Flag of the Russian SFSR

Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic

Flag of the Russian SFSR (1954–1991)
Use	Historical
Proportion	1:2
Adopted	9 January 1954
Design	A red flag with a light-blue stripe at the pole, with golden red star and hammer and sickle.
Designed by	Valentin Petrovich Viktorov

Last Soviet-era (before 1991) flag was adopted by the Russian SFSR in 1954. The flag of RSFSR is a defacement of the flag of the Soviet Union. The constitution stipulated:

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 star represents the CPSU and communism. The red in the flag represents the Russian revolution and revolution in general. The blue stripe symbolizes the wide Russian skies and the waters of its seas and rivers.

The first flag of the Russian SFSR (14 April—17 June 1918) is a flag showing the full name of the recently born Soviet republic before the then imminent Russian spelling reform. Its ratio was unspecified.

Since 1918, the flag was red with the gold Cyrillic characters РСФСР (RSFSR) in the top-left corner, in a traditional Vyaz' style of ornamental Cyrillic calligraphy.

Since 1920, the characters was redesigned as described in the Russian Constitution of 1925. However this flag was oftentimes not used, with the 1918 flag being used until 1937.

In February 1947, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a resolution suggesting the Soviet republics to adopt their new flags. The design was suggested to be based on the state flag of the USSR, as to indicate the idea of the republic within the union, and to include colors and national ornaments to express the geographical, national, historical and cultural characteristics of each republic.

On January 9, 1954, the new national flag of the RSFSR was approved by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR. The flag was designed by artist Valentin Petrovich Viktorov. On June 2, 1954, the description of the flag was included in the Constitution of the RSFSR.

After the events of the attempted coup in Moscow, Boris Yeltsin, the president of the Russian SFSR adopted a resolution that the imperial tricolor flag based on the Russian Empire as the flag of RSFSR. On August 22, 1991 the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR decided: