Lei Feng, formerly known as Lei Zhengxing, was born in 1940 in Wangcheng County, Hunan Province, into a poor farming family. His father was a self-defense force leader in the Hunan peasant movement before being beaten to death by the Kuomintang and Japanese invaders. His mother, Zhang Yuanshou, hung herself from a beam on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival in 1947 after being abused by landlords.

Lei Feng became an orphan when he was less than seven years old and was adopted by his kindly sixth uncle and grandmother. When Lei Feng went up the nearby Snake Mountain to cut firewood at an early age, he was slashed three times on the back of his left hand with a knife by a landlord's wife. When Hunan was liberated in August 1949, Lei Feng approached a passing PLA company commander and asked to become a soldier. The company commander did not agree, but gave him a fountain pen.

In 1950, Lei Feng became a children's regiment leader and actively participated in land reform.

In the summer of the same year, the township government sent him to study for free, and later joined the Young Pioneers.

In the summer of 1956, he graduated from elementary school and worked as a correspondent for the township government, and was soon transferred to the Wangcheng County Party Committee as a civil servant, and was recognized as an exemplary worker in the organization, and joined the **** Youth League in 1957.