Flags of the Soviet Republics

The Flags of the Soviet Socialist Republics were all defaced versions of the flag of the Soviet Union, which featured a golden hammer and sickle, (the only exception being the Georgian SSR, which used a red hammer and sickle), and a gold-bordered red star on a red field.

When Byelorussia and the Ukraine were the founding members of the United Nations in 1945, all of their flags were red with only small markings in upper left corners and needed distinct flags for each other.

In February 1947, with UN pressure, the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union adopted a resolution, which each of its republics were recommended to develop and adopt new national flags. So they expressed the idea of a union state, asked to use the symbols of the State flag of the Soviet Union, such as the gold hammer and sickle and the red star, as well as maintain the predominance of red color on the flag of the Union republics. National, historical and cultural features of each republic was instructed to express the other colors and the order of their location, as well as the location based on the national ornament. After the competitions for the best projects in the 1949–1954 years of the new flags of the 16 republics were developed and adopted. The authorities in the Ukraine and Byelorussia were the first to adopt the flags on July 5, 1950, and December 25, 1951, respectively. All others followed suit between 1952 and 1953 with the last republic, the Russian SFSR, adopted the flag on January 9, 1954.

Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union on December 26, 1991, only Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Ukraine retained their Soviet republic flags as independent states until the new official flags were adopted 1992.

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