Hammer and Sickle - Historical Usage in Communism

Historical Usage in Communism

The hammer and sickle were originally a hammer on a plough, with the same meaning (unity of peasants and workers) as the better known hammer and sickle. The hammer and sickle, though in use since 1917/18, were not the official symbol until 1922, before which the original hammer and plough insignia was used by the Red Army and the Red Guard on uniforms, medals, caps, etc.

Later, the symbol was featured on the flag of the Soviet Union, adopted in 1923 and finalized in the 1924 Soviet Constitution, and flags of the republics of the Soviet Union after 1924. Before this, the flags of Soviet republics tended to be a plain red field, with the golden text of the name of the respective republic superimposed on it, as written in Article 90 of the 1918 Soviet Constitution.

• The Coat of Arms of the Soviet Union and the Coats of Arms of the Soviet Republics showed the hammer and sickle, which also appeared on the Red Star badge on the uniform cap of the Red Army uniform and in many other places.
• Serp i Mólot (transliteration of Russian: Серп и молот, "Sickle and hammer") is the name of the Moscow Metallurgical Plant.
• Serp i Molot is also the name of a stop on the electric railway line from Kurski railway station in Moscow to Gorky, featured in Venedikt Erofeev's novel, Moscow-Petushki.

Some anthropologists have argued that the symbol, like others used in the Soviet Union, was actually a Russian Orthodox symbol that was used by the Communist Party to fill the religious needs that communism was replacing as a new state "religion". The symbol can be seen as a permutation of the Russian Orthodox two-barred cross.