Red-Color News Soldier

At the height of the Cultural Revolution (1966-70) China’s universities were closed and much of its populace was sent to rural "re-education centres" where they were indoctrinated with Maoist policies. It is during this period that Li Zhensheng worked as a photojournalist for the "Heilongjiang Daily", shooting film both for the paper and, as we know now, for himself. While Li worked for a newspaper supporting the Maoist movement and admits he did not think Mao’s policies to be incorrect at the beginning of his tenure at the newspaper, his hiding of film was a highly subversive action. As a photographer, Li wanted to document the Cultural Revolution for himself and for others in the future. He put himself at risk by hiding film stills that the government would have destroyed, capturing events of which little or no other visual record exists. Looking at the photos in this book, one sees the difference between the photos published in the "Daily" and those Li hid for himself, allowing for a rare understanding of how the Chinese government controlled media during the Cultural Revolution. —Amazon.com