On May 6, that number grew to 55,000 students, or close to 17 percent of the student body, and on May 7, 83,000 students, or 28 percent of the student body, failed to show up. On that day, 62 percent of the students were absent from schools in the Lenin district of the city, where most of the party and managerial elite—the people with the best access to information—resided. They were leaving before anyone else