and that Mr. Zhao might be a casualty.

At stake are not only the careers of two men, but also alternative visions of China. Mr. Li is a cautious technocrat who seems wary of moving too hastily toward economic and political liberalization. Mr. Zhao is more enthusiastic about experimenting with capitalist-style incentives and with a more open political system.

Memories of Past Intrigues

While Beijing is full of rumors, all peddled as reliable, the Government has kept quiet. The extraordinary edginess of the nation, as it waits for its future to be decided, recalls the power struggles of Mao's later years, and the intrigues within the highest circles of the Government evoke comparison to imperial times, when ministers and eunuchs competed for the ear of the emperor in the Forbidden City.

There has been some modernization: party officials now have telephones. But officials say they dare not use the phones for fear they are tapped.

A working group of the Communist Party Central Committee met today to try to resolve the political crisis, a senior party official said, but it was not known what the outcome of the meeting was. The group included the governors and party secretaries of China's provinces and large cities, and it was expected to be asked to go along with criticisms of Mr. Zhao, the official said.

The official said that at another meeting a party group in the National People's Congress Standing Committee had decided that it was ''premature'' to call a meeting of the full Standing Committee. While such a decision is not legally binding, it was seen as an attempt to block a committee meeting that some members are trying to convene to revoke martial law.

The head of the National People's Congress, Wan Li, arrived in Shanghai this morning after cutting short a trip to the United States. Mr. Wan has been regarded by many students as a heroic figure destined to return and convene a meeting of the congress to end martial law and oust Mr. Li.

But instead he remained in Shanghai, ostensibly for medical treatment, while the rest of his delegation continued to Beijing. It was not clear why Mr. Wan, who almost certainly is not ill, stopped in Shanghai or when he would proceed to the capital.

In his television appearance tonight, Li Peng (pronounced lee pung) seemed relaxed and confident as he met three newly arrived ambassadors to Beijing. The opening segment of the evening news program showed Mr. Li saying the troops called to Beijing had not yet reached the downtown area because they had been blocked by people who do not understand their purpose.

''Anyone with common sense can see that this is not because the troops are unable to enter the downtown area,'' Mr. Li said, ''but because the Government is the people's government and the People's Liberation Army is the people's army.

'Stable and Capable'

''The Chinese Government is stable and capable of fulfilling its responsibilities and of properly dealing with the current problems,'' he said.

Mr. Li said most of the demonstrators were young people who had good motives but did not understand ''the truth of the matter.'' Mr. Li did not explain, but this could be read as an indication that he was encouraging the view that the ''truth'' was that Zhao Ziyang - pronounced jow (rhymes with now) zee-YUNG - was using the disturbances to try to seize power.

An ambassador who was present said in a telephone interview that Mr. Li did not mention Mr. Zhao by name or directly mention the power struggle. But in a clear jab at Mr. Zhao, the Prime Minister said, ''The chief architect of China's reform and opening to the outside world is Comrade Deng Xiaoping and no one else.''

In what appeared to be a stern warning to the United States and other countries, Mr. Li cautioned that foreign nations did not understand what was happening and should not rush to judgment.

''Foreign countries, especially those that maintain good relations with China, must not interfere in current events,'' Mr. Li said. Reports of More Troops

In a letter sent today to the troops, Mr. Li thanked them for restoring order in the capital. In fact, President Yang Shangkun ordered the troops into the capital on Saturday morning, apparently to suppress the pro-democracy demonstrations, but they were immediately blocked by ordinary citizens and so they still remain in the outskirts of Beijing.

There have been reports of more troops flooding into the area, as many as 300,000 of them, and it is not clear if the Government plans to send them into Beijing to suppress demonstrators. While unarmed citizens stopped the troops the last time, it seems clear that peaceful resistance would be less successful if the troops used tear gas or weapons to force their way into the city.

Major newspapers and television programs today carried a letter from the army headquarters asserting that the democracy movement had been manipulated by a small number of people and calling for a ''grave national struggle'' against them. The letter clearly endorsed a military crackdown.

There have been some unconfirmed reports of tension between different military units, some supporting Mr. Li and others supporting Mr. Zhao. In addition, the Beijing Garrison Command, which is believed to be sympathetic to Mr. Zhao, appears to be withholding food and other assistance to troops from other areas.

The Defense Minister, Qin Jiwei (pronounced chin jee-WAY), who has close ties to the Beijing forces, is also reported by diplomats to have been frozen out of military decision-making, perhaps because he was regarded as too close to Mr. Zhao and too reluctant to bring troops into the capital. #100,000 Join Demonstrations About 100,000 workers and students held new demonstrations in Beijing again today to demand Mr. Li's resignation, and the atmosphere in central Tiananmen Square seemed to be electric this evening. While the number of protesters was lower today than in some past days, this seemed to reflect weariness and lack of a particular event to respond to, rather than intimidation.

Many of the students occupying Tiananmen Square are from outside Beijing, and the Government issued an urgent circular tonight to stop more from coming. It ordered local officials to dissuade students from making the trip and especially to keep students from climbing on trains without tickets, as they have been doing in the last few weeks.

In a new challenge to the Government, an independent labor union announced its formation in the capital today. The group, calling itself the Workers Autonomous Association, set up a loudspeaker system in one corner of Tiananmen Square that it said was its headquarters, and its broadcasts promptly drew a large audience.

''Our old unions were welfare organizations,'' said Li Jinjin, a lawyer who is counsel to the new union. ''But now we will create a union that is not a welfare organization but one concerned with workers' rights.''

Mr. Li insisted that the new union was entirely legal, but it seemed likely that the authorities would take a dim view of its creation. Support for Zhao Evaporating

While the fate of Mr. Zhao remained unclear, a senior party official said today that Mr. Deng, China's senior leader, and other officials had turned against the party leader and that Mr. Zhao would probably soon be suspended or expelled from his post.

''There is no hope,'' the party official said. ''It's all over.''

The official described the Communist Party offices in the Zhongnanhai compound in the center of the city in virtually a state of civil war, with officials loyal to Mr. Zhao now being frozen out of all the news and decisions.

''Some of the Central Committee offices are treated like garbage now,'' he said.

This official and others said Mr. Deng had turned on Mr. Zhao, his longtime protege, for two reasons.

First, they said, Mr. Deng has a deep apprehension of disorder, which he believes threatens to send China into chaos and frustrate its hopes of becoming an advanced nation in the next century.

Second, they said, Mr. Deng perceived correctly that Mr. Zhao was making his own bid for power. According to this account, Mr. Zhao upset Mr. Deng first on May 4 by making a conciliatory speech about student demonstrators without clearing the speech with Mr. Deng.

One Power Play Too Many

That speech conflicted with Mr. Deng's own hard-line position, but the last straw apparently came when Mr. Zhao disclosed in his meeting with Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, that the Central Committee had formally voted to consult Mr. Deng on major issues.

For Mr. Zhao, the comment was his final power play - an attempt to go directly to the people by showing that the obstacle to negotiations was Mr. Deng, the man who always held the final say - and Mr. Deng promptly relieved him of his powers, though not of his title.

A small working committee on propaganda set up by Mr. Li, consisting of five close aides - Yuan Mu, He Dongchang, Zeng Jianhui, Wang Renzhi and Li Zhijian - has already accused Mr. Zhao of corruption and of being behind the student protests, in a meeting with editors in chief of major newspapers. The committee has also written an editorial, apparently critical of Mr. Zhao, that it has sent to People's Daily for publication sometime in the next few days.

In an effort to show widespread support for Mr. Li and his declaration of a crackdown, today's news programs reported that 27 of China's 30 provinces and seven of its eight military districts have sent letters or cables of support, along with other military organizations like the navy and air force.

Most of these letters have not been signed, however, and senior military officials from one unit whose letter has been published have denied writing the letter, Western diplomats in Beijing said. The military officials were quoted as saying the letter was simply fabricated to show military support.

By Nicholas D. Kristof

BEIJING, May 27— For a foreigner in China these days, this is a season for farewells.

''We shouldn't meet each other so often,'' an official who works in the Communist Party headquarters told a foreign reporter over coffee the other day. ''It's too dangerous. In fact, I think we shouldn't meet at all.''

Until 10 days ago, the official had looked forward to a glorious career in the Communist Party; now he is bracing himself, perhaps more pessimistically than necessary, for prison, as a supporter of the wrong faction.

''Maybe I will go abroad,'' he mused, ''but I don't know if I can get a passport now. Anyway, it is best to stay away from foreigners.''

Throughout the capital, previously bold intellectuals and party officials are rediscovering the virtues of caution. The exuberance of a few weeks ago has been replaced by a pall, a dread of arrests and mass dismissals. The fears are founded upon rumors, rather than facts, but in a country where so many people have had their careers ruined over the last three decades for political reasons, there is not much enthusiasm for taking risks.

How Delightful: A Reporter

''I'm going back to the States,'' announced a young, Western-educated Chinese who returned to China not long ago to help the motherland. ''I'm very worried about what may happen. It's not safe here. Did you hear the rhetoric on television? I think there are going to be a lot of arrests.''

It is not that all Chinese are cutting off their foreign contacts, but many are being more circumspect. And that sometimes results in social awkwardness when instinctive caution clashes with instinctive hospitality.

''Do come in! How delighted to see you!'' muttered a Government official the other night when a reporter showed up at his home, but the official's face suggested that the correspondent was about as welcome as a tax auditor.

Some Chinese, profoundly embarrassed, murmur that it would be best for a foreign friend not to visit them at their homes, although they are willing to meet at restaurants. They implore the foreigner not to mention his name or theirs on the telephone, and they suggest that it is safer to speak English than Chinese because those who tap the phones may assume that two Americans are talking.

'They're Following Me'

''Do you see those two men?'' asked a Chinese university teacher the other day. ''They're following me.''

Several other Chinese with foreign friends also report that they have been followed in the last few days, although it is difficult to say how much is real and how much is paranoia. However, whether or not it is justified, the belief that they have been followed is enough to arouse terror in most people. Even if they have done nothing illegal, many assume that the next step is arrest for themselves and disgrace for their families.

For the foreign reporters now swarming all over the capital, desperately trying to find out what is happening in the compounds of power, the calculations are different but no less troubling. There is a fervent desire to meet people and find out what is happening, but this is matched by a horror at the thought of ruining the lives of Chinese who are not only sources but also true friends.

And so for foreigners this is a season for saying goodbyes.

Deng? Never Heard of Him

This fear of misstep is reverberating through the Chinese bureaucracy, leading to some of the same silliness that China has specialized in during past periods of political retrenchment. In early 1976, for example, a British journalist in Beijing first found out that Deng Xiaoping had fallen from power when she could not buy an official photograph of him. The reporter, Clare Hollingworth, recalls in her biography of Mao Zedong that the Government clerk she approached was unhelpful.

''No one of the name of Deng Xiaoping has ever existed,'' he blithely announced, even though Mr. Deng was then officially still a Politburo member as well as Deputy Prime Minister.

These days, official news organizations have been equally unhelpful. The Chinese newspapers and news broadcasts have contained reports of robust economic growth and friendly cooperation between citizens and soldiers, but nary a reference to Zhao Ziyang, the man who may or may not be the Communist Party General Secretary. A Foreign Ministry spokesman, answering a reporter's question at a press conference on Thursday, announced that Mr. Zhao was ''still'' General Secretary but declined to elaborate on how long this would hold true. Persistent Rumors

After persistent rumors that the Foreign Ministry was withholding support for the Gorvernment of Prime Minister Li Peng, a reporter telephoned the Foreign Ministry's news hot line. Somewhat awkwardly, the reporter asked if the ministry recognized the Government of Mr. Li and of President Yang Shangkun.

