Introduction: The "Red Star" is the symbol of the October Revolution in Russia, and it also shone on the socialist camp led by the Soviet Union. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the narrative of the "Red Star" withered away until people were about to forget the passionate years. Amateur international political observer Kolasna Tevica published a series of articles: "The History of the Development of the Soviet and Eastern Soviet Army Hat Emblems and the Evolution of the Initial Intention of European Socialist Countries", focusing on the construction of revolutionary culture in European socialist countries and reviewing the origin and evolution of the Soviet and Eastern Soviet army hat emblems. This article is the first part.
[Text/Observer Network columnist Kolasna Tevica]
introduction
It has been one hundred and four years since the October Revolution, and the thirtieth anniversary of the formal dissolution of the Soviet Union, the first dictatorship of the proletariat in human history. In the middle of this period of passionate burning years, the news continued to become history, history continued to become legends, and legends kept going up the altar and going down, and eventually they all evolved into cultures, and these cultures shaped that era and our current era.
For example, a more empirical common sense is that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union has never had a special party flag or emblem; according to a 1922 resolution, the ideological banner of the CPSU and the Soviet state was shared. Most of these symbols—the red star, the sickle (including the early ploughshares), the hammer image, and the combined patterns we now know—derive mostly from the signs of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army that arose from the flames of the Russian Civil War.
(Traditional) Marxism-Leninism holds that the seizure of power by the proletariat must be achieved through violent revolution. The armed proletarian force, the army, is therefore the most important instrument of revolution. The emblemary costumes of the revolutionary army directly reflect the cultural and economic conditions of the camp in the general environment of the international communist movement.
Moreover, because of their figurativeness, mass nature, and the importance of the army itself, they eventually went beyond the military realm and became propaganda images and general symbols of the broader communist movement. These symbols reacted against Russian society, just as the symbols of the Communist Partisans and wehrmachts in other Eastern European countries during World War II until the 1990s reacted against their respective societies; they built their own unique communist cultures in the small environment of each nation-state, establishing the totem of faith for generations.
Thirty years have passed since the fall of the Berlin Wall. In the Western world that won the Cold War, in the Christmas song accompanied by snow-colored lights year after year, the ghosts of these cultures still hover in the night sky. The curses they cast are still fulfilled from time to time in some corners of our civilized planet.
This article intends to use the military emblem costume as a special entry point to explore the construction, reform and evolution of revolutionary culture in European socialist countries. Limited by space, it only briefly reviews and traverses the origin and evolution of the coat of arms of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
Origin of the Russian Red Armed Suit
At the beginning of the Russian Revolution, the armed forces led by the Peasants' Soviets and the Workers' and Soldiers' Soviets— the Revolutionary Soldiers, the Revolutionary Sailors, and the Red Guards (Красная гвардия), did not have a uniform hat coat and uniform. Since most of the active troops in the hands of the urban soviets came from the Imperial Russian army and defected, and the Red Guards recruited in the countryside were mostly Imperial Russian veterans, they often wore the same old-fashioned military uniforms as the White Army, simply tore off the Imperial Russian epaulettes, tied red cloth knots on the chest, or sewn with distinctive red bars on the hat tiles and cuffs (according to some sources, the red bars can be understood as symbolically "scratching" the old hat emblems of the Imperial Russia). During the attack on the Winter Palace on October 25, 1917, there may have been a soldier (Pantelev) who wore the red five-star logo himself. It is also the earliest recorded account of the use of the red star logo in the Russian Revolution.
One of the famous scenes in the history of the Russian Revolution, Nikolai Babascius's painting Lenin arrives at the Petrograd Finnish Railway Station (Finnish Railway Station is a railway station in Petrograd). There are often multiple railway stations in the big Russian cities, named after the end of their respective railway connections), which shows that revolutionary soldiers and revolutionary sailors were identified by red bars and red armbands on their fur hats. It is worth mentioning that Chinese widely circulated on the Internet that the Provisional Government distributed tin stars to the Moscow garrison to identify "unreliable" units, and that these troops painted them in communist red during the revolution. The author did find a few Russian references to this statement, but I have not seen similar descriptions in the official historical materials, nor have I ever seen a red tin star from the Russian Revolution that conforms to this description and has no sickle (plough) hammer pattern on the surface.
