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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 and a gold-bordered red star (the only exception being the Georgian SSR, which used a red hammer and sickle and a fully red star) on a red field.
When Byelorussia and 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, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a resolution calling for the Soviet republics to adopt new flags, 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 emblem or coat of arms. After competitions for the best projects from 1949 to 1954 the new flags of the 16 republics were developed and adopted. The authorities in Ukraine and Byelorussia were the first to adopt the flags on 5 July 1950, and 25 December 1951, respectively. All others followed suit between 1952 and 1953 with the last republic, the Russian SFSR, adopted the flag on 9 January 1954. [1]
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union on 26 December 1991, only Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan (without hammer and sickle), Turkmenistan and Ukraine retained their Soviet republic flags as independent states until the new official flags were adopted in 1992. Since 1995 (current version adopted in 2012) Belarus retains its old Soviet flag with only minor changes.
Their final versions prior to re-adoption of the non-Soviet national flags were as follows:
| Flag | Date adopted | Description | Present-day flag | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flag of the Russian SFSR |  | 7 January 1954 | A red rectangular sheet with a light-blue stripe at the pole extending all the width which constitutes one eighth length of the flag. | |
| Flag of the Ukrainian SSR |  | 5 July 1950 | A horizontal bicolor of red over azure (light blue) with the golden hammer and sickle and gold-bordered star on top of the canton. | |
 | 25 December 1951 | A horizontal bicolor of red over green in a 2:1 ratio and the golden hammer and sickle with the bordered star on the canton, with a white ornamental pattern on a red vertical stripe at the hoist. | ||
 | 25 August 1952 | A triband flag with the colors (from top to bottom) red, blue, and red, with the blue band fimbriated in white, with a golden hammer and sickle in the upper canton. | ||
| Flag of the Kazakh SSR |  | 24 January 1953 | A red flag with blue stripe and a golden hammer and sickle and a gold-bordered red star in its upper canton. | |
| Flag of the Georgian SSR |  | 11 April 1951 | A plain red flag with the red hammer and sickle with a red star in a blue sun in canton, blue bar in upper part of flag. | |
 | 7 October 1952 | A plain red flag with a golden hammer and sickle and a gold-bordered red star in its upper canton and a horizontal blue band on the bottom fourth. | ||
 | 15 July 1953 | A red flag with the golden hammer and sickle and a gold-bordered red star in its upper canton with the white thin stripe and green thick band on the bottom. | ||
 | 31 January 1952 | A plain red flag with the green horizontal stripe and the golden hammer and sickle with a gold-bordered red star in its upper canton. | ||
 | 17 January 1953 | A plain red flag with a golden hammer and sickle and a gold-bordered red star in its upper canton with the blue and white rippling water at the bottom. | ||
 | 22 December 1952 | A red field with a golden hammer and sickle and a gold-bordered red star in its upper canton with two navy blue bars and a white stripe in the middle of the flag. | ||
 | 20 March 1953 | A red field with white and green stripes in the middle of the flag (pan-Iranian colors), with a golden hammer and sickle in the upper canton. | ||
 | 17 December 1952 | A plain red flag with the blue horizontal stripe and the golden hammer and sickle with a gold-bordered red star in its upper canton. | ||
 | 1 August 1953 | A plain red flag with a golden hammer and sickle and a gold-bordered red star in its upper canton with two blue bars in the middle of the flag. | ||
 | 6 February 1953 | A red flag with the golden hammer and sickle and outlined star above a band of blue water waves near the bottom. | ||
 | 3 March 1953 | A plain red flag with the golden hammer and sickle with a red star with the blue and green stripes on the bottom. | ||
Other Union Republics and autonomous republics existed within the Soviet Union, mostly using flags on a similar pattern, or the flag of their "parent" Union Republic, further defaced. Today, the only former Soviet Union territories that use modified versions of their original Soviet flag are the republic of Transnistria (a state of limited recognition, formerly part of the Moldavian SSR) and Belarus (since 1995).
The official flags of the ASSRs were seldom used, and were generally the flag of the republic to which the ASSR belonged, defaced with the ASSR name in its own language(s) and the official language of the SSR; flags matching this pattern are not displayed in the gallery below:
The State Flag of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, also simply known as the Soviet flag or the Red Banner, was a red flag with two communist symbols displayed in the canton: a gold hammer and sickle topped off by a red five-point star bordered in gold. The flag's design and symbolism are derived from several sources, but emerged during the Russian Revolution. It has also come to serve as the standard symbol representing communism as a whole, recognized as such in international circles, even after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The penultimate USSR-era flag was adopted by the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) in 1954 and used until 1991. The flag of the Russian SFSR was a defacement of the flag of the USSR. The constitution stipulated:
The state flag of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (SFSR) 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.
The hammer and sickle is a communist symbol representing proletarian solidarity between agricultural and industrial workers. It was first adopted during the Russian Revolution at the end of World War I, the hammer representing workers and the sickle representing the peasants.
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The national flag of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic consists of a panel of red color with a green stripe in the middle of the whole flag length, with the image on top of the red part of the flag from the flagpole golden hammer and sickle above a five-pointed red star framed by gold border. The ratio of the flag's width to its length is 1:2 with the bandwidth of green to the width of the flag 1:4
The flag of the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic was the red Soviet flag with white and green stripes below the gold hammer and sickle, with the measures: 1/2 red, 1/5 white, 1/10 green, 1/5 red. The flag sported the Pan-Iranian colors of red, white and green, as a nod to the republic's Persian-descended culture. The flag was adopted on March 20, 1953 by decree of the Supreme Soviet of the Tajik SSR:
The national flag of the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic is a panel consisting of four horizontal colored stripes: the upper band of red which is half the width of the flag; white stripe, making one fifth of the width of the flag; green stripes, is one-tenth the width of the flag, and the lower band of red color, is one-fifth the width of the flag. On top of the red band at the flagpole located gold hammer and sickle and above them is a five-pointed red star framed by a gold border. The ratio of the flag's width to its length is 1: 2.The fitting of the hammer and sickle into a square whose side wound 1/4 width of the flag. The sharp end of the sickle falls in the middle of the upper side of the square, handles the sickle and hammer rest on the bottom corners of the square. hammer with a handle length is 3/4 of the diagonal of a square. The five-pointed star in a circle fits 1/8 width of the flag relating to the upper side of the square. Distance vertical axis of the star, the hammer and sickle from the grapnel is equal to 1/4 of the flag's width. The distance from the top edge of the flag of the flag to the center of the star - 1/10 of the flag's width.
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The State Emblem of the Soviet Union was the official symbol of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics adopted in 1923 and used until the dissolution of the state in 1991. Although it technically is an emblem rather than a coat of arms, since it does not follow traditional heraldic rules, in Russian it is called герб, the word used for a traditional coat of arms.
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The Tajik Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was an autonomous republic within the Uzbek SSR in the Soviet Union. It was created on 14 October 1924 by a series of legal acts that partitioned the three existing regional entities in Central Asia – Turkestan ASSR, Bukharan People's Soviet Republic, and Khorezm People's Soviet Republic – into five new entities based on ethnic principles: Uzbek SSR, Turkmen SSR, Tajik ASSR, Kara-Kirghiz Autonomous Oblast, and Karakalpak Autonomous Oblast.
The Bukharan People's Soviet Republic was a Soviet state that governed the former Emirate of Bukhara during the years immediately following the Russian Revolution. In 1924, its name was changed to the Bukharan Socialist Soviet Republic. After the redrawing of regional borders, its territory was assigned mostly to the Uzbek SSR and some to the Turkmen SSR.
The following lists events that happened during 1924 in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
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