A LIFE OF SERVICE AND DISCIPLINE
The late army officer Zhou Zhifu survived the horrors of war to become a model Party member. Xing Wen reports.
Zhou Zhifu, the late army officer, set an example by staying loyal to the Party his entire life, and by exercising strict self-discipline and retaining his philosophy of hard work and plain living from the arduous wartime era to the current times of peace and plenty.
Before his retirement in 1982, Zhou was a deputy political commissar at a military hospital for the Second Artillery Corps. He died on March 28 in Beijing’s Haidian district.
The sanatorium, a gray building extending to 18 floors, accommodates many retired cadres from the Chinese army and their families.
In one of the rooms of his apartment, a large poster still hangs on the wall, which reads “Happy birthday old cadre Zhou Zhifu”.
The poster contained snapshots of staff members from the sanatorium joining Zhou to celebrate his 90th birthday on Dec 28, 2014.
“My father was loathed to throw away the poster, which is too big to be stored,” says his second daughter, Zhou Weiping. “He cherished each honor the Party gave him, no matter how big or small.”
The rows of medals that once adorned his uniform were placed in red boxes after his death.
“For him, these medals stand for the glory he won at the risk of his and his comrades’ lives. That’s why he cherished them so much,” says Zhou Zhifu’s 96-year-old wife Lou Shuzhen.
Lifelong passion
He joined the Party in 1943 and became a soldier the year after, where he fought in around a dozen battles during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45) and the War of Liberation (1946-49).
During one battle in 1946, Zhou had a narrow escape. A bullet pierced his right lung and then hit a fellow soldier next to him. Zhou survived after two-thirds of his right lung and a rib bone were removed during surgery, but his comrade died from his own wounds.
“He said he felt sorry for his comrade and grateful to the Party and the other soldiers who rescued him from danger,” says Zhou Weiping, adding that her father’s satisfaction with life and sense of loyalty to the Party partly stemmed from this experience, which remained etched in his memory as much as the jagged scar below his left shoulder.
In Zhou Zhifu’s later life, he suffered from osteoporosis, coronary heart disease, hearing impairment and other illnesses. Despite this, he insisted on studying Communist Party theory and continued to read newspapers with the help of a reading glass, and often took notes.
Even when he was bedridden during the last two years of his life, he asked his daughters to read the news to him to keep abreast of Chinese current affairs.
“After surviving the war years, he always kept in mind that he wanted to repay the Party and the country for bringing him a happy and abundant life,” says Zhou Weiping.
In January, knowing that he had one foot in the grave and would be no longer able to contribute to the Party and the country after his death, Zhou handed over a sum of money that was enough to cover a hundred years of Party membership dues based on the current rates.
Frugal way of living
However, he was not that generous to himself, which was easy to see by the antiquated furniture in his apartment, among which the color TV set was the only presentable item.
Zhou Weiping says the TV set was a gift he reluctantly accepted.
“His old TV set had a small screen which was too old to be of use. However, he thought it would be too lavish to buy a new one, so I told him on purpose that I was going to buy a new TV for myself and throw away my old one. Of course he would never agree to me throwing out the old set, so he kept it instead,” says Zhou Weiping. “I knew him so much.”
According to the notebook where he used to keep his accounts, the elderly couple lived off just a few hundred yuan every month despite his generous salary and pension.
“My grandfather didn’t care much about his material wellbeing, he was content with his lot,” says Zhou Xun, Zhou Weiping’s son.
“When I was a little boy, he would get mad at me if I dared to waste food,” Zhou Xun recalls. “One day, after I asked for an extra limed egg but couldn’t finish it all, my grandfather scolded me and told me about the hardships of the past.
“Then he shared the rest of the egg with me.”
Passing down the spirit
Except for Zhou Weiping and another daughter, the rest of his five children work far away from Beijing.
“He was so busy in dealing with his job. We never expected him to use his power or contacts to find a job for us in Beijing,” says Zhou Xuewen, Zhou Zhifu’s eldest daughter who has been working in Chongqing since the age of 19.
“He often reminded me that I was on my own, so I would grow increasingly independent, principled and strong,” she says.
He refused to profit from the free medical services he enjoyed, strictly separating his medicine from his wife’s.
Zhou Weiping says she once couldn’t understand why her father was so stubborn about not taking advantage of his position. However, now she realizes that her father had a clear conscience after maintaining so much self-discipline throughout his life.
“The precious thing he passed on to us is his spirit, which has always spurred us on,” Zhou Weiping says of her siblings.
He (Zhou Zhifu) always kept in mind that he wanted to repay the Party and the country ...”
Zhou Weiping,