USSR // Georgia SSR / state flag

The red hammer and sickle with star in a blue sun in canton, blue bar in upper part of flag was Adopted 11 April 1951. The use of blue in this flag is curious as blue was never widely used on historic Georgian flags. It may derive from the arms which feature the Caucasus Mountains in blue. However, it may have been inspired by a desire to deviate from the norm of Soviet internal political sub-divisions, which all featured the hammer and sickle in gold.

The Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic also known as the Georgian SSR for short was one of the republics that made up the former Soviet Union.

It was established on February 25, 1921, as the Georgian SSR. From March 12, 1922 to December 5, 1936 it was part of the Transcaucasian SFSR together with the Armenian SSR and the Azerbaijan SSR. In 1936, the TSFSR was dissolved. Under Stalin's rule, many Georgians were executed. During this period the province was led by Lavrentiy Beria, first secretary of the Georgian Central Committee of the Georgian Communist Party[1]

Under Khrushchev, the government was decentralized and the Georgian Communist Party rose in power. Alongside it, a black market economy and corruption grew. Eduard Shevardnadze worked for years to fight this corruption from the mid 1960s until 1985, when he was appointed Soviet Foreign Minister.

Russian and Georgian texts are printed on a tag stitched to the hoist. The flag was acquired by Adolf Wedel of Martin Bauer Co. during one of Adolf's many visits to the tea plantations in Georgia of the former Soviet Union. He presented the flag to Ben Zaricor in the summer of 1999 during a visit to Santa Cruz, Ca. This was the official flag of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic from 1951 to 1991. This particular flag was made in 1989. It is difficult to find this flag today.


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