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Archive 1

Uncle vs. Comrade

I remember him as "Uncle Lei Feng." Yes? No? --AStanhope 11:52, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, I dont think it's the same "uncle" as "uncle sam" It's just pretty common to call an adult male figure "uncle"(2/29/08) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.159.224.65 (talk) 06:51, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

In the West?

"In the West, Lei Feng is most often seen as a T-shirt motif, similar to other revolutionary symbols including Mao and Che Guevera."

While I've seen plenty of people wearing Che Guevara t-shirts, I've seldom seen Mao (maybe in the late sixties?), and I don't think I've ever see Lei Feng. He's not really the kind of "hero" that would appeal to many people in the west, IMHO. A bit of CCP propaganda here? Camillus (talk) 21:44, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Lei Feng t-shirts do indeed existin the West. (Scroll down). Any American Chinese language student worthy of the name had one in the early 1990s. Prince Roy (talk) 23:26, 5 August 2008 (UTC)Prince Roy

In the mid-1970s, Sweden's largest daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter, with a journalist permanently posted in Beijing, reported on the campaign to learn from comrade Lei Feng under the headline "All of China Learns from Leif Eng" - the paper's typesetter obviously having tried to make better sense of a strange foreigner's name by turning it into the very common Swedish first name "Leif" and a linguistically possible family name "Eng". There were no spell-checker programmes in those days.Villa Giulia (talk) 09:42, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Lei Feng T-shirts [1] are available in most tourist markets and numerous Chinese clothing markets all across mainland China. Their "pop art" styling combined with a militaristic color scheme are popular among Western tourists and Chinese youth. They are widely available as of Summer 2009.

Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch and Horst Wessel

There is not much resemblance to Pat Tillman or Jessica Lynch except they were soldiers who were briefly famous and held up as heroes by the military and media. However, neither of them had published diaries and the US military's attempt at making propoganda out of their stories was eventually debunked. Jessica Lynch did not die and she has publicly expressed her outrage over the way her experience was misreported. Pat Tillman died, but his family has likewise expressed outrage publicly over the lies made up to try to recruit young people into the military. Finally, the stories about these two americans were made up simply to try to make the war in Iraq seem heroic and to recruit people into the army, it was not a part of a general campaign to make people do good deeds or obediently follow a government or particular leader or ideology. For all of these reasons, I removed the reference to Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch that was in the main aricle.John Lawrence (talk) 14:06, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
There is no resemblance to Horst Wessel except he was briefly famous and held up as a heroe by the military and media. The story about this German was made up simply to try to make the Nazi party seem heroic and to recruit people into it. It was not a part of a general campaign to make people do good deeds. For this reason, I removed the link to Horst Wessel.Villa Giulia (talk) 11:52, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Legacy

Today, Lei Feng is seen as a nationalism icon - you can buy T-Shirts of him at Chinatown, Sydney, which are even more popular than T-Shirts of Mao Zedong. Also, as I was present during the 2008 Olympic Torch Relay in Canberra, Australia, I've seen numerous different shirts with Lei Feng on the front. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs 07:34, 1 March 2009 (UTC)


I newly received a school magazine with an English article about Lei Feng. I attach it as an interesting document. --Štěpán Böswart (talk) 08:11, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

华侨外院报
2009年3月23日总第130期
Learn from Comrade Lei Feng
Huaqiao Youth Volunteers' Festival
by Monica

Lei Feng, a Mao Zedong—era model soldier, was bom in a family of poor peasants in Hunan on December 18, 1940. Orphaned at an early age, he was fed and brought up by the Party. Then in 1960, at 20, Lei joined the People's Liberation Army and became a Party member.


Lei's greatest desire in life was to be nothing more than "a revolutionary screw that never rusts". Under the guide of that desire, he led a frugal and selfless life and devoted himself heart and soul to the revolution and the people. However, on August 15, 1962, Lei was hit by a falling wooden pole, and died unfortunately. Later, his many good deeds during his living time spread quickly. Therefore, Mao called on the nation to learn from the young martyr by penning the inscription "Learn from Comrade Lei Feng" and since then March had been dedicated to the national "Learn from Comrade Lei Feng" campaign. Also, his diary was printed and reprinted for study. He thus became a symbol of sacrifice for others.

With the coming of March 5, 2009, Huaqiao held the Youth Volunteers' Festival for the first time for the purpose of further promoting the standard of campus culture, developing better qualities of campus activities, expanding volunteer numbers, fully propagating volunteer spirit, and arousing Huaqiao students' zeal for voluntary service.


According to the schedule, the festival was commenced on March 5 and would last till the end of March. All the students on campus were entitled to take part in it, and actually, they were supposed to do so actively. Launched by Youth Volunteers Associations at all levels, the festival comprised four parts: voluntary activities, achievements presenting, speech contest themed "Warmth in Hua Qiao, Volunteer Spirit in My Heart", original voluntary service projects competition and other featured programs organized by Youth Volunteers Associations of respective departments. Of course, there would be an awarding ceremony for those competitions at last. Let s just wait and see.

