Denounced by his family for anti-Mao activities during the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, he spent eight years in solitary confinement at the Qincheng Prison.

Li remained a party member until his death, respected but isolated; his views were formally denounced and he was censored in the Chinese press.

[7] He became the editor of domestic commentary for the Jiefang Daily (解放日报) in September 1941 and later the newspaper's head of the editorial bureau for areas under Communist control.

[8] Li co-founded another newspaper, Qingqidui (轻骑队), which satirised the Communist leadership, resulting in his imprisonment from 1943 to 1944 as a suspected spy during the rectification campaign.

[3] Although Li supported the use of hydropower over coal power, he warned that a large dam on the Yangtze would lead to cost overruns and organisational conundrums.

[3][8] Li maintained his grip on sanity by writing poetry in the margins of Communist books using iodine pilfered from the prison's medical facilities.

[11][12] In 1982, he was elected to the Central Committee for a five-year term, and in April of the same year he became vice director of the Organisation Department of the CCP, an influential role focused on the promotion, demotion, and recruitment of senior officials.

[14] In 1984 he was forced to resign from his role at the Organisation Department because, according to The New York Times, he refused to "give special preference to the offspring of senior officials".

[9][15] In 1989, Li personally witnessed the violent crackdown in the Muxidi [zh] neighborhood of Beijing during the Tiananmen Square protests, strengthening his opposition to the party's authoritarian wing.

Considered the "veteran liberal member" of the CCP, according to The Economist, Li argued for free speech, freedom of the press, and democracy within a socialist framework.

[6] Described as a thorn in the side of the Communist Party's autocratic leaders (his personal name, Rui 锐, means 'sharp' in Chinese), his views were secretly but officially denounced as subversive in 2013.

Li argued that constitutionalism and democratisation would lead the Communist Party away from political mishaps such as the Anti-Rightist Movement, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.

[24] In October 2010, Li was the lead signatory to an open letter to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, calling for greater press freedom.

[25] In 2017, he failed to attend the 19th Party Congress, which was seen as an act of defiance against General Secretary Xi Jinping's elevation above collective leadership.

In spite of his political views, he was allowed to keep his privileges as a senior CCP member, such as better medical treatment and his apartment in Minister's House, a building reserved for venerated party retirees.

[3][27] As an early and senior member of the Communist Party, Li was given a state funeral and buried at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery, despite his desire to be interred with his parents in Hunan, his home province.

[6] News of his death was limited by official censorship and, according to the South China Morning Post, his funeral was "conducted with secrecy and security".

[12] Despite the restrictions, the funeral attracted hundreds of mourners, ranging from ordinary Chinese citizens to those few still living among his old colleagues and fellow revolutionaries.

[11] Notwithstanding his fervent opposition to their policies, both of China's leaders, General Secretary Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang, sent wreaths.