For most of the 20th century, Russia lived under the red flag. And the answer to the question why he is of this color seemed to many to be unambiguous. Even when Soviet children were accepted as pioneers, they were told that a pioneer tie is a particle of the Red Banner, the color of which symbolizes the blood shed in the struggle against oppression, for the freedom and happiness of the working people.
But is it only with the blood of fighters and heroes that the origin of the kumach cloth is connected?
SYMBOL OF POWER
Since ancient times, red has been a symbol of power and might. And after Julius Caesar was the first to put on a purple toga, it became a vestment obligatory for Roman emperors (as we remember, the governor's governor in the province - the procurator - was content with "a white cloak with bloody lining"). And it is no coincidence: red dyes were extremely expensive. It was the same in the Second Rome”- in Byzantium. So, the sons of the emperor, born during his reign, had a prefix to the name Porphyrogenitus, or Porphyrogenic, in contrast to those born before Caesar's accession to the throne (Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus became the godfather of Princess Olga during her baptism in Constantinople in 955) … This tradition was preserved later, over the centuries, red was still the prerogative of monarchs and the highest nobility. Let us recall the ceremonial portraits of royalty: their heroes appear, if not in red attire, then necessarily on a red background.
Only red sealing wax was always used for royal seals, the use of such a seal by private individuals was strictly prohibited. In Russia, red was also considered the color of tsarist power, "statehood", and the sovereign's seal was placed only on red sealing wax. The Cathedral Code of 1649 of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich introduced the concept of "state crime" for the first time. And one of the first types of it was the use by someone other than the king and his clerks, a red imprint. For this, only one type of execution was relied on - quartering.
FRENCH HERITAGE
The revolution in all previous orders and customs was brought about by the Great French Revolution at the end of the 18th century. From its first days, when crowds of urban working people gathered for stormy gatherings near the royal palace, someone came up with the idea of waving a piece of red cloth over his head. The bold gesture was happily picked up: it was a sign of rebellion, disobedience to the king. The "protesters" seemed to say to him: "Well, here is your red color … and what can you do with us?" In addition, the commoners had a fashion for red - "Phrygian" - caps, similar to those that in ancient Rome were worn by slaves released into the wild. So people wanted to show: now we are free.
And the most radical group, the Jacobins, led by Robespierre, made the red flag their "trademark." They gathered under him the inhabitants of the Parisian slums, inciting them against their political opponents. However, when the Jacobins themselves seized power, they abandoned the separate "ultra-revolutionary" flag and adopted the already existing blue-white-red tricolor.
It was from the time of the French Revolution that the red flag became a symbol of an action unlawful by the authorities, a struggle against the existing order …
By the way, with the light hand of the English writer Robert Louis Stevenson, it is generally accepted that pirates have always carried out attacks under a black flag with a skull and bones. But this is not so - sea robbers most often raised a red banner, thereby throwing a challenge to everything and everyone! And its very name "Jolly Roger" comes from the French Joyeux Rouge (bright red). And that was long before the French Revolution!
One way or another, the French themselves remembered about the "rebellious" kumach only half a century later, in 1848, when another revolution broke out in the country. The industrial bourgeoisie came to power, but the Parisian "street", above all the armed workers, persistently tried to dictate their demands - to ensure the right to work, eliminate unemployment, and so on. And one more thing: change the national flag: instead of the tricolor one - red. And almost everything was done. But when it came to the seemingly most insignificant - the flag, the authorities rested. And only after a stormy debate, under powerful pressure from the rebels, it was possible to agree: the old banner remained, but a red circle - a rosette - was sewn onto the blue stripe. The workers considered this their great victory, the bourgeoisie, on the other hand, was a sign of danger, an emblem of socialism, to which it could not come to terms. The revolution was soon suppressed, and the outlet was eliminated. But since that time, red has become not just a symbol of rebellion, but a social revolution. That is why, in March 1871, the Paris Commune had already unconditionally made the red banner its official symbol … for 72 days.
