Last Soviet-era (before 1991) flag was adopted by the Russian SFSR in 1954. The constitution stipulated:
- The state flag of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic presents itself as a red rectangular sheet with a light-blue stripe at the pole extending all the width which constitutes one eighth length of the flag.
Between 1937 and the adoption of the flag to the right, the flag was red with the gold Cyrillic characters РСФСР (RSFSR) in the top-left corner, in a traditional viaz' style of ornamental Cyrillic calligraphy.
The flag of RSFSR is a defacement of the flag of the Soviet Union.
Like the flag of the Soviet Union, the hammer and sickle represents the working class and more specifically, the hammer represents the urban industrial workers and the sickle represents the rural and agricultural peasants. The red in the flag represents the Russian revolution and revolution in general.
Famous quotes containing the words flag, russian, soviet, socialist and/or republic:
“Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then,
Bowed with her fourscore years and ten;
Bravest of all in Frederick town,
She took up the flag the men hauled down;”
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)
“A medium Vodka dry Martini—with a slice of lemon peel. Shaken and not stirred, please. I would prefer Russian or Polish vodka.”
—Ian Fleming (1908–1964)
“So they lived. They didn’t sleep together, but they had children.”
—Russian saying popular in the Soviet period, trans. by Vladimir Ivanovich Shlyakov (1993)
“One is a socialist because one used to be one, no longer going to demonstrations, attending meetings, sending in one’s dues, in short, without paying.”
—Michel de Certeau (1925–1986)
“Who is this Renaissance? Where did he come from? Who gave him permission to cram the Republic with his execrable daubs?”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)