''Let me take your question and I'll call you back,'' the young diplomat answered, as if handling the most normal query in the world. He said he would reply as soon as he found out the answer. Several hours later he called back. He sounded stunned at the reporter's ignorance as he gave the answer:

''Of course we recognize the Government.''

Where There's a Wall . . .

The Government has largely regained control over official news organizations, after a few weeks in which the newspapers were remarkably independent. But in the last few weeks another channel for disseminating news and ideas has sprung up all over the capital: posters.

Of course, ''big character posters'' have a long history in China as a medium of protest, and in the winter of 1978-79 a ''Democracy Wall'' emerged near the center of the city where dissidents could paste their essays and read the work of others. But the wall was soon closed down, and part of it was turned into a display case to show off China's scientific achievements.

Now, posters are sprouting up in the capital wherever there is a wall, a telephone poll or a street sign. Even the walls of Zhongnanhai, the compound of the Communist Party headquarters, is now plastered with political posters that draw crowds of enthusiastic readers. Many people copy the essays in their notebooks, to pass the contents on to friends and family.

Some of the posters are simply angry slogans, of which the most common is: ''Li Peng, Step Down.'' But many are long essays, taking up many pages and criticizing the flaws of China's system of government. Lately, satirical essays have been in vogue, poking fun of Mr. Li and other leaders.

Posters Draw Crowds

The posters draw crowds of readers because they are are as sharp as the official newspapers are bland. One poster that has been pasted up on walls all over town is an open letter from teachers at universities in the Beijing area. It reads:

''A handful of conspirators headed by Li Peng and Yang Shangkun have launched a reactionary coup d'etat, compelling General Secretary Zhao Ziyang to step down. They unashamadly usurped the power of the party and the state, and moved more than 100,000 army troops around Beijing. Even now in the 1980's, they dared to impose martial law. This is a fascist coup d'etat.''

Another poster warns that the leadership is trying to cause unrest and place the blame for it on the students to gain a pretext to suppress them. The poster warned that provocateurs were disguising themselves as students, and it suggested that the three men who threw paint on an enormous painting of Mao Zedong were sent by the Government to discredit the student demonstrators.

''The vandals insisted on being taken to the police,'' the poster alleged. ''How strange!''

By Nicholas D. Kristof

BEIJING, Sunday, June 4— Tens of thousands of Chinese troops retook the center of the capital early this morning from pro-democracy protesters, killing scores of students and workers and wounding hundreds more as they fired submachine guns at crowds of people who tried to resist.

Troops marched along the main roads surrounding central Tiananmen Square, sometimes firing in the air and sometimes firing directly at crowds of men and women who refused to move out of the way.

Early this morning, the troops finally cleared the square after first sweeping the area around it. Several thousand students who had remained on the square throughout the shooting left peacefully, still waving the banners of their universities. Several armed personnel carriers ran over their tents and destroyed the encampment.

Casualties Reports Sketchy

Reports on the number of dead were sketchy. Three Beijing hospitals reported receiving at least 68 corpses of civilians and said many others had not been picked up from the scene. Four other hospitals said they had received bodies of civilians but declined to disclose how many. Students said, however, that at least 500 people may have been killed in the crackdown.

Most of the dead had been shot, but some had been run over by armored personnel carriers that forced their way through barricades erected by local residents.

The official news programs this morning reported that the People's Liberation Army had crushed a ''counter-revolutionary rebellion'' in the capital. They said that more than 1,000 police and troops had been injured and some killed, and that civilians had been killed, but did not give details.

[President Bush called for an end to the violence. ''I deeply deplore the decision to use force against peaceful demonstrators,'' he said.]

Changan Avenue, or the Avenue of Eternal Peace, Beijing's main east-west thoroughfare, echoed with screams this morning as young people carried the bodies of their friends away from the front lines. The dead or seriously wounded were heaped on the backs of bicycles or tricycle rickshaws and supported by friends who rushed through the crowds, sometimes sobbing as they ran.

The avenue was lit by the glow of several trucks and two armed personnel carriers that students and workers set afire, and bullets swooshed overhead or glanced off buildings. The air crackled almost constantly with gunfire and tear gas grenades. 'General Strike!'

''General strike!'' people roared, in bitterness and outrage, as they ran from Tiananmen Square, which pro-democracy demonstrators had occupied for three weeks.

''General Strike!''

While hundreds of thousands of people had turned out to the streets Saturday and early today to show support for the democracy movement, it was not clear if the call for a general strike would be successful. The Government had been fearful that a crackdown on the movement would lead to strikes, but its willingness to shoot students suggested that it was also capable of putting considerable pressure on workers to stay on the job.

The morning radio news program reported that it would be ''very difficult'' to hold a meeting of the National People's Congress standing committee as scheduled. The committee, which had been scheduled to meet June 20, has the power to revoke martial law and oversee the Government, and many members of the panel are known to be deeply upset by the crackdown.

The announcement by the Beijing news program suggested that Prime Minister Li Peng, who is backed by hard-liners in the Communist Party, was still on top in his power struggle for control of the Chinese leadership. The violent suppression of the student movement also suggested that for now, the hard-liners are firmly in control, and that those who favor conciliation, like party leader Zhao Ziyang, at least temporarily have little influence on policy.

It was too early to tell if the crackdown would be followed by arrests of student leaders, intellectuals who have been critical of the Party, or members of Mr. Zhao's faction. Blacklists have been widely rumored, and many people have been worried about the possibility of arrest.

