1. Lei Feng, Original name Lei Zhengxing, was a soldier in the People's Liberation Army who was the object of several major propaganda campaigns in China.
21 Facts About Lei Feng
1. 2.
The current biography of Lei Feng as given in China's state media says that he was born in Wangcheng.
3.
Lei Feng's father died when he was just five, his elder brother, who was exploited as a child labourer, died a year later, and his younger brother passed soon afterward.
4.
Lei Feng was recommended and joined the Angang Mining Company's Gongchangling Iron Mine as a bulldozer operator.
5.
Lei Feng became a member of the Communist youth corps when he was young and joined a transportation unit of the People's Liberation Army at the age of twenty.
6.
Lei Feng was not widely known until after his death.
7.
In 1963, Lei Feng's Diary was first presented to the public by Lin Biao in the first of many "Learn from Lei Feng" campaigns.
8.
Lin's use of Lei Feng's diary was part of a larger effort to improve Mao's image, which had suffered after the Great Leap Forward.
9.
In 1964 the Lei Feng campaign shifted gradually from doing good deeds to a cult of Mao.
10.
When Lei Feng died in the line of duty, he was only 22, but his short life gives concentrated expression to the noble ideals of a new people, nurtured with the communist spirit, and to the noble moral integrity and values of the Chinese people in the new period.
11.
Leaders who have written about Lei Feng include Deng Xiaoping, Zhou Enlai, and Jiang Zemin.
12.
Details of Lei Feng's life have been subject to dispute.
13.
Some observers noted, for instance, that the campaign presented a collection of twelve photographs of Lei Feng performing good deeds.
14.
The lauded details of Lei Feng's life according to official documents led him to become a subject of derision and cynicism among segments of the Chinese populace.
15.
Lei Feng is especially honoured in Changsha, Hunan, and in Fushun, Liaoning.
16.
Lei Feng's story continues to be referenced in popular culture.
17.
The 'Learn from Lei Feng' campaign is a political education initiative vigorously promoted by the People's Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party.
18.
Additionally, they produced 800 sets of photos for grassroots-level small exhibitions in cooperation with the Liaoning Photo Agency, promoting the Lei Feng learning movement across the province.
19.
Lei Feng emphasized the importance of this activity as a model of noble communist ideological qualities and instructed that it should be established as an important measure in the ongoing communist education.
20.
Various groups dedicated to learning from Lei Feng emerged, as well as numerous stories of people doing good deeds and becoming 'unsung heroes' by following his example.
21.
However, after the Cultural Revolution began in 1966, political textbooks were denounced as 'reactionary' and 'bourgeois,' and the practice of learning from Lei Feng was criticized as a 'tool for ideological indoctrination.