Flag of The Soviet Union - Symbolism and Design

Symbolism and Design

The color red has always been a positive symbol in the Russian culture. The word red (Russian: красный, krasny) is etymologically related with the Russian word for beautiful. This can also be seen in Moscow’s Red Square and the Russian Orthodox festivity, Red Easter.

The red field symbolises the blood that has been spilled by workers and farmers in their struggle for emancipation. It honours the red flag of the Paris Commune of 1871. The ideology of communism can be seen from the flag. The red star and hammer and sickle are themselves symbols of communism and socialism. The flag of the Soviet Union consisted of a plain red flag with a gold hammer crossed with a gold sickle which are placed beneath of a gold-bordered red star. This symbol is then placed in the upper left canton of the red flag.

The hammer symbolises urban industrial workers while the sickle symbolises agricultural workers (peasants)—who together, as the Proletarian class, form the state. The red star represents the Communist Party, and its position over hammer and sickle symbolises its leading role in socialist society to unify and enlighten the workers and peasants in the building of communism. The back side of the flag is officially just red, without the symbols. However, in practice, the flag was usually made through and through and thus the symbols usually appeared on the reverse side and in the reverse order.

The flag's design was statuted in 1955, which gave a clear way to define and create the flag. This resulted in a change of the hammer's handle length and the shape of the sickle. The adopted statute stated that:

1. The ratio of width to length of the flag is 1:2.
2. Hammer and sickle are in a square with sides equal to ¼ of the flag height. Sharp tip of the sickle lies in the center of the upper side of the square, handles of hammer and sickle rest in bottom corners of the square. Length of the hammer and its handle is ¾ of the square diagonal.
3. Five-pointed star is inscribed into a circle with a diameter of ⅛ of the flag height, the circle is tangent to the upper side of the square.
4. Distance of the vertical axis of star, hammer and sickle from the flagstaff is ⅓ of the flag height. Distance from the upper side of the flag to the center of the star is ⅛ of the flag height.

The final design of the flag was adopted in 1980. The design was kept the same except that the background colour was changed. The color was brightened from a near-burgundy crimson to a light to medium red.