Warm Congratulations on the Reissue of *Yueli*
A Communist Party in the people's heart — an unforgettable good Minister
A self-account that brings tears — a remembrance that moves to the bone
Plain unvarnished language — a figure of flesh and blood
The story of the name Cui Yueli
On the night-darkened plain of central Hebei, he slipped through the Japanese-puppet blockade. By moonlight he ran like the wind. He could not remember the rough road, the passing of time — what was etched deep was only the farmer plowing his ox by the moon. When he reached the liberated-area Party school, he filled in his new name: Cui Yueli — "Cui Moon-Plow." From that day his whole life was bound to laborious toil. Mao Zedong once said to him in jest: "Your name is hard work indeed!" On the great earth that is mother to the people, he was an ox running without need of the whip, plowing with his own blood furrows fragrant with soil — ploughing, ploughing, until his last breath.
**Preface to Yueli (excerpts).** "Stand without shame before Heaven and Earth; in aim never forget the people." — this was Cui Yueli's most-loved couplet, his motto, the portrait of his life. For the people was the starting point and highest standard of all his action. His love for the Party's cause, his faith in Marxism-Leninism, his feeling for his country and people — all flowed from his deep feeling for the masses. No one knows how much good he did for the people in this life, how many he helped, how much heart-blood he gave.
He often said "Without self, no fear." Fearlessness is not only bravery under the white terror of blood and rain — it is, in peaceful times, daring to take responsibility, to speak frankly, to widen democracy, to fight degeneracy and corruption. He most hated flatterers and bribe-takers; most disliked autocratic, reality-detached bureaucrats; most disliked the dithering, the shifting; most despised the safety-seekers, the numb, the cold. With strong responsibility he protected the people's and Party's interests; with full feeling he cared for the masses' hardships. Power, for him, was not privilege nor enjoyment, but the chance to do more good for the people; illness was not retreat or gloom, but a reason to seize the day. His heart was warm, warming all around him; his mind broad, never afraid of being beaten, being labeled; his will firm — from the day he stepped onto the revolutionary road, never wavering.
Anyone carries the limits of his time; so did Cui Yueli. What set him apart was that he held the people's cause as his own all his life, gave all his energy, wisdom, and life for the people. Hence in turbulent winds he kept clarity; in cruel persecution he kept honor; in high office he found ways to serve. Far from court, yet anxious for the people; high at court, yet only for the people. Honor or shame, the root unchanged; through wind and waves, stepping calm.
Cui Yueli's deeds move and provoke thought. Gathering material we were often moved to tears; the work purified souls and lifted spirits. The east wind hastens the dawning moon; the great earth waits for the spring plow. This collection, we believe, can move readers, teach and inspire successors to give themselves to the building of our country, to the people's cause that Cui Yueli pursued for life.
Stories of Cui Yueli
In spring 1944, having worked underground in Beiping nearly two years, I bicycled to Peking Union Medical College to pick up Party propaganda materials. Coming out, I tucked them in the inner pocket of the visit-bag and slung it from the bicycle bar. As I rode out the west end of Ganmian Hutong, from Dongsi came a streamlined Japanese military car with an officer inside. I squeezed the brake, the brake broke, my bike shot to the road's middle; the army car braked, the hood swung 180°. Disaster. As I was about to apologize, a pedicab-driver beside me shouted: "Run! Don't risk your life!" I pumped pedals toward the east of Jinyu Hutong; the car turned and chased; the officer drew his sword, leaned out the window, slashed at me — but the driver could not match the timing, and the strokes missed, though one came within an inch of taking my head. At the middle of Jinyu Hutong, where a lane south led to Union Medical, I dropped the bicycle and ran in alone. Cars don't take corners as nimbly as people; I shook them off. I turned again into a north lane and ducked into a big temple. A monk was there; hearing the Japanese were chasing me, he hurried me behind the great Buddha. I crouched 20 minutes, heard nothing more, came out, told the monk; he went out to check and returned: the Japanese had gone, the bicycle was at the police station. I was only twenty-four, brash with youth. The bag of propaganda is still on the bicycle — go! I went to the station. There was the bicycle. A police chief came out: "I ran into the Japanese; the abandoned bike is mine." He shouted: "Yours?! You're done for; how dare you cross the Japanese?…" I said "I'll be careful, I'll be careful." — "Come in!" My heart sank — has he seen it? In he led me. The bag was on the table; nothing else around. "That bag is mine." I took it, opened it: "See, I'm a doctor." — drew out stethoscope, syringe, drugs. "Want to see more?" — "No need, go." So the propaganda had not been found. I took bicycle and bag and rode away. You tell me — wasn't that close?