The festival was a great opportunity to educate us college students, who were mainly born in the 1980s or 1990s and had become ignorant of Lei Feng, let alone his spirit. Worse still, some of us were even unfamiliar to the name "Lei Feng" at all. Meanwhile, the festival offered us a chance to make a contribution to the society by voluntary services.

May the festival close its curtain successfully, may the volunteering spirit spread widely in Huaqiao.


Do the people who promote the image of Lei Feng like this realize that Lei Feng's Diary was a forgery compiled under the direction of Lin Biao for the purpose of promoting an unquestioned obedience to Mao?Ferox Seneca (talk) 17:28, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
Which sources that you've read lead you to believe that to be the case ? I was just looking at that part of the article a few days ago that says "Although it was presented to the public as being genuine, the Diary of Lei Feng was a work of propaganda composed after Lei's death, under the direction of Lin Biao. The Diary was composed as part of a broader propaganda effort to improve Mao's image, which had suffered after the Great Leap Forward.[4]" The statements need better sourcing and expanding to tell the various stories about the diaries. If you have sources in mind it would be useful. I'm not sure the source cited (Spence, Jonathan D. The Search for Modern China, New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1999. ISBN 0-393-97351-4. p.566 ) supports the material currently in the article, at least not on the page cited, 566. The International Institute of Social History has some potentially useful information here. Sean.hoyland - talk 18:07, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
The chineseposters.net source is a good site for information about how Lei Feng's life is portrayed, but it doesn't address the contention that Lei's diary was forged. I'm aware that many editors consider The Search for Modern China to be too general to be reliable on its own, but Spence's conclusions concerning the diary's authenticity are not far-fetched. Articles and books confirming the general scholarly consensus that Lei Feng's Diary is a forgery are readily available on the internet: 1 2. This source discusses the forgery of Lei's diary and Lin's role in producing PLA-related propaganda for Mao in the early-mid 1960s. This source describes how the original "learn from Lei Feng" propaganda campaign was orchestrated and run by Lin Biao, making Lin the most likely figure to have directed the forging of the diary. Because of the general scholarly consensus that Lin's diary was a forgery, and the close association that Lin Biao had with the effort to promote Lei Feng's diary as Maoist propaganda, Spence's conclusion that Lin Biao directed the forging of Lei's diary is reasonable.Ferox Seneca (talk) 23:48, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
Shoot: I just realized that you are correct about something. I was double-checking that the source was correct (it is page 566 in my copy, on the last paragraph, so please confirm that our copies are the same if it isn't on the same page in your book). The text says that Lin directed the propaganda campaign, and that the book was a forgery, but not directly that Lin directed the forgery. I can revise the prose slightly to reflect thisFerox Seneca (talk) 04:37, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Military history

no. the guy was not important militarily. There would have been no difference if the chinese military had or didn't have this guy. he is a cultural figure. stop putting in the tag for "Military History Wikiproject".

Lei was a soldier who became famous via a military propaganda campaign, so it is entirely suitable for this article to be included as "military history".Ferox Seneca (talk) 00:31, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

March 2012

An IP editor added a section on "controversy" this morning, detailing their personal (but not unreasonable) views that the photographs depicting Lei Feng's life were a forgery. I rewrote this, and added some sources. Also edited lede a little, and wrote some about how Lei Feng is conceived of by Chinese audiences. These were all pretty perfunctory edits, though, so I welcome improvements or elaborations to them. My statements on perceptions of Lei are vast generalizations, for instance, so more sources offering competing views would be a great addition.

As to the structure of the page, why are there three sections presenting Lei's life as propaganda, as an icon, and as a celebrity? What's the difference? Homunculus (duihua) 15:08, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

  • It has always been the general perspective of Western academics that the popular image of Lei Feng was manufactured by Party propagandists working under Lin Biao, and the article contains enough sourcing to make this perspective clear. This POV should be included to represent due weight in the article. Information reflecting this POV that has been arbitrarily deleted should be restored.Ferox Seneca (talk) 04:53, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
Ferox, would you perhaps be inclined to do this? Homunculus (duihua) 13:37, 2 June 2012 (UTC)


Apart from that, does anyone disagree with moving the stuff in "cultural importance" up to the propaganda section and renaming that section? It seems not particularly different from information provided by the state, but is merely the latter-day manifestation of LF propaganda. It could be called "Contemporary references" or something. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 18:57, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

This article has been substantially improved in both content and organization over the last year, and I don't have much to add. The three sections after "Life" all discuss the same thing: how Lei's propaganda image was/is used by the government and perceived by scholars and common people. I slightly reorganized the article to reflect a distinction between his historical life and his image in propaganda, but you can reorganize it further if you think that this distinction is weak.Ferox Seneca (talk) 00:31, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Google hit counts

I removed the following text on google hits and replaced it with words explaining one is more common than the other.

As of December 2013, this had 11,600 Google hits compared to158,000 for 東北人都是活雷鋒.

