Flag of the Soviet Union
The state flag of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics: a red flag with a gold hammer and sickle and a gold-edged red star in the upper corner by the pole. It was set by the constitution of 1924 and came down over the Kremlin for the last time on 25 December 1991.
Meaning
Article 170 of the 1977 constitution describes the flag as a red rectangular cloth with, in its upper corner by the pole, a gold sickle and hammer and above them a red five-pointed star framed by a gold border; the width is to the length as 1:2. The regulation on the state flag of 19 August 1955 fixed the drawing, and each union republic had a flag of its own, described in its own constitution. Today the flag is a museum piece: Parlamentskaya Gazeta found that the Museum of Contemporary History of Russia in Moscow, whose collection of Soviet and foreign banners the paper calls perhaps the best in the country, holds a Soviet flag that once flew over the Ostankino television tower.
Origin and history
The Presidential Library in St Petersburg dates the flag to the constitution of 1924, and says the constitutions of 1936 and 1977 made no change of substance to its description. The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet approved a regulation on the flag on 19 August 1955. It set out where the flag flew: permanently on the buildings of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and the Council of Ministers, on the building where the Supreme Soviet sat for the length of each session, and on the buildings of the republics’ governments, ministries and local soviets on 22 April, 1 and 2 May, 7 and 8 November and 5 December. Merchant ships registered in Soviet ports flew it at the stern.
On 22 August 1991 the Presidium of the Russian republic’s Supreme Soviet made the white, blue and red flag the state flag of the RSFSR, the Presidential Library records. Parlamentskaya Gazeta gives the hour of the end: at 19:35 on 25 December 1991 the Soviet flag began to come down from the flagpole over the Kremlin residence of the presidents of the USSR and the RSFSR, and within a few minutes the Russian tricolour flew in its place.
What do the hammer and sickle and the star stand for?
The Soviet state gave its own reading. The 1955 regulation called the flag the symbol of the USSR’s sovereignty and of “the indestructible union of workers and peasants” in building communist society. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, quoting it, adds that the red stood for the struggle of the Soviet people, led by the Communist Party, to build socialism and communism; the sickle and hammer for the union of the working class and the collective-farm peasantry; and the red five-pointed star for the final triumph of the ideas of communism on the five continents.
How the emblem is drawn
The 1955 regulation gives the measurements as fractions of the flag’s width (its height on the pole). The sickle and hammer fit a square a quarter of the width on each side: the point of the sickle touches the middle of the square’s top edge, the handles of sickle and hammer rest in its lower corners, and the hammer with its handle is three quarters of the square’s diagonal long. The star fits a circle a fifth of the width across, touching the top of the square. Star, sickle and hammer share one vertical axis, a third of the width from the pole, and the centre of the star is an eighth of the width below the top edge.
The union republics’ flags
Each union republic had a state flag on the same pattern; the Presidential Library says their final versions were approved between 1949 and 1954. The Russian republic’s, from 1954, was the red flag with the gold sickle and hammer and the gold-edged star, with a light blue stripe the full height of the flag along the pole, an eighth of the flag’s length wide. When the Soviet flag flew beside a republic’s, the 1955 regulation said it could not be the smaller of the two.
Where you’ll see it today
whatdoesthissymbolmean.comFlag of RussiaThe white, blue and red flag that replaced it over the Kremlin on 25 December 1991.Read next
- Next in Historical flagsFlag of YugoslaviaThe state flag of socialist Yugoslavia: horizontal stripes of blue, white and red with a red five-pointed star edged in gold in the centre. The constitution of 1946 set it, and it lasted until the federation broke up in the 1990s.
- The same shape in Islamic symbolsRub el HizbAn eight-pointed star of two overlapping squares that marks the start of each quarter-section of the Qur’an in most printed copies.
See also
Jolly Roger, Blackbeard’s flag, Calico Jack’s flag, Bartholomew Roberts’s flag, Emanuel Wynne’s flag, Vexillum.
Sources
- Сборник законов СССР и указов Президиума Верховного Совета СССР, 1938–1956 (p. 106), Указ Президиума Верховного Совета СССР от 19 августа 1955 г. «Об утверждении Положения о Государственном флаге СССР» (Ведомости Верховного Совета СССР 1955 г. № 15), in Сборник законов СССР и указов Президиума Верховного Совета СССР, 1938 – июль 1956 (Moscow, 1956), p. 106, Wikisource (Russian), proofread transcription, p. 106, Положение о Государственном флаге СССР, arts. 1–3
- Сборник законов СССР и указов Президиума Верховного Совета СССР, 1938–1956 (p. 107), Положение о Государственном флаге СССР (1955), continued, in Сборник законов СССР и указов Президиума Верховного Совета СССР, 1938 – июль 1956 (Moscow, 1956), p. 107, Wikisource (Russian), proofread transcription, p. 107, Положение о Государственном флаге СССР, arts. 3–6
- Конституция СССР 1977 (Большая советская энциклопедия), Конституция (Основной Закон) СССР, 7 октября 1977 г., as printed in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd edition, Большая советская энциклопедия, via the Vologda Regional Universal Scientific Library, Chapter VIII, Article 170
- Флаг государственный (Большая советская энциклопедия), Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd edition, entry “Флаг государственный”, Большая советская энциклопедия, via the Vologda Regional Universal Scientific Library, entry text
- День Государственного флага Российской Федерации, Information guide for State Flag Day, Presidential Library named after B. N. Yeltsin, section on the flags of the USSR and RSFSR
- Где хранится последний флаг СССР (Парламентская газета, 2017), Парламентская газета, 1 December 2017, Парламентская газета, article text
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from squares and rectangles or stars.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 14, 2026. How we research
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