Comrade Cui Yueli's wife Xu Shulin, his fellow underground worker in Beiping-Tianjin, writes: "Yueli, under the enemy's cruel white terror, dissolved himself into the masses like fish in water. Wherever he went, whoever's house, he quickly became friend to old and young — like family. Everyone liked him, welcomed him, wanted to talk with him, hear about the situation, hear about policy. The enemy's grotesque image of the Communist — green face, red whiskers, gnashing fangs — vanished, replaced by a handsome, refined, kindly young man; the great cause of resisting Japan turned into stories of home, into chats. White-haired elders treated him as a nephew; peddlers and porters, as brother; students, as confidant; small children, as the big friend. He was skilled at united-front work: scholars and professors found him steady and trustworthy, high officials and merchants respected him and took him as honored guest. In the white-terror enemy-occupied areas he was at home everywhere, never worried about food or lodging; he knew the situation, the news. He gave his red heart to the Party and the masses; the masses, in turn, risking their lives, sheltered and helped him. Whether Beiping could be peacefully liberated bore on the lives of countless people — and his love for the people gave him the courage and wisdom to risk it, the strength and confidence to turn enemy into friend, making him a true peace envoy."
Cui Yueli in the storm of the Cultural Revolution
At the time Kang Sheng reported to the Center proposing: Liu Ren, Xu Zirong, Feng Jiping, Cui Yueli — these four counter-revolutionaries betrayed Party and state core secrets; they deserve death; cuff them, push hard at interrogation, force surrender.
I was arrested on the Lunar New Year's Eve, early 1968. They wanted to make Liu Ren a big spy, Wang Guangmei a spy, and link them to Liu Shaoqi — saying Liu Shaoqi had spy ties. For Liu Ren they interrogated me four or five rounds, each round three days and three nights; for Wang Guangmei, seven or eight rounds, each three days and three nights. After roughly three months of intense interrogation, my eyes were beaten shut — to walk I had to pull them open with my fingers; my face stayed swollen four or five months; my lungs ached as I breathed. In prison I wrote a doggerel:
Three meals a day, corn buns;
good time poured into the east-flowing river.
Chains lock the body — real suffering;
loneliness unbearable, no end in sight.
Interrogations beyond count,
beating and forced confession draw blood.
Death and pain I do not fear —
What life prizes most is freedom.
A hero does not shed tears;
a high mountain stands and does not bow.
Year after year, month after month, an endless waiting — would my family know where I was gone? At first I thought it would be a month or two; half a year, a year, two — could I still not get out in three? Finally I made up my mind. In The Red Lantern Li Yuhe says "I will sit through to the bottom of the prison." This life I will not get out — only by thinking so could I settle.
Until spring 1973 they sent me to Hospital No. 6 for treatment. The president there, Cao Weili, did his best to look me up, hinting that I should care for my health and get out sooner. A few days later, suddenly back to the prison; my spirit was deeply shaken — only later did I learn this was the doings of the Gang of Four's faction; the prison mood was again tight. That afternoon around five, sunset, the sky bleak, deepening my sadness. Back in the room my head felt light; voices came from the sky — Mao, Premier Zhou, Mother, voices of old acquaintances — unclear, talking day and night; I talked back. I had a nervous breakdown, agitated, could not stand, terrified at night by phantom voices. Long imprisonment had built that terror. Food they gave I kicked away. I wanted out — so badly that I hallucinated Premier Zhou trying to save me, saying the prison walls were too thick, even a tank could not break through. Locked alone, thinking and thinking, I could not work it out, and finally went mad. They called Anding Hospital doctors. The drugs made my limbs paralyzed; I had to crawl to wash; could not wring a towel. Overdose injured my cerebellar motor function — that has not been fully recovered to this day. Half a year on I could walk; outside for air, I could not get out for half a day; my head was heavy as stone; no cane to lean on, I could only inch along. From anxiety, both eyes suddenly went blind. I felt then the keenest pain — even labor reform outside seemed impossible. Then I knew why one says protect the precious as one's own eyes. Without eyes the suffering is great.
Cui Yueli on TCM
We must see that the world changes greatly and quickly; our view must keep up; our thinking must look far; our work must seek truth. To free thought, do not be stiff. Toward self or other, take the good, drop the bad — that is the Marxist seeking-truth-from-facts spirit.