Students and workers tried to resist the crackdown, and destroyed at least 16 trucks and 2 armored personnel carriers. Scores of students and workers ran alongside the personnel carriers, hurling concrete blocks and wooden staves into the treads until they ground to a halt. They then threw firebombs at one until it caught fire, and set the other alight after first covering it with blankets soaked in gasoline.

The drivers escaped, but were beaten by students. A young American man, who could not be immediately identified, was also beaten by the crowd after he tried to intervene and protect one of the drivers.

Many Troops Reported Hurt

Clutching iron pipes and stones, groups of students periodically advanced toward the soldiers. Some threw bricks and firebombs at the lines of soldiers, apparently wounding many of them.

Many of those killed were throwing bricks at the soldiers, but others were simply watching passively or standing at barricades when soldiers fired directly at them.

Two groups of young people commandeered city buses to attack the troops. About 10 people were in each bus, and they held firebombs or sticks in their hands as they drove toward lines of armored personnel carriers and troops. Teen-age boys, with scarves wrapped around their mouths to protect themselves from tear gas, were behind the steering wheels and gunned the engines as they weaved around the debris to approach the troops.

The first bus was soon stopped by machine-gun fire, and only one person - a young man who jumped out of a back window and ran away - was seen getting out. Gunfire also stopped the second bus, and it quickly caught fire, perhaps ignited by the firebomb of someone inside. No one appeared to escape.

Casualty Figures in Doubt

It was also impossible to determine how many civilians had been killed or injured. Beijing Fuxing Hospital, 3.3 miles to the west of Tiananmen Square, reported more than 38 deaths and more than 100 wounded, and said that many more bodies had yet to be taken to its morgue. A doctor at the Beijing Union Medical College Hospital, two miles northeast of the square, reported 17 deaths. Beijing Tongren Hospital, one mile southeast of the square, reported 13 deaths and more than 100 critically wounded.

''As doctors, we often see deaths,'' said a doctor at the Tongren Hospital. ''But we've never seen such a tragedy like this. Every room in the hospital is covered with blood. We are terribly short of blood, but citizens are lining up outside to give blood.''

Four other hospitals also reported receiving bodies, but refused to say how many.

In addition, this reporter saw five people killed by gunfire and many more wounded on the east side of the square. Witnesses described at least six more people who had been run over by armored personnel carriers, and about 25 more who had been shot to death in the area. It was not known how many bodies remained on the square or how many people had been killed in other parts of the capital.

It was unclear whether the violence would mark the extinction of the seven-week-old democracy movement, or would prompt a new phase in the uprising, like a general strike. The violence in the capital ended a period of remarkable restraint by both sides, and seemed certain to arouse new bitterness and antagonism among both ordinary people and Communist Party officials for the Government of Prime Minister Li Peng.

'Maybe We'll Fail Today'

''Our Government is already done with,'' said a young worker who held a rock in his hand, as he gazed at the army forces across Tiananmen Square. ''Nothing can show more clearly that it does not represent the people.''

Another young man, an art student, was nearly incoherent with grief and anger as he watched the body of student being carted away, his head blown away by bullets.

''Maybe we'll fail today,'' he said. ''Maybe we'll fail tomorrow. But someday we'll succeed. It's a historical inevitability.''

On Saturday the police had used tear gas and beat dozens of demonstrators near the Communist Party headquarters in Zhongnanhai, while soldiers and workers hurled bricks at each other behind the Great Hall of the People. Dozens of people were wounded, but exact numbers could not be confirmed.

It appeared to be the first use of tear gas ever in the Chinese capital, and the violence seemed to radicalize the crowds that filled Tiananmen Square and Changan Avenue in the center of the city. The clashes also appeared to contribute to the public bitterness against the Government of Prime Minister Li.

The violence on both sides seemed to mark a milestone in the democracy movement, and the streets in the center of the city were a kaleidescope of scenes rarely if ever seen in the Chinese capital: furious crowds smashed and overturned army vehicles in front of Zhongnanhai, and then stoned the Great Hall of the People; grim-faced young soldiers clutching submachine guns tried to push their way through thick crowds of demonstrators near the Beijing train station; and the police charged a crowd near Zhongnanhai and used truncheons to beat men and women disabled by tear gas.

A Changing View of the Army

''In 1949, we welcomed the army into Beijing,'' said an old man on the Jianguomenwai bridge, referring to the crowds who hailed the arrival of Communist troops at the end of the Communist revolution. Then he waved toward a line of 50 army trucks that were blocked in a sea of more than 10,000 angry men and women, and added, ''Now we're fighting to keep them out.''

Most Chinese seemed convinced that the tanks and troops had been ordered into the city to crush the pro-democracy demonstrations once and for all. The immediate result of the first clashes was to revitalize the pro-democracy movement, which had been losing momentum over the last 10 days, and to erase the sense that life in the capital was returning to normal. But the use of tanks and guns came later,and it was not clear if they would succeed in ending the movement or would lead to such measures as a general strike.

The tension was exacerbated by an extraordinary announcement on television Saturday night, ordering citizens to ''stay at home to protect your lives.'' In particular, the announcement ordered people to stay off the streets and away from Tiananmen Square.

Warnings of Coming Crackdown

''The situation in Beijing at present is very serious,'' the Government warned in another urgent notice read on television. ''A handful of ruffians are wantonly making rumors to instigate the masses to openly insult, denounce, beat and kidnap soldiers in the People's Liberation Army, to seize arms, surround and block Zhongnanhai, attack the Great Hall of the People, and attempt to gather together various forces. More serious riots can occur at any time.''

There were some reports that the Communist Party's ruling Politburo had met Friday and given the Beijing municipality the authority to clear the square and end the protests. The People's Daily and the television news on Saturday took a hard line against the unrest, and the evening news warned that ''armed police and troops have the right to use all means to dispose of troublemakers who act willfully to defy the law.''

