Russia in the Soviet Union (later flags)

Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic

Last modified: 2006-07-15 by antonio martins
Keywords: russia | rsfsr | russian sfsr | hammer and sickle (yellow) |
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• Presentation
• Description of the flag
• Previous version (1954-1955)
• Reverse of the flag
• Coat of arms

See also:

• Russia in the Soviet Union (early flags)
• Subdivisions of Soviet Russia
  • Bashkiria
  • Buriatia
  • Chuvashia
  • Daghestan
  • Kabard-Balkaria
  • Kalmykia
  • Karelia
  • Komia
  • Mariy-El
  • Mordovia
  • North Ossetia
  • Tataria (or Tartary)
  • Tuva
  • Udmurtia
  • Yakutia
• Subdivisions of the Soviet Union (list, clickable map)
• Soviet Union
• Russia

• Image of an actual flag (dark blue variation!)
  reported by Dov Gutterman, 03 Oct 2002

Presentation

RSFSR — Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic (Rossiĭskaâ Socialistiĉeskaâ Federativnaâ Sovetskaâ Respublika | Российская Социалистическая Федеративная Советская Республика). This was the official “long” name both before and after the set up of the Soviet Union.
António Martins, 15 Jan 2000

Description of the flag

The flag for the RSFSR was revised in 1954 to contain a bar at the hoist of 1/8 the length of the flag. The constitution of the RSFSR dated April 12, 1978 article 181 states (in pertinent part) as follows:

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 [read height] which constitutes one eighth length of the flag.

Could the flag of the Commander of Naval Forces of the Soviet Russian Navy (1921-1924) have been the precursor for the design of the later RSFSR flag, red with a vertical blue stripe at the hoist?… I note that the RSFSR was the only SSR flag only with non-horizontal stripes.
António Martins, 12 Mar 2000

RSFSR had the only SSR flag with only non-horizontal stripes, while Byelorussia had the only one with both.
Steve Stringfellow and António Martins, 12 and 13 Mar 2000

Previous version (1954-1955)

According Vexilologie 9-10 [vex] there were two patterns for Russia FSSR: pattern of 1954-1955, and pattern after 1955. Chages are in the size, position and design of the hammer-and-sickle and star. Consequently, also the flags of the ASSRs within Russia were slighty changed in 1955.
Jaume Ollé, 22 Jul 2001

Reverse of the flag

image by António Martins, 07 Sep 1999 |

No hammer, sickle and star on the reverse side.
Mark Sensen, 25 May 1997

Coat of arms

The emblem was introduced on 10 July 1918 (according to Hesmer [hes92]) and modified several times afterwards (last modification on 12 April 1979). It was replaced by the current arms on 30 November 1993.
Marcus Schmöger, 16 Sep 2001

There are no dots after letters in 1978 variant of the emblem.
Victor Lomantsov, 29 Nov 2002

Previous version?

An official soviet handbook publ. 1980 (SSSR — Administrativno-territorialhnoe Delenie Soûznyq Respublik) shows the emblem with a star, while Herzog [hzg80], also publ. 1980, shows a starless emblem — just like the 1918 version. I infer that adding the star was the change (or one of the changes) of 1979 refered by Hesmer [hes92].
António Martins, 10 Nov 2002

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