Beijing Journal: A Maoist Hero's Ghost Tilts With Falun Gong

Ever since he was sainted by Mao himself in 1963 with the inspired call, "Learn From Comrade Lei Feng!" this selfless, wise and prematurely deceased soldier has been held up as a model to the Chinese people.

Now his sturdy ghost has proved its mettle once again, the Liberation Army Daily reported on Monday — this time in the battle to purge heresies of the banned Falun Gong spiritual sect from the minds of wayward citizens.

Lei Feng's unparalleled concern for his fellow man, documented in the amazing diary filled with purity and good deeds that was reported to have been discovered after his accidental death, has more than once been specially featured in a time of social uncertainty.

His steadfastness was loudly preached, for instance, after the army's killings of demonstrators around Tiananmen Square in June 1989. And a couple of years ago, he was resurrected to help the millions of newly laid-off workers to keep their upper lips stiff and chins high.

These days Mr. Lei's spirit has apparently met one of the most demanding challenges yet.

In the last year, the army newspaper said, about 500 "deeply poisoned" followers of the banned group were taken from their nearby "re- education through labor" camp to visit the Lei Feng Memorial Hall in the northeastern province of Liaoning. Guided by troops from Mr. Lei's former unit, those strayed citizens "increased the pace of their mental transformation and shortened the time it took to return to their families and society."

As every child has been taught for the last 38 years, Lei Feng was an orphan who was raised by his local Communist Party branch. He served nobly in the military until the fateful, rainy day in 1962 when a truck accidentally knocked a telephone pole onto his head, killing him.

From his astounding diary and comrades' testimonials, the propaganda mavens soon announced, Mr. Lei was clearly a Communist icon. He was so altruistic, a typical story held, that when a comrade was ill and needed transfusions, he donated no less than three liters — more than six pints — of his own blood, then spent the entire $7 fee he received on gifts for fellow soldiers.

Once Mao gave his endorsement, Mr. Lei became a fixture of party exhortations, surviving right through China's recent decades of dazzling economic and social change, even as the public became more worldly and Mr. Lei became a standing joke.

"This kind of propaganda may seem ridiculous," said Wu Guoguan, a political scientist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. "But praising Lei Feng remains a way to show loyalty."
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Any doubts about the party's steadfast core were dispelled in other pronouncements this week. A front-page editorial in People's Daily on Monday emphasized the absolute need to observe the "Four Cardinal Principles."

These guiding standards, propounded in 1979 by Deng Xiaoping, then China's top leader, are: adhere to the socialist road, adhere to the people's democratic dictatorship, adhere to the leadership of the Communist Party and adhere to Marxism- Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought.

Today, in yet another throwback to the Mao era, the Chinese people were regaled with President Jiang Zemin's "Random Thoughts on Climbing Mount Huang."
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Critics have not dared to liken his verbal prowess to that of Chairman Mao, whom many considered an accomplished poet. Nor has anyone yet drawn comparisons with the inspirational diary jottings of Lei Feng.

But the power of Mr. Lei's words were suggested by Monday's news account. A recent group of Falun Gong prisoners taken to the Lei Feng memorial, it said, spontaneously repeated and copied down inscriptions from the diary like: "If you are a drop of water, you have moistened an inch of soil; if you are a ray of light, you have brightened a foot of darkness."
The shaken believers were moved to ask, the paper reported, "Why would Lei Feng want to do so many good deeds?" To which their tour guide replied, "To make other people's lives happier!"
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