The clashes and enormous outpouring of support for the students were an unexpected turnaround for the democracy movement. Just a few days ago, the number of students occupying Tiananmen Square had dropped to a few thousand, and students seemed to be having difficulty mobilizing large numbers of citizens to take to the streets. The Government's strategy, of waiting for the students to become bored and go home, seemed to be leading to the possibility of a resolution to the difficulty.

Cyclists Killed

Then a police van crashed into four bicyclists late Friday night, generating new outrage against the Government. One cyclist was killed instantly, and two died in the hospital Saturday, while the fourth seemed less seriously hurt.

Rumors were less meticulous about detail, and word spread early Saturday morning through the capital that four people had been killed by the police. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets to protest, and immediately found themselves confronting more than 2,000 unarmed troops who were marching toward Tiananmen Square.

The troops retreated, but that confrontation seemed to set the tone for the massive demonstrations later Saturday and early today.

By Nicholas D. Kristof

BEIJING, Sunday, June 4— The violence against students and workers in Tiananmen Square was most obvious today, because for the most part they were the ones getting killed. But they, too, were violent against the police and army troops, although less effectively so.

Clutching iron bars and bricks, the students glared at soldiers 100 yards away on the other side of the square. It was dark, although the fire from an armed personnel carrier that students had set ablaze cast an eerie glow over part of the square, and the troops and their rows of vehicles could be dimly discerned in the haze.

From time to time, a group of them would advance on the soldiers to throw rocks and otherwise harass them. And then often, they would be shot and killed. It was an unequal competition.

Whenever the students got their chance, spotting an unarmed group of soldiers, they attacked with bricks and iron bars. However, the soldiers, most of whom had guns, tended to stick together.

Until now, students had emphasized the need for nonviolent tactics, and today some still begged their friends to put down their bricks and iron bars. But many students seemed to have crossed their personal Rubicon today, and those who previously had clutched leaflets and megaphones today picked up firebombs.

'Our Government Is Mad'

To be an American on the square this morning was to be the object of fervent hope and inarticulate pleas for help.

''We appeal to your country,'' a university student begged as bullets careened overhead. ''Our Government is mad. We need help from abroad, especially America. There must be something that America can do.''

Enraged and desperate as they saw their friends fall and crimson stains grow on their chests, students and workers rushed to any foreigner they could find to express such appeals for help. Almost nobody had any idea what the United States could do, and perhaps it was more a cry of outrage than a plea for help. But this sometimes wordless craving for an international response seemed almost universal on Tiananmen Square.

It was not that students wanted or expected foreign forces to actively intervene. Rather, it seemed to be a moral judgment that they sought, and especially the hope that the news of the bloodshed would reach the outside world and not be covered up.

Most were convinced that the Chinese authorities would never report an accurate toll of the dead and wounded, nor explain what had truly happened in the capital. The morning news programs seemed to justify their skepticism: a brief report said little more than that soldiers had successfully crushed a ''counterrevolutionary rebellion.''

Denied recognition at home, it became all the more important that the blood and sorrow and bitterness somehow find expression abroad. Even if it did not reverberate back home, students said, at least it could give some meaning to the sacrifices. And so they sought out foreign journalists, tugging them toward the corpses, showing them the blood on the pavement, and begging them to write about what had happened.

''You must tell the world what is happening,'' a long-haired university student urged, nearly incoherent with fury, ''because otherwise all this counts for nothing.''

Many asked that their appeals be transmitted to the United Nations, although none had a clear idea of what the United Nations could possibly do to help.

''Maybe it can discuss this situation,'' a student said impatiently. ''Anyway, we have to do something.''

Diplomats Wary

While reassurances to the rest of the world that China welcomes foreign tourists and investment presumably remain a consideration, such matters seemed to take a back seat in this morning's military crackdown.

The diplomatic quarter in Beijing was roused from slumber this morning by the almost deafening rumble of seven armed personnel carriers rolling by on the way to Tiananmen Square. Then, truckloads of soldiers arrived and, directly in front of the Jianguomenwai diplomatic compound where many diplomats live, began firing their submachine guns in the air.

In front of the Friendship Store, where tourists go to buy souvenirs, students and workers had turned over an army van and set it ablaze. In the Sanlitun diplomatic compound to the north, opponents of the Government expressed their outrage by setting a police station on fire.

In the lobby of the Beijing Hotel, undercover police officers searched photographers for film they had taken of the clashes, and one photographer was beaten when he refused to hand it over.

While there were no direct attacks on foreigners, there seemed to be a hostility in the air from the Government toward Western influences that had helped the democracy movement. Student demonstrators may appeal to Americans for help, but the Government is suggesting that Americans keep their distance.

By Sheryl WuDunn

BEIJING, Sunday, June 4— As the crackle of automatic weapons filled the air today on the Avenue of Eternal Peace, tens of thousands of Beijing residents, even elderly men and women, rushed out to see what they could do to turn back the troops.

''The citizens have gone crazy,'' said a driver watching as a tank plowed its way down the main thoroughfare. ''They throw themselves in front of the tank, and only when they see it won't stop, they scatter.''

The driver himself was shaken by what he had seen: A tank had rammed into an army truck used as a barricade. As the truck turned over, it crushed a man to death. Elsewhere, he had seen three bloodied bodies lying in the street. Several soldiers still standing in their trucks were crying.

Students and workers threw beer bottles, gasoline bombs, lead pipes, whatever they could find, at the tanks and armed personnel trucks, which nevertheless continued rumbling down the avenue. One truck drove back and forth along the east side of the Changan Avenue, as the Avenue of Eternal Peace is known in Chinese, and did not stop when people stood in its path.

Amazement had already turned to fear and defiance earlier in the evening as citizens saw the military convoys entering the city. Some troops from other provinces practically paraded their AK-47 rifles as they stood in their trucks, stranded by the human blockades that had formed around the trucks.

