# 全世界无产者、联合起來！



## cmonsour

I have a T-shirt with some writing in characters that look Chinese to me.  I have no experience with Chinese orthography (I study Romance languages), so please accept my apology for being unable to transcribe the characters directly.  Here, however, is an image of the shirt.  If anyone could let me know (1) whether I'm right that it's Chinese, and if so, (2) what it means, I'd be very grateful.  Thanks for your help.


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## Flaminius

It is Chinese as you thought.

It reads:
世界无产者、联合起來！
打倒美帝！　打倒苏修！！

Proletariat of the world, unite!
Down with the American Empire!  Down with Soviet(?)!!

I am not entirely sure what 苏修 means but I think it is a politically-laden name for Soviet Union (蘇联) as 美帝 is for 美国 (America).


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## cmonsour

Thanks for the help!


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## Dalian

Flaminius said:


> It is Chinese as you thought.
> 
> It reads:
> 世界无产者、联合起來！
> 打倒美帝！　打倒苏修！！
> 
> Proletariat of the world, unite!
> Down with the American Empire! Down with Soviet(?)!!
> 
> I am not entirely sure what 苏修 means but I think it is a politically-laden name for Soviet Union (蘇联) as 美帝 is for 美国 (America).


苏修 refers to Soviet Revisionism, which, during China's Cultural Revolution, was considered as the negation of the basic principles of Marxism.
They are old political slogans.


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## kkmp

My 2 cents:

This is a typical poster around Culture Revolution era (1966-1976).

1. The three guys on the picture representing people from Asia, Africa and Latin-America. United, they (the 3rd world) are to fight against US and USSR (the 1st world), according to Chairman Mao's 3-world theory.

2. The book held on their left hands and upon their hearts should be titled "毛泽东选集“(Red Book）rather than "formula" which is not Chinese at all. This seems to be the only mistake on the picture.


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## Anatoli

My 2 cents - Flaminius missed one character - 全 
So it's *全*世界无产者、联合起來！-  Proletariat of the *whole* world, unite!


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## cmonsour

Thanks, everyone!


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## LikeBarleyBending

There are still two characters 造反（rebellion). I think even the younger generation in China who were born after the Cultural Revolution cannot exactly understand this picture. That's a symbol of Chairman Mao's time.

I am really curious where Cmonsour got this T-shirt.


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## cmonsour

I picked it up in a used-clothing boutique here in Chicago.  The tag shows that it was made by Formula Werks, a company that makes arty, hip apparel (and indeed, I didn't notice this before but the shirt is on their website, on p.2 of the "T-Shirts" section).  So it looks like pretty typical hipster semi-ironic appropriation of Communist iconography.

Also, the company's name explains the word "Formula" within the image.


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## samanthalee

Hi Cmonsour, just a word of caution. Communism may seem rather far away and is a safe material to play around with in America, but there are places where it is still too close, brings back too much bad memories and is too painful to be touched on.

Considering that Cameron Diaz managed to offend Peru with a slingbag emblazoned with Maoist slogan recently, do be careful with the time and place you wear that T-shirt.


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## cmonsour

Samantha,
Thanks for the advice.  That is something I'm sensitive to and part of the reason I wanted to know what the shirt said.  This isn't the place to discuss political ideology, but suffice it to say I'm aware that many people have good reason not to be as amused by Maoist iconography as American twenty-something hipsters.

Best
Chris


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## Anatoli

Here's the unasked for transliteration of the phrases:

Quán shìjiè wúchǎnzhě, liánhé qǐlai!
Dǎdǎo Měidì! Dǎdǎo Sūxiū!


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## Aoyama

> My 2 cents - Flaminius missed one character - 全
> So it's *全*世界无产者、联合起來！- Proletariat of the *whole* world, unite!


Not quite, because Flam did nothing more than copy what the thread cited.
This being said, it is true that Marx's original phrase was what you wrote, but the Chinese version was not always so faithful. Two versions coexist, one without *全*　.


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## cmonsour

Actually, just to clarify, the thread's title was originally (and at the time of Flaminius's comment) just "shirt - possibly chinese?" or something like that.  Someone edited it to add the Chinese characters, probably on the basis on his excerpt.  Anyway, the *全 *character is definitely there on the image I posted.


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## Flaminius

I plead guilty, everyone, of missing 全 out of total ignorance and negligence. 

*cmonsour*, please be advised that we at WR forums use thread titles as  "leads" to thread topics.  When you open a thread, put an informative title that summarises your question.  You can explain your question in details in the main body of your post.  In case you have difficulty typing your question, moderators are eager to change the title for you.


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## cmonsour

Flaminius: thanks, I know that -- I didn't mean to (but I see that I did) sound like I was anything but grateful for changing the thread title to the Chinese expression at issue!


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## Anatoli

Me too - I didn't mean any harm I just noted the missing character  I knew there was a version without it (not that I know much about Chinese LOL)


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