Wikipedia:Today's featured article/June 17, 2023

Li Rui (1917–2019) was a politician, historian, and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) dissident. Joining the CCP in the 1930s, he became vice-minister of the Ministry of Water Resources by 1958. His vocal opposition to the proposed Three Gorges Dam brought him to the attention of Mao Zedong, Chairman of the CCP. Li impressed Mao, who made him his personal secretary for industrial affairs. However, Li defied Mao at the 1959 Lushan Conference, and was expelled from the party and sent to a prison camp, spending eight years in solitary confinement. After Mao's death in 1976, Li regained an influential position in the CCP, but was eventually forced to resign because he was unwilling to favor the children of powerful party members. In retirement, Li wrote extensively. He called for freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and democracy within a socialist framework, but was censored. Li remained a Communist Party member, respected but isolated, until his death at age 101 in 2019.