At the beginning of 1918, the old Russian army taken over by the Council of People's Commissars had not yet successfully withdrawn from the First World War, and it was gradually retreating under the fierce offensive of the German army. On 21 February, the Council of People's Commissars approved the famous Decree "The Socialist Fatherland in Crisis"; the reference to the "Socialist Fatherland" in the title was finally adopted in controversy, marking the first time that these Smolny Palace revolutionaries, with the original intention of the world revolution, had for the first time transformed themselves into the rulers of the Russian nation-state in the face of harsh realities. On 23 February, the New Army of Volunteers, the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Рабоче-Крестьянская 1 Красная Армия,РККА), repulsed the German army at Pskov, just 250 km from the capital Petrograd, and preserved the nascent Soviet regime and Russia. This day became the later Red Army Day.
About a month later, the precursors to the red star and sickle hammer motif were designed as "official" emblems for the first time. But at this time, its wearing position, image and use method are still in chaos. What is widely remembered is the red star hat emblem re-issued in July of that year, and the first edition of the Red Army uniform designed by the Revolutionary Military Committee in the traditional style of Eastern Europe in December - three decorated military color bundles on the chest (Хлстик, and the strip of cloth buckled behind the European army coat to support the outer belt are the same word), the sword-shaped military color cuff lining, and two pieces that later became the symbol of the Red Army: the Budyoni hat (helmet hat, шлемсуконый) and its double-layered five-star hat emblem, The cloth class is a large five-star with a metal red five-star with a hammer-plow motif nested on it.
The Budyonny hat was spontaneously copied by Red Army guerrillas everywhere during the civil war, and there are many handmade objects. Some of them are similar to the unofficial version of Paul's image in the CCTV version of "How Steel is Made", which only has a layer of cloth and big red five stars.
In the Soviet Union's own films on the theme of Paul Kochakin, Kochagin wears a buchanny hat. There are images of a cloth big red star hat emblem (left and center) and a double layer of hat emblem (right, but Paul as a cavalryman should actually be accompanied by a big blue five-star).
The Budyonny hat was one of the consequences of the Red Army's succession to the imperial Russian quartermaster industry and warehouses in the great city. It was originally a model for the late Russian period of the heroic knight (богатырь) pointed helmet богатырка, which began to be produced in small quantities at the end of World War I, and there was a considerable inventory during the revolution, but it was not yet recognized by most Russian soldiers and civilians. As Budyonny and Frunze's troops wore such hats and slaughtered everywhere, the "Budyonny Hat" (будёновка), bound to the identities of the Soviets, the Red Army, and especially the Red Cavalry, was quickly established and firmly fixed by a series of cultural works reflecting the Russian Civil War, such as "How Steel is Made" that emerged in the 1930s.
The image of the red star (red five-pointed star) has a certain similarity to the Budyonny hat, but is more complex. The following will be discussed from the three aspects of the "red star" text image, "red" and "five-pointed star" two pattern characteristics.
The past life of the "red star" as a cultural image
It is well known that "red" acquired its modern political imagery by France. After the French Revolution, the Revolution of 1848 and the Paris Commune movement, the red color and "red flag" symbolizing the blood of martyrs have stabilized as symbols of the left, socialism and later the communist movement.
The word "red star" (Красная звезда) that first appears as a symbol of communism in Russian should come from А Bogodanov's 1908 political science fiction novel Red Star. The novel tells the story of a mathematician living in St. Petersburg, Leonid (who was also a Bolshevik), who was visited by Martians and invited to visit (fictional) Communist (Martian) society on Mars, which had a profound impact on pre-revolutionary Russia. The "red star" is the mars in the setting that appears red due to the red plants on the surface.
It should be pointed out that from the perspective of Russian national culture, in various Slavic languages with very similar basic vocabulary, "red" is almost always derived from ervec etymology; only the Russian "red" - "Krasnaya" (Красная) is cognate with "beautiful" - "Красивый). Red thus carries in traditional Russian culture "beautiful", "important", "valuable", etc. In the West, even other West Slavic and Yugoslav countries do not have a positive meaning.