UNDER THE BANNER OF REVOLUTION
Two sides of the legally approved banner of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. Drawing from the official website of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation
However, the scarlet cloth gained true recognition in Russia, although it was adopted rather late - Russian rebels never used red flags. After all, not a single popular action was formally directed against the king - the masses of people would never have risen against the "anointed of God." Therefore, each leader declared himself either a "miraculously saved" tsar or tsarevich, or a "great commander" sent by the sovereign himself to punish the oppressors of the people. And only at the beginning of the XX century, after discrediting the tsarist power as a result of Bloody Sunday January 9, 1905, “red riots” began in the country.
Crowded rallies and columns of demonstrators during the outbreak of the first Russian revolution were painted with red banners and banners. This had a double meaning: they symbolized the blood of innocent victims shed by the tsarist punishers on January 9, but also a challenge to official power from those who rose up to fight for social justice.
The red flag was also raised by sailors who rebelled in June 1905 on the battleship "Prince Potemkin-Tavrichesky" (for this the monarchist press immediately dubbed them "pirates").
And during the December armed uprising in Moscow, which is considered the highest point of this revolution, red banners fluttered on almost all barricades. And Presnya began to be called Red - even before the bloody defeat of the workers' squads by government troops.
From the first days of the February Revolution of 1917, Petrograd became "red" - banners, bows, armbands, flags … Even the frontier Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich defiantly appeared at the State Duma with a red rosette in his buttonhole. And also a badge with the state emblem was released, on which a two-headed eagle held red flags in its paws!
Soon the Bolsheviks entered the political arena. They immediately began to create armed detachments of the Red Guard - mainly from workers, as well as soldiers and sailors. Their fighters had a red armband with the words "Red Guard" and a red ribbon on their headdresses. It was the Red Guards who constituted the main striking force of the October armed uprising. Another powerful force that took an active part in the new Russian turmoil was the revolutionary sailors. They considered themselves the heirs of the "Potemkinites" and most often performed under the red banners, although they were mostly anarchists.
For the Bolsheviks who came to power, led by Lenin, there was no doubt about the color of the new banner of Soviet Russia: only red is a symbol of the Revolution! Hence the Red Army, the Red Star, the Order of the Red Banner …
According to the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of April 8, 1918, the red flag of the Soviet Republic was approved as the state and battle banner of its Armed Forces. However, in terms of size, shape, slogans on the panels, he did not have a single sample. The inscriptions were taken mainly from the appeals of the Bolshevik Party: "For the power of the Soviets!", "Peace to the huts - war to the palaces!" and etc.
The USSR Constitution of 1924 approved the national flag of the country, which was a red cloth with a hammer and sickle and a five-pointed star "as a symbol of the inviolable union of workers and peasants in the struggle to build a communist society." This symbolism remained "in force" until the collapse of the USSR in 1991. At all official and unofficial events of the Land of the Soviets - congresses and conferences, demonstrations and parades, solemn meetings - the color red was dominant. The Victory Banner erected by Soviet soldiers over the Reichstag in 1945 was also red.
In the end, even the name of the main "front" square of the country - Red - began to be involuntarily rethought in the same Soviet-revolutionary way, and it was necessary to specifically explain that in this case the name is old and means "beautiful".
On the eve of the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the mass media began to "disclose" everything connected with the history of the Soviet period, calls to abandon the red flag as the embodiment of communist power began to be repeated more and more often. Then there was even the cliché "red-brown", which was applied to everyone who opposed the "democratic renewal of the country" …
Since 1988, some radical democratic movements (not to mention monarchists) began to use the pre-revolutionary tricolor at their events, gradually it began to establish itself in the public consciousness as a symbol of the future new Russia. All "red" should have remained in the past.
On August 22, 1991, after the defeat of the GKChP putsch, an extraordinary session of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR decided to consider the official flag of the Russian Federation the "historical" white-blue-red - the one that was the official flag of the Russian Empire from 1883 to 1917 (the resolution was approved on November 1 V Congress of People's Deputies). The red banners were also abolished in the Armed Forces, they were withdrawn from all units and replaced with tricolor ones. However, not everyone in our country accepted such changes, especially in the army. The left-wing political forces were not going to give up the red flags.
On December 29, 2000, Russian President Vladimir Putin approved the law on the banner of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (in the USSR there was no such single banner). The main military banner of Russia carried a symbolic - unifying - meaning, including heraldic elements from different eras of Russian history: red, five-pointed stars and a two-headed eagle. At the same time, their glorious Red Banners were returned to the military units.
