Lei Feng: China’s Evolving Cultural Icon, 1960s to the Present

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In 1962, very few people within the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) had ever heard of Lei Feng, a young soldier who died in a tragic accident while driving a truck for the People’s Liberation Army. The following year, his name was known throughout China as one of the finest young soldiers that the country had ever produced. In years to come, his diary was put in the hands of everyone from school children to soldiers with the purpose of serving as a model for the ideal Chinese citizen. As Chinese culture evolved, so did the persona of Lei Feng, from citizen-soldier-peasant of the 1960s and 1970s, to an icon for socialist entrepreneurship during the 1980s and 1990s. The twenty-first century has seen Lei Feng take on a life of his own, becoming a global ambassador professing the redeeming power of Maoist thought to all humanity. Though Lei Feng was an actual person, the details of his life-including his famous diary- were largely manufactured by Lin Biao, a powerful leader and effective propagandist of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). But the question remains: why has the mythic figure of Lei Feng been so astoundingly successful from its creation in 1963 to the present day?