Li Zhensheng
Chinese photojournalist
Died when: 79 years 275 days (957 months)Star Sign: Libra
.png?width=300)
Li Zhensheng (Chinese: 李振盛; pinyin: Lǐ Zhènshèng; 22 September 1940 – June 2020) was a Chinese photojournalist who captured some of the most telling images from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, better known as the Chinese Cultural Revolution.
His employment at the Heilongjiang Daily, which followed the party line, and his decision to wear a red arm band indicating an alliance with Chairman Mao Zedong, allowed him access to scenes otherwise only described in written and verbal accounts.
His 2003 book Red-Color News Soldier exhibits both the revolutionary ideals and many of the atrocities that occurred during the Cultural Revolution.
The Heilongjiang Daily newspaper had a strict policy in accordance with a government dictate that only "positive" images could be published, which consisted mostly of smiling revolutionaries offering praise for Chairman Mao.
The "negative" images, which depicted the atrocities of the time, were hidden beneath a floorboard in his house before he brought them to light at a photo exhibition in 1988.
A private museum, dedicated to Li's life and work, was opened in 2017 in Sichuan Province as a part of the Jianchuan Museum Cluster.