The above three pictures show the covers of the 1907, 1922, and 1925 editions of the "Red Star" novel. As you can see, publishers' understanding of the "red star" imagery has always stayed at the red shining star (left) or a large circle (center and right). The novel does not produce the later five-pointed red star motif, but for the first time creates a textual imagery that contains the "red star", which is related to communism and has a certain "distant (but not out of reach), beyond the earth, and can be looked up to in the ideal world".
The picture below on the left shows the honorary battle flag (front) awarded by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee to the 1st Caucasus Mountain Infantry Division (now the 9th Red Flag Motor Rifle Division) in 1921, and the above characteristics reflected in the use of the "Red Star" imagery can be clearly seen. These features, including the relative relationship between the prototype of the red star "Mars" and the position of the Earth and the Sun, were eventually indirectly reflected in the Soviet coat of arms designed and finalized in 1923 (below, right).
The production of the five-pointed star pattern is another story. The physical pentagram (Пятиконечная звезда, left) is one of the oldest symbols of "protection" in western pre-Christian civilization (note that it is connected to the hollow line of the pentagram Пентаамма).
The pentagram, as a polytheistic element left over from ancient Greco-Roman civilization, fell in love with the Christian Church (both Catholic and Eastern Orthodox) in the process of fusion of Western civilizations for thousands of years; but since the Renaissance, its heretical color has been gradually broken in general, and this symbol has begun to be introduced by armies of various countries as a symbol of "military"; first in France after the Revolution, then in Italy in the Garibaldi era, and also in Russia itself. During the American Civil War, the Northern and Southern Armies have made extensive use of the five-pointed star emblem, and the 12th Army and its First Division of the Northern Army used the red five-star pattern as the military emblem for the first time. By the time of World War I, such symbols were widely used in the armies of various countries.
The Red Five-Star Insignia of the 12th Army of the Confederate Army during the American Civil War was revoked after the war.
As early as the first half of the 19th century, Russia introduced a five-pointed star in the epaulettes of officers, commonly known as the "star of Mars (god of war in ancient Roman mythology, i.e. Mars)" (марсова звезда). At the beginning of the 20th century, the five-pointed star began to appear in the emblems of some Russian troops (pictured below on the left); after the February Revolution of 1917, the Provisional Government promulgated the new Coat of Arms of the Russian Navy, replacing the St. George ribbon with the classic British naval style of "plant arch guard + central iron anchor + top crown", but replacing the crown with an embroidered five-pointed star. This style was inherited on the coat of arms of the Soviet merchant fleet (pictured below, right) and became the template for the coat of arms of the Soviet Red Navy, which was established shortly thereafter.
In some specific isolated cases (controversial), the pentagram has even been combined with the imperial Russian double-headed eagle coat of arms to indicate "Russian army". For example, on the train carriage on the right side of the picture below (photo taken by the famous photographer К·К Bla):
All in all, at the time of the victory of the October Revolution, the status of the five-pointed star in the perception of the Russian army and the Russian general public was very similar to the prototype of the Budyonny hat: thanks to the trial of the Imperial Russian and Provisional Governments, a small number of insiders had recognized it as one of the symbols of the "army"; but most people, both military and civilian, did not yet have the impression of directly associating this pattern with the Imperial Russian government or faction.
At the beginning of the victory of the revolution, for a few months, some Bolshevik revolutionaries did try to preserve the Imperial Russian symbol to a limited extent and to give it a new meaning of "symbol of the Russian nation". The picture below shows the regimental flag of the 1st Regiment of the Chernyaevsky Soviet in 1918, noting that the double-headed eagle emblem in it has removed the crown, scepter and the dragon slayer St. George.
But this minor tinkering was opposed by the majority of the people, who were already deeply disgusted with the Tsar at the time, especially the urban working class, which was the main supporter of the revolution. And in any case, the two-headed eagle banner was too easily confused with the White Army, so it was quickly abolished.
