Learn from Comrade Lei Feng

With the growth of socialist construction, a fine social ethos of serving the people wholeheartedly and taking pleasure in helping others took shape, and many outstanding exemplars appeared, of whom Lei Feng was a leading example. Lei Feng (1940–1962), from Wangcheng, Hunan, was born into a poor peasant family and was orphaned at seven. He worked successively as a messenger, a tractor driver and a worker at Anshan Iron and Steel, and joined the People's Liberation Army in 1960 as a truck driver in a transport company of the Shenyang Military Region, joining the Communist Party the same year. Lei Feng loved the Party and the people, was diligent in his work and frugal in his life, and often helped comrades and civilians, doing countless good deeds; it was said that "on a thousand-li trip, he did a trainload of good deeds." He wrote in his diary: "A person's life is limited, but serving the people is limitless. I will devote my limited life to limitless service to the people." He promoted a "nail spirit" of squeezing out time for hard study, and was willing to be a "screw" of the revolution, loving whatever job he did. On 15 August 1962 Lei Feng died on duty while carrying out a task, at only 22. On 5 March 1963 the People's Daily and other papers published Mao Zedong's inscription "Learn from Comrade Lei Feng." A nationwide movement to learn from Lei Feng quickly arose, the Lei Feng spirit became a byword for serving the people wholeheartedly, and 5 March has since been "Learn from Lei Feng Day" each year. The Lei Feng spirit has influenced generation after generation of Chinese and is still carried forward. The Lei Feng Memorial Hall stands in Fushun, Liaoning.