Hero in Shanghai

About the biggest thing that can happen to a worker in a Communist country is to be chosen a "labor hero." Last week brought an example of what this proud title meant to its bearers.

Yuan Kai-li was an ordinary laborer at Shanghai's Second Steel Mill until he was bitten by the Stakhanovite bug and started doing twice as much work as before. He was promptly elected Shanghai Model Worker. He was sent to a national congress of model workers, met Communist Boss Mao & Co., found himself a member of eight different committees.

After his twelve-hour stint in the steel works, Yuan was expected to sit in at meetings lasting from three to ten hours. Soon, to keep going, he was taking five injections of glucose a month. Said Yuan to a Communist reporter: "From last December until May, I slept only three hours a day, sometimes five hours, sometimes not a wink except a nap over the desk."

The output of his production team in the steel mill dropped to half of the average. His comrades scornfully called Yuan "model-attending-meetings-worker." Shanghai's Communist Liberation Daily announced Yuan's disgrace, declared that "the glory of the model worker has been tarnished" and advised trade unions and management "to make an immediate correction of this deviation."

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