Chairman Mao badge

Chairman Mao badge (Chinese: 毛主席像章; pinyin: Máo zhǔxí xiàngzhāng) is the name given to a type of pin badge displaying an image of Mao Zedong that was ubiquitous in the People's Republic of China during the active phase of the Cultural Revolution, from 1966 to 1971.

Badges depicting Mao Zedong first appeared at the Chinese People's Anti-Japanese Military and Political College (中国人民抗日军事政治大学) at Yan'an during the 1930s.

[1] By the 1940s badges showing Mao by himself or together with other important people were being produced in small numbers as commemorative medals or as awards for service to the Chinese Communist Party or to the army.

[5][6] Badges were primarily distributed to workers, students and soldiers by their work units, and they were not widely available for purchase at shops.

[9] However, the vast quantities of aluminium being used was having serious repercussions on Chinese industry, causing Mao to demand "Give me back the airplanes" (还我飞机), and in June 1969 the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party issued a document forbidding the production of any more Mao badges unless specially authorized.

The vast majority of designs have the same profile image of Mao, coloured gold or silver, always looking to the left.

The central image of Mao is usually set in a red background, which may be plain or patterned, with or without a border design, and with or without an inscription.

Inscriptions vary from a single character (most commonly 忠 zhōng meaning "loyalty") to quotations from Mao or lines of his poetry, or simply slogans such as "the Revolutionary Committee is good" (革命委员会好).

Thus each obverse design may have hundreds of different varieties with different reverse inscriptions, being produced in different parts of the country or to commemorate different events.