“Mao Badge Fever” struck China in the summer of 1966, when the Shanghai United Badge Factory produced a simple aluminum pin—a half inch in diameter, bearing the face of the Chairman.The Cultural Revolution was gathering, and the badges were a sensation. Within weeks, they were in production nationwide; men, women, and children were pinning them above their hearts as testaments to devotion, the more badges the better, spilling down their chests and across their arms.

counterrevolutionary direction.反革命的方向

The Cultural Revolution was Mao’s final play for power. After the catastrophe of the Great Leap Forward, his rivals had pushed him aside, so Mao unleashed China’s youth to “bombard the headquarters.”