By dark, tensions had soared throughout the city. Hundreds of thousands of people were impelled outdoors by their disbelief and anger, yet brought back to their homes by fear of the violence. The sound of tanks whizzing by and reports of open firing fanned their fears.

''You beasts! You beasts!'' shouted the people at the troops. 'We Have to Obey Orders'

Around a convoy of about 45 military trucks in the eastern part of the city, people pushed and shoved their way to the troops, shouting and urging them to consider their role as fellow citizens. But the sympathy that had characterized the troops last week was gone; the soldiers seemed to have a certain resolve.

''Will you shoot at us if they order you to?'' was a question asked by many of the people surrounding the truck. The soldiers gave weak assurances to the people that they would not fire, but they also admitted that they had to follow orders.

''We have to obey orders because we are soldiers,'' said one uniformed trooper who was driving a truck. ''Otherwise, we will be punished. In any case, there's no way they will order us to shoot the people.''

His platoon commander was firm. ''We don't fear being beaten by you people,'' he said as he climbed out of the truck. ''We just fear that our guns will be taken and then we will have chaos.'' Everywhere in the vicinity of the convoy was the sound of hissing, as people let out the air from the tires of as many trucks as they could.

''Why do you have guns?'' shouted one man.

''A man is not a soldier without his gun, is he?'' came the reply of a soldier carrying an Ak-47 automatic rifle. Citizens Plead With Soldiers

An old man took up the cause. ''I tell you, there will be no good end for you if you follow your order loyally,'' he screamed as though his life depended upon it. ''You have parents, you have brothers and sisters. You should not beat your fellow citizens under any circumstances.''

The nearly crazed citizens were climbing onto the trucks, trying to intimidate the soldier. But everywhere in the vicinity, anger was mixed with horror as the people saw how the soldiers handled their rifles and watched as several tanks pulled up.

''Is this the way Li Peng shows how martial law protects the people?'' said an old man sitting on a rail.

Another young man said, ''When they shoot with real bullets, it will be doomsday.'' Only hours later did the troops open fire.

In the afternoon, the scene near the walled-in Communist Party compound, where about 30 tear-gas bombs were released, had been the first site of violence. But now that seemed tame. A 20-minute conflict between 300 to 400 riot policemen and hundreds of citizens seemed to have galvanized the citizens. They began to believe that the Government was willing to use force - rubber bullets, broken bricks, truncheons - against the people. Chaotic Swirl of People

''I couldn't keep my eyes open because of the dense tear gas,'' said Lu Baochun, a 26-year-old assistant engineer. ''It was the troops that first used bricks and tiles to attack, and the citizens fought back.''

Mr. Lu had rushed back out to the scene, a chaotic swirl of thousands of people darting back and forth inspecting broken bricks and glass and examining the white powder-like splotches on the street apparently from the tear gas.

''When I went into the house of a nearby citizen to wash my eyes with fresh water, I saw several children lying on their stomachs on a bed,'' said Mr. Lu, whose own face and neck were reddened from the gas. ''They had wet towels covering their mouths, and an old woman was beside them weeping.''

He was standing at the Communist Party headquarters shouting with rage now at the two-dozen military troops with long truncheons and green helmets, sweating in their heavy green uniforms under the pelting sun.

Some citizens gathered in small huddles around people they thought had been witnesses to the attack. Others crowded together discussing the event, many apprehensive about how far the Government would go.

''They are simply ruffians and bandits,'' said a young well-dressed woman who had gotten caught in the cross-fire of bricks and stones as she was on her way to the office. ''They bit people just like mad dogs.''

A Chinese journalist was trying to comfort her. ''We are shocked,'' he said. ''We thought that this kind of thing only happened during the reign of the corrupt Government of the Kuomintang. Yet this happened in our People's Republic. The troops and the police, they are supposed to be our brothers.''

By Nicholas D. Kristof

BEIJING, Monday, June 5— Army units tightened their hold on the center of the Chinese capital on Sunday, moving in large convoys on some of the main thoroughfares and firing indiscriminately at crowds as outraged citizens continued to attack and burn army vehicles.

It was clear that at least 300 people had been killed since the troops first opened fire shortly after midnight on Sunday morning but the toll may be much higher. Word-of-mouth estimates countinued to soar, some reaching far into the thousands. Outbreaks of firing continued today, as more convoys of troops moved through the city.

The bloodshed stunned Beijing and seemed to traumatize its citizens. Normal life halted as armored personnel carriers and troop trucks rumbled along debris-filled roads, with soldiers firing their automatic weapons in every direction. Smoke filled the sky as workers and students vented frustration and outrage by burning army vehicles wherever they found them separated from major convoys,in side streets or at intersections.

Square Is Sealed Off

The area around central Tiananmen Square was completely sealed by troops who periodically responded with bursts of automatic-weapons fire whenever crowds drew close to the square.

By ordering soldiers to fire on the unarmed crowds, the Chinese leadership has created an incident that almost surely will haunt the Government for years to come. It is believed here that after the bloodshed of this weekend, it will be incomparably more difficult to rule China.

Many fewer people than normal were in the streets Sunday and today, and some of them ended up in the hospitals or in the morgues. The number of casualties may never be known, because the Government has asked hospitals not to report any numbers on deaths or injuries. However, based on accounts pieced together from doctors at several hospitals, it seems that at least 200 died in the hospitals and that many other corpses were probably left in the hands of the military. Saving the Living

''We had to concentrate on those who were still living,'' one doctor said today. ''We had to leave behind most of those who already were dead.''

When troops finally seized Tiananmen Square early Sunday morning, they allowed the student occupiers who held on to the center of the square for three weeks to leave and then sent tanks to run over the tents and makeshift encampment that demonstrators had set up. Unconfirmed reports rapidly spread that some students had remained in the tents and were crushed to death.