To sum up the five-pointed star emblem represents the superiority of the revolutionary New Army: it has a tradition of being used for the Russian army, but has no stable connection with the monarchy. Moreover, its modern origins can be traced back to the French Revolution, and the Russian Revolutions of 1905 and October are in line with the French Revolution (and the subsequent Revolution of 1848 and the Paris Commune) in the historical narrative of modern european revolutions.
In fact, in addition to the five-pointed star logo, all kinds of high-end clothing in the early days of the regularization of the Red Army were directly influenced by the Taste of France in the same period, including another famous hat emblem that continues to this day, the flying wing pattern on the tile of the aviation hat (pictured below):
With the spread of Soviet military culture after World War II, this aviation wing was exported to the hat tiles of the air forces of a large number of Warsaw Pact countries and North Korea, and indirectly influenced the design of the hat emblem of the early air forces of East Germany, Cuba and New China. Of course this is another story.
Seeds of the Safflower: The Birth and Standardization of the Official Red Star Hat Emblem
Regarding the first "official" designer of the red star pattern as a symbol of the Red Army in 1918, some historians believe that the founder of the Russian Workers' and Peasants' Army and Navy newspaper and the temporary commander of the Petrograd Military District is the old Bolshevik К Eliemeyev, others believe that the political commissar of the Moscow Military District Н Polyansky; and a few claim that the designer is Trotsky Basic, He drew inspiration from the Esperanto mark (a green five-pointed star) seen on the collar of Warrant Officer Krelenko (the provisional commander-in-chief of the Russian army who took over the base camp from Dukhonin). But the Trotskyites did not admit it.
According to the recollections of Е Yaroslavsky, 1919, issues 5-6 of the magazine Military Affairs (Воеео):
“...... Comrade Polyansky was the first to come up with the idea of a "five-star with a hammer, a ploughshares and a book motif", intending to use it as a symbol for workers, peasants and intellectuals. The superiors approved the five-star pattern but removed the book, keeping only the hammer and the plough, a distinctive sign which was recognized by Comrade Trotsky. ”
But many people disagreed with this statement, and Soviet officials never recognized Polyansky's honor of "designing the symbol of the Red Army." In general, there is no generally accepted conclusion that is officially recognized by the Soviet Union and Russia, and there are many views that the first designer is not any of the above and is no longer examinable.
The timeline now known is: on April 19, 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee's Izvestia announced for the first time in a corner that the Revolutionary Military Council had approved a red star insignia: the red star represented Mars (Mars), the god of war, while the hammer and plough with the hammer head upwards and the hammer handle tilted to the right represented the alliance of workers and peasants.
In Order No. 321 of the People's Commissar of Military Affairs (Minister of Defense) issued on May 7, 1918, this emblem was officially issued as "'Star of Mars' with a plough and a hammer" (марсова звезда" с с а 4лугом и молотом), clearly marked as a red army soldier, prohibited from being held by non-soldiers, and stipulated that it should be worn on the left chest; but only one day later (May 8, 1918), the Military Commission of Moscow issued a contradictory order. Ask to wear the Red Star badge on the hat.
The latter order proved to be far more popular with the grass-roots fighters than the previous one, and by July 29 the Revolutionary Military Council had to issue Order No. 594 posthumously recognizing that the red star plough hammer badge should be used as a hat badge (only the commander continued to wear a commander's badge based on the red star pattern and with the increased characteristics of the troops), and renamed it "Red Army Emblem - Hat Emblem" (Красноармейский значок-кокарда )。
During this period, the method of wearing a red star in the ranks of the Red Army was very chaotic, some on the hat, some on the chest, and one on the chest and one on the hat in order to take care of the two orders at the same time; some time after the release of Order 594, a large number of examples of Red Army officers and men wearing a red star on the hat and the left chest could still be found.
The specific styles of the red star are also various at the beginning. Before July 29, no official legend was issued, and in fact, even if there was a legend, it could not be sent by telegram at that time; most of the Red Army units fighting in the provinces inherited the custom military uniform tradition of Imperial Russia, and the local factories that undertook orders and the jewelers (who made the commander's badge) showed their own understanding of the "'Star of Mars' with a plough and a hammer" in the order:
Above are several extreme Red Star badges. In addition to the prescribed elements of red stars, hammers, ploughs, laurel and oak, there are those who make a line of light outside the stars, those who make their own coats with color trims, those who make five corners into teardrop reliefs, those who insert "РСФСР" (Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic) in the five corners, and even those that add round heads to the five corners.
