Ceramonial and award banners/flags

[otlichnik]

Tal,

There is not much reference material on Soviet banners. There is one small self-published book on military banners by Doug Drabik. A second, expanded edition of this book is due out in early 2003. It will still only cover military banners though.

Military banners fall into two or three types.

Units standards are the official standard or banner of a military unit. These are extremely rare items. It is almost unheard of for the unit standard of a western or German military unit to be in private hands. However, there are several Soviet unit standards, generally dating from WWII or earlier, around. These mostly came out of small Soviet museums which closed and sold off their collection.

In the WWII period there are two main models of unit standards, the M1940 and the M1942. The M1940 is a more elaborate design - pre-war issue ones are particularly well made. The obverse has the Soviet state coat-of-arms, or gerb, with 11 ribbons. “Proletariat of all Nations Unite!” is written above the gerb while the unit designation is written below. The reverse has a large star with hammer and sickle with “Supreme Soviet USSR”, the issuing body, written around it. The M1942 has a simple red star on the obverse, with unit designation, and a hammer and sickle on the reverse with “Supreme Soviet USSR”. In addition, standards of guards units and naval units differ slightly.

Unit standards were official issue items, just like the unit’s artillery and vehicles. There was no cost involved. Hey were issued by decree in the name of the USSR Supreme Soviet.

M1940 and M1942 unit standards are made of bright red silk and are excellent quality, though early M140 standards are of the best quality. The embroidery is silk and in some parts gold metal wire. These standards were kept with the unit, hence many were lost or captured by Germans. They were carried in the unit or flown from a unit vehicle. The heavy dark red velvet unit standards began to appear in mid-1945 for the Victory Parade. They were not for regular use as they were too heavy.

There are many photos of unit awards attached directly to the unit standards. However, this appears to be an unofficial, though widespread practice. (Someone correct me if they know of any official regulations authorizing this practice.) Instead, special streamers made of lengths of award ribbon were flown from the flag-pole with the standard. A gold braid tasse with end knot was also flown from the flag-pole which had a metal pointed finial on top of it.

The second type of military banner are unit award banners. Unit awards banners were gifts from organizations or institutions (party organization, komsomol organization, state farm, factory, youth group, etc.) to the military unit. They have the name of both the unit and the awarding organization. They usually have the coat of arms (gerb) on one side and Lenin and Stalin heads, often with a quote, on the other side. The donating organization was responsible for buying the banner. These banners could be carried in the unit along with the unit standard or kept in the unit’s HQ.

A third type of military banner (sort of) are the standardized military flags - RKKA, Air Force and Navy as well as the special naval flags for commanding officers and special functions. These were off the shelf items not tailored to an individual or specific unit.

I know less about non-military banners. However, there are a few main categories. Organizations sometimes had an official standard as well. These appear to be self bought and not issued by a higher body. The most common type of civilian banner is the competition award banner. These were given to an organization, work unit, etc. as an award for socialist competition - best coal mine, etc. Often they do not say what the specific competition was although they generally do specify the winning organization. These can be anything from huge, high quality banners for a major union wide competitions to small foot-long pennants for minor in-house competitions.

I have never seen or heard of a document for any banner. However, as military unit standards were awarded by decree of the USSR Supreme Soviet it is possible that a document exists or that a coy of the decree was given.

Shawn