"Comrade Bethune's unselfish spirit, expresses his extreme feeling of responsibility towards his work and his extreme warmheartedness towards all comrades and the people. Every Communist Party member must learn from him" Mao, In Memory of Norman Bethune. (Poster, People's Republic of China, 1968).
Norman Bethune, member of the Communist Party of Canada, died in China, November 12, 1939.
"In order to help the Chinese people in their War of Resistance Against Japan, he came to China at the head of a medical team and arrived in Yenan in the spring of 1938. Soon after he went to the Shansi-Chahar-Hopei border area. Imbued with ardent internationalism and the great communist spirit, he served the army and the people of the Liberated Areas for nearly two years. He contracted blood poisoning while operating on wounded soldiers and died in Tanghsien, Hopei, on November 12, 1939." - Notation from Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung
Bethune, born in Gravenhurst, Ontario in 1890 also served heroically as a doctor for the Republican forces during the Spanish Civil War. He is regarded in China as one of the great heroes of the Chinese revolution.