Chinese worker heroes: Between patriotism and nostalgia

Worker heroes remain one of the most obvious legacies of the Maoist period which inform the conceptualisation of work in contemporary China. Figures like PLA hero Lei Geng and oil-industry role-model 'Iron Man' Wang Jinxi remain prominent features of the official Communist propaganda landscape today. Often mocked in the Western press as glaring anachronisms, the contemporary role and standing of worker heroes are assessed in this paper from a modern cultural studies perspective. The continued treasuring of such figures from the Maoist golden age goes much further than merely an expression of socialist nostalgia, but remains essential to understanding especially the moral aspect of the industrial past onto which modern Chinese capitalism has been grafted.