I found a US state department document that officials confirmed that the first wave of soldiers the day before the massacre was unarmed and were on orders to not use force to try to disperse the protestors and that the protestors were the ones violent. From my research the violence and fighting only started a day afterwards when the students started killing PLA soldiers.

Machine translated

A historical void in the June Fourth Incident—the true record of the PLA clearing the Square, which went relatively peacefully compared to other areas, from 4 a.m. to 7 a.m - according to pre-handover Hong Kong media

Redress the June Fourth Incident, restore the truth of June Fourth, soldiers are human beings too.

Episode 2 of the CCTV documentary “The Test of Blood and Fire” (6 4 incident, protests and crackdown on riots)

During the riots of several days, more than 1280 military vehicles, police vehicles and public electric vehicles were smashed, burned and damaged, including more than 1000 military vehicles, more than 60 armored vehicles, more than 30 police vehicles, more than 120 public electric vehicles and more than 70 other motor vehicles.

Bonus - a Jinx edit video, including one where tank man is pulled away from blocking the tank’s direction, and some soldiers’ corpses, as a result of the riots

Just some peaceful protestors, without foreign support, who were unprovokedly quashed by Beijing’s forces. / s

Yeah, marg bar color revolution