Thought in Action

Norman Bethune spent less than two years in northern China, but during that time he worked feverishly. When he was not at the front, directly providing for the injured, he devoted much of his time and energy trying to transform peasant boys into medical assistants. He did not rest when things quieted down. At the very least, he would spend that time catching up on his correspondence, perhaps sitting in the sun outside his mud hut at one of the communist rear bases, where he was often seen typing furiously at his machine, drafting yet another dispatch to sympathetic friends and organizations overseas. In these letters, many of which never reached their destinations, he invariably asked for more funds, more medical supplies, more help. In Mao’s camps, almost everything was in short supply.

On the worst days, however, when the Japanese were on the offensive and it seemed the flow...