The red campaigns on the mainland may have quieted since the political downfall of the movement's champion, former Chongqing party boss Bo Xilai , but collectors' enthusiasm for Cultural Revolution relics appears to be going strong.
The latest evidence is a rare communist-themed stamp from 1968 that sold at auction last week in Beijing for a record-breaking 7.3 million yuan (HK$8.9 million) - more than double its HK$3.7 million auction price less than three years ago.
The unissued, large-sized 'The Whole Country Is Red' stamp was sold by China Guardian Auctions after more than 20 rounds of bidding at its spring auction on Monday, becoming the single biggest stamp sale ever at a Chinese auction. The final price: 7,302,500 yuan.
That is a far cry from the face value of eight fen that it was given when printed at the height of Mao Zedong's infamous campaign to enforce ideological purity across the mainland. The stamp's sale accounted for more than a third of the entire auction.
Mao's government issued the stamp - measuring 6cm by 4cm - to celebrate the revolution's 'complete victory', even though the movement would continue until the chairman's death in 1976.
It remains one of the most well-known rare stamps issued by the government and only eight are believed to have been preserved. The image features a map of China, painted red to show the 'revolutionary committees' that were then set up all over the mainland. Notably, the whole map is red, except Taiwan, which, like today, was run by the Kuomintang.