Holy smokes. Cultural Revolution alert: In 1966, the Shanghai United Badge Factory produced the first Mao badge—a half inch in diameter, bearing the face of the Chairman. By 1969, China was making so many, that they were diverting aluminum from industrial production. - ThreadSky

eosnos.bsky.social • 3 days ago

Holy smokes. Cultural Revolution alert: In 1966, the Shanghai United Badge Factory produced the first Mao badge—a half inch in diameter, bearing the face of the Chairman. By 1969, China was making so many, that they were diverting aluminum from industrial production.

Reposted from Brendan Nyhan

Cult of personality watch. These are not the habits of a democratic movement.

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eosnos.bsky.social•3 days ago

The Chairman was pictured facing forward or in profile, but never to the right, which was the counterrevolutionary direction. The inscriptions hailed the Chairman as the “Messiah of the Working People” and the “Great Savior” and the “Red Sun in Our Hearts.”

eosnos.bsky.social•3 days ago

Mao finally ended the craze by saying the metal had to be used to “make airplanes to protect the nation.” After he died in 1976, collectors and speculators accumulated badges as an investment. But they got swamped with counterfeits. Online, factories now sold them in bulk for cents apiece.

lauridonahue.bsky.social•3 days ago

Too bad they can't make them out of eggs... yet...

falllight.bsky.social•3 days ago

🤮

chinarhyming.bsky.social•3 days ago

Never forget, they are weird

cmbnugent.bsky.social•3 days ago

Has this been determined to be true beyond the original social media post? It may be, but it also seems too good/awful to be true.

eosnos.bsky.social•3 days ago

https://x.com/BrendanCarrFCC/status/1907939965251764294

cmbnugent.bsky.social•3 days ago

Thanks! This is so disturbing. It will be amusing/horrifying if we start to see these produced in large quantities.

chicagomike.bsky.social•3 days ago

lorenheinold.bsky.social•3 days ago

Little Orange Book coming next

bigalincal.bsky.social•3 days ago

"and the people bowed and prayed, to the [golden] God they made..."

stephen1958.bsky.social•3 days ago

From my travels I have some little Mao badges (fake, I’m sure, from HK) and some KGB badges from St Petersburg.
But I ain’t travelling to the USA to get the set.

chinaheritage.bsky.social•3 days ago

Evan: in 1969 Zhou Enlai estimated that 700 million copies of the Little Red Book and 22.2 billion Mao badges had been produced. Since so much aluminium had been used Mao quipped “Give me back my airforce!” 还我飞机。If only it had been tariff losses.

jessehixxx.bsky.social•3 days ago

Are these also made in China?

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