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 of the, flag, russian, soviet, socialist and/or republic:
“Swift blazing flag of the regiment,
Eagle with crest of red and gold,
These men were born to drill and die.
Point for them the virtue of slaughter,
Make plain to them the excellence of killing
And a field where a thousand corpses lie.”
—Stephen Crane (1871–1900)
“Our flag is red, white and blue, but our nation is a rainbow—red, yellow, brown, black and white—and we’re all precious in God’s sight.”
—Jesse Jackson (b. 1941)
“From being a patriotic myth, the Russian people have become an awful reality.”
—Leon Trotsky (1879–1940)
“Today he plays jazz; tomorrow he betrays his country.”
—Stalinist slogan in the Soviet Union (1920s)
“I pass the test that says a man who isn’t a socialist at 20 has no heart, and a man who is a socialist at 40 has no head.”
—William Casey (1913–1987)
“While the Republic has already acquired a history world-wide, America is still unsettled and unexplored. Like the English in New Holland, we live only on the shores of a continent even yet, and hardly know where the rivers come from which float our navy.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)