Discussion of which is more common should go on the talk page. The article should simply state which is common and which is note. Rincewind42 (talk) 03:46, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

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Historicity once more

A recent revision to the article once more declared Lei Feng totally fictitious. This switching back and forth between 'real', 'not real', 'real', 'not real' is not acceptable. I do not believe there is a consensus in academic studies that he was totally fictitious. More than one study has at least considered the possibility that he was an actual PLA soldier. A reference that used to be here and should probably come back is in Spence's book, The Search for Modern China. I have revised the lead paragraph to reflect the possibility that he was an actual soldier.

On the other hand, Lei Feng has been a propaganda subject in China for decades. Discussions of his image and function as a role model should reflect this. Accounts of his life in state media, including newspapers and television should not be taken as factual. Rgr09 (talk) 03:20, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

The lead has been reverted to declare Lei Feng a fictional character again, yet as it currently stands the article discusses two viewpoints; one that Lei Feng was not a historical person, the other that he may have been. Simply adding that he was fictional at the beginning makes the article inconsistent and confusing. Justifying this by saying that anyone who is reasonable would agree with you is not the way wikipedia works. Please discuss this problem here before changing back yet again, please bring sources. This is both courtesy and standard wikipedia procedure. Rgr09 (talk) 06:05, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

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Authenticity?

I'm going to look for some sources. Almost every English-language source I've read about Lei Feng at least mentions that his diary was likely an invention, and that his life was largely appropriated for propaganda purposes. Sliderman 06:41, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Pages 35-36 of Michael Lynch's "The People's Republic of China since 1949" has the following: "The Maoist propaganda campaign made further ground with the publication in 1963 of The Diary of Lei Feng. This book purported to be the daily journal of a humble PLA lorry driver whose every thought and action were inspired by his devotion to Mao. The manner in which Lei died, accidentally crushed under the wheels of a truck while faithfully performing his assigned duties, was held up as a symbol of martyrdom for the revolutionary cause. That the story was a total fabrication did not prevent its hero from achieving secular sainthood. Lei Feng was extolled by Maoists as the embodiment of the loyalty of the ordinary Chinese, a loyalty that by implication stood in stark contrast to the time-serving careerism of many in the CCP. Lei Feng's Diary joined the Little Red Book as an essential text for study in China's schools." IMHO this article needs some serious editing, it appears too skewed towards China's "official" version of things, which is usually not the most accurate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.243.99.2 (talk) 10:07, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

You are correct, Lei Feng is a fabrication. Not only that, but "Lei Feng" was widely known to be a hoax even back then, was subject to much derision, and viewed with humor.

DrippingGoofball (talk) 02:08, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Would that be "fabrication" of the same kind as the US military's "heroes" in Iraq and Afghanistan, or what? And does "widely known" refer to the PRC "back then" or the "world in general"?Villa Giulia (talk) 13:09, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
I'm guessing no since you've referred to an-ill defined class of people- some of which probably really did do what the united states claims they did and some of which probably didn't. What's your point? If you want to create an article about "OMG, Lei Feng is a fraud but so are the popularized views of american soldiers in the middle east" then go for it, though I'm guessing the notability of the subject would be substandard.
One thing's for sure: The comparitive accuracy of these two items is irrelevant to this article and it seems you got your panties in a bunch over discussion that that Lei Feng might be and is regarded as largely a propoganda ploy of inacurate composition. I don't know what America or its troops has to do with anything whatsoever, so please detail the relevance and clear up wtf you're referring to in particular (I'm from the USA and have never heard of these heros you speak of- name them). If you think americans are going to be agahst that you don't approve of something, though you fail to mention what, in the US's depection of its soldiers you've struck out. Please connect your discusion to the article's topic and clarify what your talking about as well as establish that it exists with suitable sources. It is worth noting that whatever inaccuracies exist in the US government's portrayl of cultural icons, you won't be going to jail for identifying these inaccuracies or opining that praise of the subjects is hardly well deserved- a freedom and security not present in certain other countries.--Δζ (talk) 10:19, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
Calm down, man… I had Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman in mind.Villa Giulia (talk) 16:53, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
Are there any Chinese sources which can validate that this was a complete fabrication? I say this because I recently met a few Chinese friends in Canada who still actually believe in the story of Lei Feng. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.242.34.248 (talk) 16:36, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I noticed that under 'Controversy Among Scholars' it states "A 2008 Xinhua survey noted that a large number elementary school students have vague knowledge of Lei Feng's life, with only 32 percent of the surveyed having read Lei's diary." It seems to me that if 32 percent of elementary school students had read Lei's diary that the word 'only' should not precede it. Bill Garrity 02:10, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

 Done. Alexcalamaro (talk) 08:17, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

I wouldn’t believe english sources on the matterRJS001 (talk) 15:33, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Reason of his death

Either I can't find it at all, or does it only say: industrial accident (without any further explanation)? Molekuelorbital (talk) 21:25, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

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