From Tsars to Soviets and Back

The white, blue and red tricolour was introduced by Tsar Peter the Great around 1696, heavily inspired by the Dutch flag — the Netherlands was the leading maritime nation of the era and Peter had worked there incognito to learn shipbuilding. The flag flew over the Russian Empire through the reigns of all the Romanov Tsars, the Crimean War, the Russo-Japanese War and the First World War. When Tsar Nicholas II abdicated in March 1917, the Provisional Government briefly retained it. But the Bolsheviks, who seized power in October 1917, rejected it entirely as a symbol of the hated imperial regime.

The Soviet Union adopted a red flag as its national symbol, representing the blood of the workers' revolution. The final version, adopted in 1955, was a plain red flag with a gold hammer and sickle in the upper hoist-side corner, topped by a gold-bordered red star. The hammer represented the industrial workers; the sickle represented the agricultural peasantry; and the star represented the Communist Party's guidance of both. This flag flew over the Soviet Union for 74 years, becoming one of the most recognised flags in 20th century history — and one of the most feared during the Cold War.

On 25 December 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as President of the Soviet Union and the Soviet flag was lowered over the Kremlin for the last time. The Russian tricolour — essentially identical to the Tsarist flag used before 1917 — was raised in its place. Russia had officially restored the flag on 22 August 1991, immediately following the failed coup attempt by Soviet hardliners. The choice was deliberately symbolic: the new Russian Federation saw itself as continuing Russia's pre-Soviet history, not the Soviet state. August 22 is now celebrated in Russia as National Flag Day.