You know what’s hilarious? According to the book “The Cultural Revolution: A People’s History 1962-1976”, During the height of the Chinese cultural revolution, it became the fashion to wear pins that featured Mao in profile. In fact, if you didn’t have one of these, you were seen as a pretender; someone who didn’t take the revolution seriously. The problem is, these pins were made of aluminum. Due to the popularity of these pins, China was temporarily denuded of available aluminum. Workers were stripping aluminum shielding off of their machines to make these pins, and there was a thriving black market where people could buy them. So basically, to show off how good they were at communism, they went to the most capitalist of places (the black market) to buy these things. Mao even, at one point, decried the industry, lamenting the lack of available aluminum to make airframes for fighter jets.
But that’s the thing - as important as the struggle was to the people in the revolution, it paled in comparison to the need to prove to everybody else that you supported the struggle. If you didn’t have one of those pins, you might as well just sign up to be part of the next struggle session.
You know what’s hilarious? According to the book “The Cultural Revolution: A People’s History 1962-1976”, During the height of the Chinese cultural revolution, it became the fashion to wear pins that featured Mao in profile. In fact, if you didn’t have one of these, you were seen as a pretender; someone who didn’t take the revolution seriously. The problem is, these pins were made of aluminum. Due to the popularity of these pins, China was temporarily denuded of available aluminum. Workers were stripping aluminum shielding off of their machines to make these pins, and there was a thriving black market where people could buy them. So basically, to show off how good they were at communism, they went to the most capitalist of places (the black market) to buy these things. Mao even, at one point, decried the industry, lamenting the lack of available aluminum to make airframes for fighter jets.
But that’s the thing - as important as the struggle was to the people in the revolution, it paled in comparison to the need to prove to everybody else that you supported the struggle. If you didn’t have one of those pins, you might as well just sign up to be part of the next struggle session.