[1] Among the controversial contents of the book were that the Red Army had committed atrocities during the Siege of Changchun, that senior Party leader Wang Zhen had smuggled opium during the Chinese Civil War, and that the "official" Chinese account of the Lin Biao incident was inaccurate.
[2] Because of its controversial content, the book and its author were attacked by conservative politicians inside China, notably Yang Shangkun and Wang Zhen.
Yang, who was then President of the People's Republic of China, claimed that the book "insulted the Communist Party".
[2] Information about the contents of the book in the West is derived from a copy obtained by the Associated Press in Hong Kong in 1990.
[1] The book was reprinted in Hong Kong in 1991 as Xuě bái xiě hóng: Guó Gòng Dōngběi dà juézhàn lìshǐ zhēnxiàng (雪白血紅: 國共東北大決戰歷史眞相 White snow red blood: A true history of the KMT-CPC battle for the Northeast) by Tiandi Press.