TCM should walk its own road of development; TCM institutions should highlight TCM character. If the various ways of weakening TCM are not changed, or if under fine-sounding slogans TCM is quickly Westernized, then we repeat the tragedy of Japan's Meiji-era abolition of Kampo. Then we — your generation and mine — will be criminals of history.
TCM's troubles concentrate as two Westernizations — academically, not respecting TCM's own laws; using Western views and methods to remake TCM (one); in management of clinical care, teaching, research, copying Western practice without digesting it (two). To turn back the Westernization tendency thoroughly is likely a complex process — needing effort, and sacrifice. TCM in the past hundred years has paid much: lost time, lost people, lost material. If we can reduce that loss, take a personal hit — what is it?
A TCM hospital must do TCM, must highlight TCM character, must build TCM specialties — not hang Mei Lanfang's sign and sing Zhu Fengbo's tune. What did the people come to a TCM hospital for? They came to see TCM. If your TCM character is thin, do you face the people?
Develop TCM education in many forms, channels, levels. A very important method is to continue apprenticeship. This historical system persists not only for fitting its time's productive forces and society but also because TCM is strongly practical — especially some specialties, with single-trick masters; experience and technique of different schools fit best mouth-to-mouth and heart-to-heart transmission. Apprenticeship has its own role in preserving and developing TCM character. It is not a temporary or emergency measure — it deserves long planning. If we negate apprenticeship and leave only a few old masters with a few apprentices — all going the Western way, no traditional teaching method — TCM's higher talents cannot come out.
A tender remembrance
Today, Revive TCM and preserve and develop TCM character — these two strong slogans are tightly tied to the name Cui Yueli. He held: TCM should walk its own road of development; TCM institutions should highlight TCM character. On integration of Chinese and Western, he often said: "I support integration; I do not support Westernizing TCM." He cared much for TCM modernization; he also stressed: explaining and remaking TCM by Western methods is not TCM modernization.
He once said to me: China's two greatest gifts to humanity are Chinese cuisine and Chinese medicine. He loved TCM with all his heart, understood it more deeply than most. He held TCM as China's history and culture — and history and culture, once lost, cannot be remade.
When not traveling, Minister Cui would surely bring his lunch box to us at lunch. He laughed and joked; he never seemed tired. Sometimes he brought dumplings from home and shared them, one for you, one for me — his own box ended near empty. Our youthful little band was full of life, close as family; Minister Cui was the kind father of our family. He was a man of flesh and blood; he prized the practical; he respected human worth. He valued knowledge, esteemed talent — and was himself widely read, broadly knowledgeable, brilliant. So like a magnet he held us tightly around him.
A man unhiding his joys and sorrows, plain on his face; a man with a sharp tongue and a heart not held back; a man of frank temper; a man cheerful and forward-looking — that is a comrade worth giving one's whole heart to. He and I were such friends, our hearts speaking to each other for decades.
Cui Yueli was very time-conscious — meetings, travel, work, on the dot. Brisk, never tolerant of laziness. He most disliked irresponsible, buck-passing leadership cadres and criticized them without sparing face. Behind the scenes some grumbled at him; he did not mind — if the work was good, he promoted them; sometimes he pushed against the crowd to use someone. To this day people ask me: you were the Minister's secretary, why didn't you build any connections? I answer: because I was Minister Cui's secretary. He spent his life thinking of others, rarely of himself. The growth of even me, a junior secretary, was on his mind. What he prized was not whether I took care of his daily affairs, but whether a young man got quickly into his work and became useful to the country. He hoped his staff put their minds on investigation, knowledge, and capacity-building — not on errands; not on visiting, gossip, networking.
A person's life is short, and may also be everlasting. When his life flows into a great cause, his life lives with the cause. On life's great stage some shine briefly but fail history's test; some bear the long view, and the further away they go, the more visible they become. Whatever befalls TCM at home and abroad, in any setback, anyone will think of Cui Yueli's name. That is immortality.
About Cui Yueli
Cui Yueli (1920–1998), original name Zhang Guangyin, joined the revolution in 1937. From 1943 onward he did much work in Beiping-Tianjin underground struggle and in winning Beiping's peaceful liberation. After liberation he held leadership posts in Beijing. During the Cultural Revolution he was persecuted by the Gang of Four and imprisoned for 8 years. From 1976 he served as Deputy Minister and then Minister of Health, giving heart and breath to the recovery and development of TCM — working until his last breath.