Comrade Cui Yueli's Life
Comrade Cui Yueli — an outstanding member of the Communist Party of China, a loyal Communist fighter tested through long trial, a former member of the Central Advisory Commission of the CPC Central Committee, and former Minister of Health and Secretary of the Ministry's Party Leadership Group — died of illness in Beijing on January 22, 1998, at 10:35 a.m., at the age of 78.
Comrade Cui Yueli, originally named Zhang Guangyin (张广胤), was born in January 1920 into an ordinary peasant family in Shenxian (深县), Hebei province. He took up progressive ideas in his youth. He joined the revolution in June 1937 and the Communist Party of China in December of the same year. In 1938 he studied at the Resistance and Nation-Building Institute in Shenxian, Hebei, serving as branch secretary and instructor. In February 1939 he entered the Party School of the Central Committee's Sub-Bureau for the Jin-Cha-Ji Anti-Japanese Base Area, where he served as branch secretary of the school's office. In January 1943 he joined the Urban Work Committee of the Sub-Bureau, and in March of the same year was dispatched to carry out underground Party work in the Beiping–Tianjin region. During this period he served as member and secretary-general of the Beiping Student Work Committee and as secretary of its Working-Staff Committee, doing a great deal of work to win over General Fu Zuoyi (傅作义) for uprising and the peaceful liberation of Beiping. In the hard-fought years of revolutionary war, and especially under the White Terror of the Nationalist reactionaries, Comrade Cui Yueli held his ground — disregarding his own safety, unifying firm Party principles with flexible tactics against the enemy, making outstanding contributions to the liberation of the Chinese people.
From January 1949 onward, Comrade Cui Yueli served successively as secretary to Comrade Peng Zhen (彭真), deputy director of the Research Office of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee, director of the Committee's United Front Office, head of its United Front Department, member of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee, and secretary-general of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, while concurrently serving as deputy secretary-general of the All-China Committee for the Defense of World Peace. He was also a people's deputy of Beijing, a delegate to Beijing's Party Congress, and an alternate delegate to the Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China. At the end of 1958 he became head of the Health and Sports Department of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee. In September 1964 he was made deputy mayor of Beijing while continuing as head of the Health and Sports and United Front departments, concurrently serving as vice-chairman and secretary-general of the Beijing Municipal CPPCC and as a standing director of the Chinese People's Committee for the Defense of World Peace. In this period he did a great deal of work uniting Beijing's democratic parties and democratic personages from every sector, consolidating and developing the patriotic united front, and advancing the construction and development of Beijing.
During the Cultural Revolution, Comrade Cui Yueli was framed and persecuted by the Gang of Four.
He was suspended from work in July 1966 and imprisoned in 1967, suffering grievous injury to body and mind. Through eight years behind bars he held unshakably to his faith in the Party and in the people, waging resolute struggle against the retrograde acts of Lin Biao and the Gang of Four, and displaying the firm Party character and revolutionary integrity of a Communist.
In 1975, Comrade Cui Yueli became vice-chairman of the Beijing Municipal CPPCC. In June 1978 he was appointed vice-minister of Health, member of its Party Leadership Group, and head of its Discipline Inspection Group. In May 1981 he concurrently became deputy director and deputy Party-group secretary of the State Family Planning Commission, chairman of the All-China Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and vice-chairman of the China Committee for the Defense of Children. In April 1982 he became Minister of Health and secretary of the Ministry's Party Leadership Group, concurrently serving as president of the Red Cross Society of China and deputy director of the National Patriotic Health Campaign Committee. At the Twelfth National Congress of the Communist Party of China he was elected to the Central Committee. Comrade Cui Yueli studied Marxism–Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, and Deng Xiaoping Theory with diligence; resolutely carried out the line, principles, and policies of the Party from the Third Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee onward; valued investigation and research; upheld reform, opening, and vitalization in health work; and strove to open a new chapter in the nation's health undertakings — making outstanding contributions to the reform and development of China's health enterprise. He served as president and chairman of such bodies as the Chinese Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Pharmacology, the World Federation of Medical Qigong Societies, and the Chinese Association of Integrated Traditional and Western Medicine. He gave the highest attention to the traditional medicine of the motherland and devoted great effort to its inheritance, its development, and its advance into the world.
At the Thirteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China held in 1987, Comrade Cui Yueli was elected a member of the Central Advisory Commission. Though he had stepped back to the second line, he continued to care for the reform and development of the health enterprise; despite his advanced years, he often went deep to the grassroots for investigation and research — displaying the noble quality of a Communist who fights without cease so long as life endures.
Comrade Cui Yueli's life was a life of revolution, a life of struggle, a life of devotion to the cause of Communism. Across more than sixty years of revolutionary service, through every hardship and turn, he held unshakably to his faith in Communism and his boundless loyalty to Party and people; he served the people with his whole heart. He was open and upright, candid in temper, steadfast in principle, selfless and fearless. His work style was upright, swift, and willing to bear responsibility. He was diligent in study, grounded in practice, and valued investigation and research. For the lofty ideal of Communism, he gave his whole life — without reserve — to the cause of the Chinese people's liberation and the building of socialism. His revolutionary spirit, his noble character, his fine work style, and his selfless dedication will always be worthy of our study.