Lei Feng's
Immortal Spirit
China Revamps Revolutionary
Hero
By ALEXA OLESEN
Associated Press, Feb. 28, 2003
BEIJING -- His boyish smile beams from the
pages of China's major newspapers. Lately, he's on the television news
every night. Dozens of Web sites are dedicated to him. But he's no pop
star. This is Lei Feng, a 1960s propaganda icon, a dead soldier hailed
as a model of charity. Dusted off and updated, he's being promoted as
an example of cheerful self-sacrifice by communist leaders who worry economic
reform has made Chinese selfish and fed social tensions.
Killed in 1962 in a freak accident, the 22-year-old soldier was immortalized
by Mao Zedong the following year, when the communist leader exhorted Chinese
to "Learn from Comrade Lei Feng."
March 5 marks the 40th anniversary of Mao's declaration - and, coincidentally,
the start of the patriotism-infused meeting of China's National People's
Congress. And amid the high-tech din of China's openly capitalist ambition,
Lei Feng and his classic communist virtue are everywhere.
Schoolchildren visit exhibitions about Lei Feng, who is said to have helped
the elderly and done such good deeds as secretly washing other soldiers'
socks. Humble citizens are periodically elevated from obscurity by the
government and dubbed "living Lei Fengs." Press reports say
the southern city of Changsha has used the selfless "Lei Feng spirit"
to cut crime and boost economic growth.
But Lei has not been a static figure. He has evolved over the years, changing
as China changes, a mutable symbol of the moral virtues the country needs
most. Lei lacks the single-minded revolutionary zeal he once had. Today,
the media focuses more on his compassion - something China's new leader,
Hu Jintao, named Communist Party general secretary in November, has been
keen to promote in the country's citizenry. Hu has made helping the poor
and unemployed a key theme of his leadership and is expected to be named
China's president at the legislature's annual session.
"Lei Feng suits Hu's agenda well," said Zhou Xiaozheng, a professor
of sociology at Beijing's People's University. "`Lei Feng spirit'
is to help the weak and do good things, and since he came to leadership
that's been Hu's project."
On Friday, the Web site of the Communist Party's People's Daily newspaper
also invoked Lei, saying senior leader Li Changchun had told party faithful
"the `Lei Feng Spirit' should be carried forward" - to inspire
Chinese toward greater devotion to the country's modernization. "Upholding
the spirit of Lei Feng in the new century ... will serve as a spiritual
catalyst for the building of a well-off society in an all-around way,"
the Web site quoted Li as saying this week at a Lei Feng conference.
For all the attention Lei gets, doubts remain about whether he ever existed.
If he did, he probably bore little resemblance to the saintly depictions
offered up by state-controlled media. According to biographies of Lei,
he was born a peasant in 1940 and lost both his parents by age 7. At 20,
he joined the People's Liberation Army and rose to become squad leader
and party member. Then, on Aug. 15, 1962, Lei was killed when a truck
backing up struck a pole that toppled and killed him.
Posthumously, through the details of his diary and testimonials from soldiers,
he emerged as communist China's ideal, an icon of dedication and heroic
selflessness. His modest deeds became legendary. Many Chinese can recite
passages from Lei's diary from memory, such as the entry for Oct. 20,
1961: "A person's life is limited, but to serve the people is unlimited."
The modern Lei, revamped for a new generation, is a little more pragmatic,
a little less perfect and slightly more believable. China now is being
introduced to that Lei through books like "The Song of Lei Feng,"
a warts-and-all biography written by 19-year-old author Zhang Tiantian
and published last month by Liaoning People's Press. "He made some
mistakes. He was naughty, and even heroes have emotional problems,"
Zhang said. "He was a really normal, realistic person. I put all
of that in my book." Zhang said many Chinese have misconceptions
about Lei and don't know, for example, that he was short, skinny and nearsighted.
She modeled her book on "Lust for Life," Irving Stone's biography
of Vincent van Gogh, which she said inspired her to write a realistic
depiction of Lei's life and motivations. "Before that book, many
just thought van Gogh was crazy," said Zhang. "I wanted to write
a book like 'Lust for Life' -- to write it very realistically, to help
people understand Lei."
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