China's Communist leaders are taking another step away from their Marxist-Leninist roots by removing the word “Revolutionary” from the titles awarded to those who die an heroic death.

About 340,000 families across the country currently take pride in a relative who has been awarded the title of “Revolutionary Martyr”. That custom is set to change with the intent of better reflecting the new face of China.

A draft of the new rules, with the word “Revolutionary” removed, has been published for public comment for a week - a move that signals that the change is a foregone conclusion.

Under the new system those put forward for the title of “Martyr” will no longer have to be socialists, and anyone who has died as a publicly accepted hero could qualify for martyrdom. Currently a martyr is someone “killed by his enemy when carrying out revolutionary tasks”.

During the first few decades of the Communist Party, most revolutionary martyrs were soldiers who had died for the cause of revolution or in giving their lives for others.

The most famous is Lei Feng, who died in 1962 but is still a role model for every Chinese schoolchild and is immortalised in poems and posters as the humble and selfless party member who devoted his brief 22 years to good deeds.

As the party consolidated its position and the army spent most of its time in barracks, others have won the title. A revision of the rules in 1980 opened up the award to civil servants and members of the public, although the political criteria remained strict.

In posting the new draft the State Council said that it had taken into consideration China's changing social circumstances and economic development and had deemed that the conditions for being declared a martyr no longer reflected these changes.

The draft says that families will receive a one-off payment equivalent to 15 times the current national average annual salary. That would be about 240,000 yuan (£16,500) at this year's rates. The family would receive a full pension based on the martyr's income. For those without a stable income the Government would pay the equivalent of 40 times the monthly salary of an army lieutenant.

Families of martyrs would also have special rights to join the military or the Civil Service, free education, lower university entry requirements and tax breaks for businesses. These benefits would not cover the families of those already declared martyrs.

Courage and loss

Huang Jiguang: Soldier killed in Korean War when he ran out of bullets and used his body as a shield to allow comrades to escape

Wang Wei: Died in 2001 when his fighter jet collided with a US spy plane over the South China Sea

Zhang Yumei: Car worker who drowned trying to rescue a little girl from a roadside pond in 1993

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