What was the deal with all those ubiquitous plastic medals that the Soviets used to hand out to everyone and their grandmother?
How much more expensive would it have been to make them out of metal? That kind of penny-pinching sounds awfully extreme even for a place as economically corupt as the USSR. Heck, speaking of penny-pinching, you could stamp a pretty decent medal out of just the metal in a couple of US pennies!
Or is this just a story fabricated by American propagandists?
Sounds like it was how the Soviet petrochemical industry managed to boost their production.
I know the type of awards you mean, Ursa Major: big, gaudy things that looked like some kind of “Space Sheriff” badge.
The ones I’ve seen were, IIRC, aluminum, with an anodised gold- or silver- coloured plating.
About 1985, I recall meeting several veterans of the Canadian Merchant Navy who survived the awful convoys to Murmansk. They had received in the mail, suddenly and without notice, a Soviet medal for their service to Mother Russia. It was actually made of brass, but very poor quality casting; I have yet to see a vet with it up on his chest, along with the Canadian or British WWII service medals.
I recently picked up an Order of the Red Star from about 1970, and was very impressed with the quality. Star is sterling silver, with very nice deep red enamel. I know the Red Star is for armed forces (and KGB!), so perhaps the quality is a little better than for “mere” factory comrades? I haven’t had the serial # traced yet, but will soon.
I always think that the Russian military mucky-mucks look just plain goofy with what must be 30 or 40 medals on the left breast. Hey–maybe that’s why they’re made so light–I mean, you don’t want comrade Admiral walking around with a pronounced list (even if it is to the left!)
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When every scrap is supposedly being used to further glorify the Rodina’s triumph over the imperialist capitalistic pigs, a symbolic gesture like switching to a nonstrategic substance might be in order. The world’s industrialized nations weren’t too keen on shipping the Soviets high-quality steel and the like, as there was a common belief at the time that they might attempt to give that metal back in the form of tanks and artillery shells.
On a related note, I recall reading an excerpt from a book by Mao Zedong’s doctor about an enormous and futile campaign to have the Chinese peasants contribute to industry by melting down scrap metal in small furnaces. When Mao took a train ride to some outlying province, the commie authorities made sure that thosands of these little crap furnaces dotted the countryside all along his route.
I’ll let the materials specialists explain why you can’t make a battleship by melting down priceless ancient artifacts on the kitchen stove. I suppose it’s just one more example of why “communist dictatorship” is an oxymoron, with particular emphasis on the last two syllables.
Am hereby awarding you, comrade Ursa Major, the Order of Glory of Motherhood (1st class)
http://members.aol.com/sovietuk/mglory.htm ,
and the Medal for the Restoration of Coal Mining in the Donbas http://www.acadiacom.net/adimag/
Congratulations, comrade! Wear them with pride, and remember, any six awards can be traded for a pint of kerosene and pair of shoelaces at GUM.
Launcher may train without warning.
Apologies, comrade. Capitalist running dog URL problems. Those responsible have been shot and erased from all photographs.
http://www.acadiacom.net/adimag/reclaim.html
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Yeah, well, they weren’t all military stuffs, ya know. There were pins for tourist spots, sports, other thangs like that. Kinda like jacket patches except smaller. Coupla Russians I knew were collectors and they’d trade with each other.
Yo Rodd, you know where I might be able to pick up an Order of Lenin? Just curious 
All I wanna do is to thank you, even though I don’t know who you are…
Nyet problem. Just send this guy $545.00, and it’s all yours!
http://members.aol.com/elmiii/
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So, has anyone seen a plastic medal, as the OP suggests? It doesn’t seem that there are any.
As far as the reason for handing out these medals, I would guess that in a communist society, your devotion to the common cause would not be rewarded with money (which seems like a capitalist idea), but with a token of appreciation from the state recognizing your selfless contributions.
As far as Russian medals on army chests, do Russian officers wear more medals, or is it because the medals are bigger? When I see highly-ranked officers of one of the US uniformed services, it seems to me that I see a lot of medals on their chest.
I learned about this in an Eastern Civilizations class. Mao had so many people out smelting iron that noone was left to tend the farms. That years’s crops failed throughout China, and as many as 30 million people starved to death. And the steel that was produced was such crap that it was useless. Really a tragedy, and it shows you just how unrealistic Mao Zedong’s policies were.
Synonym: the word you use in place of a word you can’t spell.
One of the flaws of communism was the “personality cult” which also rears its ugly head in other dictatorships. The dictator is deified and his picture is plastered everywhere.
The Mao/steel story as I understand it was:
Chairman Mao was wandering through his palace pondering great matters. As always he had worshipful aides hanging on and noting down his every word. At one point he was concerned about modernization and industrial development in China and muttered “the people must make steel”. This simple statement was treated as divine wisdom (just like his “little red book” of quotations that is still a Marxist bible) and triggered a massive peasant movement all across China. Every village built little furnaces and all metal, pots and pans, carpentry and agricultural instruments and tools, metal bedframes, were all rushed to the furnaces and melted to “make steel”. Of course all that was produced was a useless slag and, as a direct result of the destruction of all tools at least thirty million people starved to death.
Russia also had these incidents. If Krushchev visited a collective farm and asked why there wasn’t any corn growing the entire farm would be converted to corn production even if the soil was not suitable. Once Krushchev commented on the clickity-clack of the Trans-Siberia rail cars - why aren’t the rail sections longer? - and the entire rail bed was subsequently replaced at great cost and absolutely no technical justification.
As for the little medals, they were almost never plastic. Production of metal goods was never a problem for the Soviets. Unlike China they had a huge metal infrastructure. Little metal pins and badges commemorating everything were distributed and are still available. I have a small collection myself.