The troops sealed off Tiananmen Square and started a huge bonfire. Many Beijing residents drew the conclusion, again impossible to verify, that the soldiers cremated corpses to destroy the evidence.

A Higher Estimate

The student organization that coordinated the long protests continued to function and announced today that 2,600 students were believed to have been killed. Several doctors said that, based on their discussions with ambulance drivers and colleagues who had been on Tiananmen Square, they estimated that at least 2,000 had died. But some of these estimates, based principally on antipathy for the Government, appeared to be high.

Soldiers also beat and bayonetted students and workers after daybreak on Sunday, witnesses said, usually after some provocation but sometimes entirely at random.

''I saw a young woman tell the soldiers that they are the people's army, and that they mustn't hurt the people,'' a young doctor said after returning from one clash Sunday. ''Then the soldiers shot her, and ran up and bayonetted her. I ran away, so I couldn't tell if she lived or died.''

News of the killings quickly spread to other parts of China, principally by radio reports from the Voice of America and the British Broadcasting Corporation.

Chinese-language broadcasts have been jammed recently, but not on all frequencies.

In Shanghai, some supporters of the democracy movement reacted to the killings in Beijing by going on strike, a diplomat there said in a telephone interview. However, few factories are open on Sundays, so the real test of a strike will come today, and many people doubt that a strike will be successful because of a lack of organization among workers. Strike Possibility

In addition, Shanghai residents expressed protest by erecting barricades throughout the city to block traffic.

In northeastern China, small demonstrations to protest the killings in Beijing were held in Shenyang, Dalian and Changchun. However, in those areas there has not been much talk of a general strike, a diplomat said.

Huge convoys of scores of army vehicles, led by tanks, continued to roll through the main roads of Beijing this morning and early afternoon, skirting trucks that had been set on fire by civilians with molotov cocktails. Troops in the vehicles fired their submachine guns constantly, mostly in the air. However, some casualties were reported.

Troops still fired periodically when clusters of people gathered near the Beijing Hotel, and several people were reported killed and injured. Among them was a middle-aged Western man was hit in the leg and stomach, according to a witness. He could not be immediately identified and his condition was not known.

In a sign that the troops' mission is not over, the television news today broadcast a letter from the army headquarters to the soldiers, congratulating them on their ''everlasting historic exploits in defending our republic'' and warning that ''the struggle is a long and complicated one.''

''Arriving at the scheduled positions and restoring order at the square is only the first elementary victory we have achieved,'' the letter added, without elaborating. ''More dfficult and challenging tasks remain before us.''

China's television news on Sunday night showed the army knocking down a replica of the Statue of Liberty that students had put in place on the square. The broadcast hailed troops for ''victoriously crushing this counterrevolutionary rebellion.''

The broadcast did not mention civilian casualties, but said that three soldiers had been killed and two were missing.

In fact, one of the three, a man who was described as ''beaten dead by ruffians on Jianguomen Bridge,'' had actually been run over by an armored personnel carrier. Destruction of Army Vehicles

The official news also indicated that people had destroyed 31 military trucks, 23 police cars, two armored personnel carriers and 31 buses. But those numbers seemed much too low, for everywhere in Beijing people reacted to the killings by torching vehicles and creating blockades. The troops only controlled a few major thoroughfares, and elsewhere citizens continued to control the streets.

One soldier who had shot a young child was overpowered by a large crowd in the Chongwenmen district early Sunday, and then hanged and burned as he dangled from a bridge. Troops later arrived at the scene and cut down his smoking corpse.

The Government issued an announcement calling for the return of weapons it said had been taken from the army, as well as demanding that ''kidnapped'' troops be returned. The announcement could be interpreted as preparing the way for an attack on several universities, on the ground of recovering stolen weapons.

Student leaders apparently have some submachine guns that were taken from soldiers or from supply trucks, but at least so far they have seemed more interested in displaying the weapons than in using them. Students at People's University also seized an armored personnel carrier this afternoon and drove it around their neighborhood, but there was no indication that they planned to use them against troops.

No Word From Deng or Li

There was no announcement from the senior leader, Deng Xiaoping, Prime Minister Li Peng or other officials who presumably ordered the military attack on student demonstrators. Mr. Li is believed to be winning so far in a major power struggle with the Communist Party General Secretary, Zhao Ziyang, who favors a more moderate line toward protesters.

Some accounts had Mr. Deng in poor health, and even in a hospital, but diplomats noted that such rumors invariably surface whenever the 84-year-old leader has been absent from view for a period of time. Mr. Deng has not app eared in public since he met the Soviet President, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, on May 16.

The demonstrations began after the death April 15 of a former Communist Party leader, Hu Yaobang, who was widely admired for his moderate policies. Until the weekend, both the Government and the demonstrators had been very restrained, but the army's use of violence seemed to radicalize many protesters.

Students at Beijing University were busy today making firebombs that they planned to hurl against troops whom they expected to assault the campus. Rumors of such an assault circulated throughout the day but by the early hours of Monday morning, none had taken place.

A Stunned Response

Beijing residents seemed stunned by the violent attacks on the protesters for democracy, but unsure how to respond. While many students and young workers are militant and insist that they will win in the long run, older people already seem to have accepted defeat.

''The democracy movement is already finished,'' a Chinese journalist said despondently.

After the first attacks Sunday, calls for a general strike were heard from the outraged protesters. However, a physician said that there was little chance for a stppage to succeed because the army would immediately force people to do their jobs on threat of death.

''We have no guns so we can't fight,'' the doctor said. ''But after a few months, the movement will bubble up again.''

Debris and Chaos

A long drive through much of the capital on Sunday - on almost deserted streets filled with the twisted remains of barricades run over by tanks and armored personnel carriers - suggested how far the city must go to restore normal conditions. Smoke rises at major intersections from the carcasses of military trucks that have been turned over and set alight, and automatic-weapons fire is now part of Beijing's background noise.

