Though the Cultural Revolution was one of the most brutal and fascinating periods in modern Chinese history, it has been virtually undocumented visually. But that will change this September, when Phaidon publishes Red-Color News Soldier, a trove of 286 black-and-white photographs hidden for more than 30 years.
Acquired in a heated auction, in which the U.K.—based art and illustrated book publisher triumphed over major New York houses, the book presents rare photographs taken between 1964 and 1980 by Li Zhensheng, a photographer for a Communist party newspaper in a remote northern Chinese province. Documenting vicious rituals of public humiliation and huge popular rallies, as well as more ordinary moments, the photos were selected from 30,000 negatives Li hid at great personal risk.
Although he at first supported Mao's call to revolution, Li's zeal waned as he witnessed the personal destruction that followed. As a photographer at the Heilongjiang Daily, Li was denounced several times and sent to the countryside for "reeducation." When he returned, he continued taking pictures, often turning in fake negatives when ordered to surrender his work, which was hidden under the floorboards of his house. Then, in the 1990s, after Li had become a university professor, he began smuggling the negatives out of China on lecture trips to the U.S., with the help of Robert Pledge, director of Contact Press, the photo agency that represents him. Later, Li was able to transport them openly.
His beautifully composed photographs depict a broad range of daily activities in cities and rural areas. The most arresting images capture public denunciations and trials of party members and peasants, in which accused "counterrevolutionaries" were forced to stand with their heads bowed for hours, their faces smeared with ink from the derogatory placards hanging from their necks. As a whole, the collection offers an astonishing and invaluable record of a decade of political zealotry that veered out of control and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands.
The book also recounts the personal stories of Li and his family during those years, written with the help of journalist Jacques Menasche, who composed the text from more than 200 hours of interviews with Li, who divides his time between Beijing and New York City. Though he does not speak English, Li will be available for media interviews, assisted by a translator as well as his son and daughter, who both live in New York.
In addition to the English-language edition, which carries an introduction from China scholar Jonathan Spence and will be available in the U.S. in September, the book will be published in French this fall, with Italian, German and Spanish editions to follow. The house "had no problems" distributing the English edition in China, said Phaidon editor-in-chief Karen Stein, who plans a Chinese edition as soon as possible.
Stein originally used one of Li's photographs in Century, Phaidon's 1999 historical photographic anthology, without any idea at the time of the full extent of Li's body of work. When she later received the proposal and its account of Li's life, Stein and her colleagues couldn't quite believe what they were seeing. "The book is so newsworthy it will attract enormous attention," said Stein, "but Li's personal story will appeal to a wider audience. It's a heroic story, a personal record that will come to represent an entire generation of the Chinese people."
