Chapter 22 3. Xu Teli, Mr. Mao Zedong

When Xu Teli entered the Central Soviet Area, he was over 50 years old.He is medium to short in stature, grizzled, a little bald, with missing front teeth, wears a pair of old-fashioned glasses, and walks a little wobbly.When meeting Mao Zedong, Mao Zedong carefully looked at his teacher when he was young, and said heartily in a friendly Hunan accent: "Mr. Xu, we met again!" Xu Teli said humorously: "Run Zhi, Although my hair is gray, I am still a new soldier who joined the revolution not long ago, you should ask me to do more work for the revolution." At that time, it coincided with the victory of the first anti-"encirclement and suppression" campaign, and the Red Army captured many enemy officers and soldiers. Mao Zedong and Zhu De asked Xu Teli to take on the task of educating the prisoners.

This set up a new topic for Xu Teli, who has been engaged in education for many years and has rich experience.But he was not afraid of difficulties.In order to find out the situation of these captive soldiers so as to guide and educate them with the right medicine, Xu Teli came among the captive soldiers and investigated and questioned them one by one.He was kind, patient and meticulous, and quickly won the trust of the captives, who were willing to tell him anything.After a few days, Xu Teli found that most of these people were born in poverty. They fought for the Kuomintang either out of consideration for making a living, or out of forced helplessness. After being captured, some were angry, some were pessimistic, and their mood was quite low.

Xu Teli immediately called all the comrades who were in charge of guarding these captives and told them: "These captive soldiers were originally poor people, but they were deceived and fooled by the Kuomintang. Their education should not be simple and rude. They must adopt the methods of making friends, The way of heart-to-heart talks and democratic discussions is to be sincere and frank, to treat each other as equals, to enlighten and inspire them through our enthusiasm and sincerity, so that they can understand and trust the Communist Party.” Xu Teli's educational methods quickly achieved results.Many captive soldiers were originally taciturn and demoralized. After some gentle enlightenment and enlightenment, they took the initiative to talk to Xu Teli and the comrades guarding them, and confided their thoughts and understandings, but Xu Teli always smiled. Listen to it, never get bored.He seized every opportunity to inspire and enlighten bit by bit.

Later, most of these captives became "liberation fighters".When parting, these special students reluctantly bid farewell to Mr. Xu with tears in their eyes. After the victory of the third anti-"encirclement and suppression" campaign, the central revolutionary base area entered the stage of consolidation and development. One night in the early summer of 1931, Mao Zedong found Xu Teli, who had rich experience in running schools, and had an all-night in-depth discussion on how to develop education in the Soviet Area, and entrusted the important task of developing education in the Soviet Area to his respected teacher.Xu Teli gladly accepted this important task.In order to formulate educational measures that suit the reality of the Soviet area and meet the needs of the revolutionary war, Xu Teli worked tirelessly, went deep into Xingguo and Yudu, made detailed investigations, and studied carefully.He quickly grasped the cultural situation of the masses in the Soviet area: more than 90% of the peasants were illiterate, and almost all working women were illiterate.In response to this situation, Xu Teli believed that the development of education in the Soviet area must first carry out literacy campaigns.To this end, he personally drafted a plan for the literacy campaign, held a training class for more than 90 people in Xingguo, and trained a group of literacy backbones.He also often went deep into various districts and townships to guide and organize the establishment of literacy associations, literacy committees, and literacy groups to organize the peasant masses to learn culture, and stipulated that each person who could read 3,000 words would be considered to be out of illiteracy.Under Xu Teli's strong advocacy, a vigorous literacy campaign was launched in the Soviet District, and "the husband teaches the wife, the son teaches the father, the secretary teaches the chairman, the groom teaches the groom, the partner teaches the partner, and the literate teaches the illiterate". "The eradication of illiteracy won Mao Zedong's appreciation.

In November 1931, at the first National Congress of Workers, Peasants and Soldiers, Xu Teli was elected as a member of the Central Executive Committee of the Chinese Soviet Republic, and served as the Deputy Minister of the People's Commissar of Education of the Central Government, presiding over the work of the Ministry of Education of the Central Government. With years of experience in education work, Xu Teli believes that in an economically and culturally backward area like the Central Soviet Area, in order to popularize education for the people, it is first necessary to train a group of people's teachers.So he personally grasped the construction of the normal school in the Soviet area. In March 1932, Xu Teli held a teacher training class at Tianhou Palace in Ruijin.

All the teaching work of this teacher training class was undertaken by Xu Teli alone, all textbooks were written by him, all courses were taught by him, and all problems were handled by him alone.He shared joys and sorrows with his students, growing vegetables, cooking, ringing bells, sweeping the floor, and participating in boiling salt. Soon, this teacher class developed into the Lenin Normal School, which successively trained more than 600 teachers for the Soviet Area. After graduation, the students were assigned to various counties, districts, and townships to establish Lenin Primary Schools. It developed tenaciously and "created a miracle in the history of Chinese and foreign education".

Before Xu Teli came to the Soviet area, he was well-known in the education circle and was respected by people.When he arrived in the Soviet area, he was nearly sixty years old, but he still strictly demanded himself as an ordinary soldier, living a simple life and being honest and honest.At that time, every time a school was established, it was a lot of hard work and started from scratch.In order to solve the funds needed for running the school, he took the lead in saving food and clothing, and used his extremely meager food allowance to supplement the funds.I often eat cabbage, radishes, peppers, etc., and wear coarse clothes, just like ordinary people.But at work, he is conscientious and tireless in teaching.When he was the principal, some teachers often threw away half of the chalk, but he quietly picked it up and kept it for himself in class.In teaching, he taught by example, was patient and meticulous, and paid attention to the unity of theory and practice.The textbooks he compiled combine literacy culture with mastering revolutionary common sense, which are easy to understand and catchy.For example, Lenin’s elementary school Mandarin textbook is newly compiled: “In the world, people are the most intelligent. Creators, workers, peasants and soldiers. Men and women are all human beings. If there is injustice, everyone will cry...”

During the period of presiding over the education work in the Soviet area, Xu Teli advocated and insisted on seeking truth from facts everywhere.He asked the staff of the Ministry of Education to conduct investigations first to find out the situation before doing anything, and then formulate practical and effective work policies and methods.He often warned the staff around him: "If you don't investigate and study, don't pay attention to the situation, and don't mingle with the masses, you can't live. How many mountains, how many roads, how many families, which roads are easy to walk, which villages to live in, etc. We must investigate, otherwise there will be no way for the enemy to call."

He went deep into counties, districts, and townships to conduct investigations and studies, and gave face-to-face guidance, and never issued orders at will; for the work in remote mountainous areas, he communicated through letters, and expressed his opinions only after understanding the situation in detail. Xu Teli is such a revolutionary model who demonstrates by example and serves as a teacher.Xie Juezai once wrote a poem praising him as: "Confucius is not as high as Mo Zhai is." Xu Teli deserves to be the pioneer and founder of education in the Central Soviet Area, and an outstanding proletarian educator.

During the Long March of the Red Army, Xu Teli, at the age of 58, joined the cadre recuperation company of the General Health Department and accompanied the Long March.