The northern section of the second ring road was a tangle of debris from road blocks that tanks had pushed aside, as well as long buses that are arranged to block traffic. At every intersection, curls of smoke rose from burning trucks, and in some places when the air is still, the air is so acrid that it is quite uncomfortable.

More than 100 people, mostly local workers, lined each of the overpasses above the second ring road. They no longer police their own checkpoints, but they still show up to to see if there is anything they can do to keep the government at bay and protect the students.

It remains very difficult to find out what is happening in other parts of the capital. Telephone services are overloaded and unreliable, and so are the rumor networks. Indiscriminate firing by troops discourages people from staying on the main roads, and barricades make it difficult to take narrower routes.

No foreigners are known to have been died in the recent shooting, but at least two suffered minor bullet wounds and several other foreigners have been beaten, usually for taking photographs. Two CBS News employees, Richard Roth, a correspondent, and Derek Williams, a cameraman, were released Sunday night after spending the entire day in detention.

By Sheryl WuDunn

BEIJING, June 4— Her world collapsed early this morning, when she got a phone call that her husband was in the hospital fighting to survive the bullets that ripped through his midriff.

''He was convinced that by staying in the Communist Party, he was in a better position to contribute to the reforms,'' said the 30-year-old woman, whose puffed red eyes betrayed hours of weeping. ''At the time, he said such a party could never hurt the people. But he was wrong. And so many party members think the same way he does. They are all deluded.''

Despair seemed to silence the woman's sobs as she sat on an old bench outside the intensive care unit where her husband lay. The despair was accompanied by a fear that kept her from disclosing her name.

A City of Sorrow

Throughout the capital today, untold numbers of people found their lives shattered by a similar grief. Their tales were all different, but they were bound by a common source of tragedy - the military crackdown against China's democracy movement - and by a common rage at the Government. Beijing today was nothing so much as a city of sorrow.

The woman's husband, a 31-year-old engineer who has seven Chinese patents to his name, had sensed that something would happen Saturday night, and he had made sure to carry a piece of paper with his name, address and phone number on it.

Early in the night, the two of them had gone out together and seen the troops chatting rather comfortably with local residents. She went home at 11 P.M. to care for their 4-year-old son and to wait for her husband. He returned around midnight after the first shots were fired at the crowd, but he left again almost immediately.

'The Students Are Poor and Weak'

''There is violence out there and the students are poor and weak,'' she recalled him saying. ''I must go out and help them.''

Finally, at 3 A.M. this morning the Beijing Union Medical College Hospital called to say that her husband needed emergency surgery. It lasted seven hours.

The hospitals this afternoon were calmer than in the early morning, when wounded students and workers were brought in every few minutes. Several stretchers are still splotched with blood stains, but the pools of blood on the hospital floors are gone and the frenzy has subsided.

The possibility that the bloodshed may continue alarms doctors, however. 'We Have No More Blood'

''We have no more blood,'' said one doctor at the Union Medical College Hospital. ''If there are many more wounded again in the next couple of days, we won't be able to handle them.''

The growing expectation of a widespread crackdown frightens some hospital employees from revealing details about their patients or the number of deaths, and doctors at several hospitals say they have been told that visitors other than kin or close friends are not allowed through the gates.

This afternoon, sympathetic workmen led a reporter into the Union Medical College Hospital by an underground passage, past the guards at the gate.

A small crowd gathered in the center of one of the special wards, where the bloodied young men and women lay side by side on mattresses on the floor. Wives bent down over their wounded husbands to loosen a shoelace or just to reassure their loved one that the wounds would heal.

Citizens carried or carted to the hospitals many of the wounded found on the outskirts of the square, but ambulances were needed to enter parts of the Tiananmen Square area to pick up the wounded.

Doctors at different hospitals said today that they had often been restricted in collecting the wounded. Without the cooperation of the army, it was difficult to enter or leave certain parts of the Tiananmen area with the wounded. Bullet Holes in an Ambulance

One doctor who traveled in his hospital's ambulance to Tiananmen Square said machine guns raked the sides of the ambulance when it was making its way out of the square with several wounded citizens. He showed the bullet holes in the vehicle.

Everywhere in the hospital corridors there were stories of dashed hopes and lives that had been changed forever by a moment on Tiananmen Square.

A 24-year-old Government official was fleeing from a volley of bullets on a side street just northeast of the square when three men near him were hit with bullets. He went to help them, but a People's Liberation Army officer stopped him from tending the wounded.

''Don't stir or you will be dead,'' a soldier said as he pointed a rifle at the official's head. The official said a dozen soldiers then surrounded him and beat him with bricks, truncheons and the butts of their rifles.

''I never thought they would be so brutal,'' said the official, still wearing his bloodied clothes at a hospital where he is recovering from wounds all over his body. A friend had spent the afternoon with him, and now they were taking a walk around an area of the dark corridor, his friend supporting him. Even Shoppers Are Shot

A 28-year-old Government official stayed at home during the night and wandered out only at daylight to see what happened. When he strolled over at 9 A.M. to the Beijing Hotel, a few hundred yards east of the square, he was shot in the hip.

''I feel as though my leg isn't there,'' he moaned to a doctor beside him. The doctor assured him that he would survive, although she said nothing about his leg.

''I thought the Government would use only rubber bullets,'' he added, as his wife moved closer to comfort him.

One young man who had spent hours helping out at a hospital early in the morning returned home this afternoon only to find that his wife's younger brother had been beaten to death by the troops.

Shoppers on a major side street this afternoon also were shot simply because they were in the line of view when troops decided to open fire on Wangfujing, one of Beijing's most popular shopping districts.

A Chinese student studying in Japan had returned home to visit his wife and son. When he crossed the street, soldiers shot him in the back. Doctors say he will be paralyzed forever.