The above does not include variations of the red star facing backwards (one corner facing down, one side of the two corners facing upwards), which will be specifically discussed below.
Order No. 464 of the People's Commissar of The Military People's Commissar issued on June 18, 1918, gave the first proportional criterion for the shape of the red star (the ratio of the outer circle to the inner circle of the pentagram was 36 mm/20 mm), and on July 29 the pattern was further given in the appendix of Decree No. 594:
It is even stipulated that the paint color for making stars should be "cherry red enamel" (эмаль вишневого цвета), and in brass alloys "copper should account for 60-65%, zinc should account for 40-35%, allowing the incorporation of 1.1-2% of other metals".
As can be seen from the figure, the hammer head of the hammer is on the upper left, the horn is on the left, the hammer face is pointed to the upper right, and the hammer handle is pointed to the lower right. However, when actually worn, it may be due to the design of the welding point of the back open tail rivet (the text of the ordinance stipulates: "A double folded copper plate should be welded in the center of the back of the badge to form an open tail rivet structure, one tail is slightly shorter than the other tail, and the two ends are cut obliquely in order to pierce into the cloth", but the solder joint of the accompanying picture is actually biased on the upper left side), whether it is the "normal version" or the "inverted red five-star version" that will be mentioned below, the stars are almost invariably rotated clockwise by 72 degrees, forming the hammer head we see below on the upper right and the horn on the top, The hammer face points to the lower right and the hammer handle points to the lower left layout. The "Look, comrades! This is the Red Star, and the Daifa whose hammer handle points to the lower left is posthumously recognized.
Interestingly, in this standard, the five corners of a five-pointed star are curved (as shown in the figure below). This blunted pentagonal shape may have been the source of the "fat red five-star" image commonly found in the international communist movement culture, but at the time it also had a pronounced curvature, making the entire star look like a five-petaled flower. In fact, according to the official interpretation of the Russian Ministry of Defense, the inspiration for this curved shape is a flower, the Matagon lily (other translations of "European lily", "curly lily", "Turkish turban lily", below right).
There are many theories about the origin of the flower's name, but the most widely circulated version is that it originated from Mars or Mars, the god of war. There seems to be an "ancient Roman" myth: Mars, the god of war, appeared from this lily that Juno touched. Martagon means "to produce the god of war" (to conceive Mars), while the Matagon lily was "used by ancient soldiers as an amulet".
In the work of the ancient Roman poet Publius Ovis, Juno, the mother of the gods, did conceive and give birth to Mars by touching a sacred flower. However, the hooking of the Matagon lily to Mars is like a special "Roman myth" of the Slavic region, and I have not found more information. Perhaps, these stories also have some beautiful appendices invented by the parties at that time.
Finally, a brief mention of the application of red star in the navy.
Revolutionary sailors played an important role in the October Revolution. But after the civil war began, the sailor uniforms left over from the Imperial Russian era were often abused and even became one of the standards for impersonating revolutionaries. To this end, on November 18, 1918, the Admiralty of the Revolutionary Government of the Russian Federation issued Order No. 773: "... In view of the fact that sailor costumes often serve as a cover for corrupt elements and counter-revolutionary rebels, it is ordered that the cap emblem of the revolutionary army, 'Red Star with a Plough and Hammer', be extended to naval sailors. From now on, former sailors who are not armed with Soviet forces are strictly forbidden to wear the red star ... In the future, the symbol of the revolution, the red star, will become a symbol of the unity of the red army and navy. ”
This order eventually had the following effect : Red Navy sailors ended up with the Red Star Hat emblem in exactly the same style as the Army ' army ; while the officers maintained the insignia of the Provisional Government Naval Officers , except that the Venus on the anchor was replaced by a red star with a white circle ( as will be mentioned below ) . This difference between officers and soldiers persisted until the end of the Cold War.
(To be continued)
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