Li Honglin (1925-2016) was born in the northeastern province of Liaoning. He graduated from Northwestern Agriculture College. He joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1946. In 1948, he arrived at the revolutionary base Yan’an and began to work at Yan’an University. In 1949, he was sent to Xi’an to help start the Revolutionary University of Northwest. In 1950, he was sent to Lanzhou to be a professor at Northwestern Teachers’ College. In 1954 he went to study for two years at the College of Marxism-Leninism (the Central Party School). After the study, he worked at the Political Research Office of the CCP’s Central Committee, which became the Research Institute of Marxism-Leninism. He was the section chief of Art and Culture Studies. During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), he was purged and sent to Han’gu Farm at the shore of Bohai near the City of Tianjin to do hard labor. In 1973 he was reassigned to work in the provincial government of Hebei Province as a researcher. When the Great Tangshan earthquake (242,000 people died) destroyed the city of Tangshan, he was part of the provincial governmental team to oversee the rescue effort. After Mao Zedong (1893-1976) died, the Cultural Revolution ended, and Li returned to Beijing and became the director of the Party History Research Office at the National History Museum. In 1979, the Minister of the Propaganda Department of the CCP’s Central Committee, Hu Yaobang, appointed Li as the Deputy Director of Theory Bureau at the Propaganda Department. In 1984, he accepted the invitation by the Party Secretary of Fujian Province, Xiang Nan, to be the President of the Fujian Academy of Social Sciences. From the late 1970s to the early 1980s, Li Honglin wrote a series thought liberating articles that shook the nation. Li was extremely courageous and took great risks in writing these articles. His articles literally freed tens of thousands of prisoners whose “crime” was criticizing Mao or the CCP. Li played an instrumental role in China’s Thought Liberation Movement started in the late 1970s by breaking the many taboos set by the ultra-leftists during the Cultural Revolution and restoring common sense among the Chinese people.