The rise and fall of the Red Army's "budyonovka" cap.
What Happened To The Pointy Communist Hat?
- By Amos Chapple
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It was once the spiky icon of Russia's communist militants...
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...but just a few years after being adopted by the Red Army, the budyonovka hat (named after Bolshevik military commander Semyon Budyonny) disappeared from use.
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A motley lineup of hat- and helmet-wearing communists at a rally in 1920. Although there is debate over its origins, most Russian historians today agree that the cone-like cap was initially produced for the tsar's army.
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The hat was designed by artist Viktor Vasnetsov (shown in this 1873 self-portrait) near the end of Russia's tsarist era. The floppy felt cap was made to be worn -- possibly only in parades -- by the Russian soldiers of World War I.
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Painter Vasnetsov, whose favorite subjects included Russian mythology, modeled the budyonovka hat on the helmets of the legendary bogatyr.
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Bogatyr were mythical knights who roamed the Russian wilderness slaying dragons and defending their lands from foreign invaders. Both of the above artworks were painted by Vasnetsov.
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A parade of Red Army soldiers in Moscow. After Bolshevik revolutionaries gained power in 1917, then quit World War I, they reportedly seized thousands of the unused caps from the tsar's depots...
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...and began producing their own versions, emblazoned with a 10.5-centimeter communist star.
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But problems with the caps soon became apparent.
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Communists in budyonovkas loot a Moscow monastery in 1923. The caps were used mostly through Russia's winter months, but the budyonovka's relatively thin felt was proving insufficiently warm for hard frosts.
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Communist Chechen cavalry in 1923. Fighters ducking bullets during Russia's civil war also complained the hat's shape made it too awkward to wear under protective helmets.
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Russian communist fighters with captured Chinese flags during the 1929 Sino-Soviet conflict. The third problem with the hat was ideological: The Russian nationalism evoked by the budyonovka's shape didn’t fit with the Bolsheviks' global ambitions to unite workers of the world in a communist revolution.
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By the 1930s the hat was being phased out and replaced by the warmer ushanka fur caps, as worn by this "traitor" being arrested by a budyonovka-wearing communist in a 1938 propaganda photo.
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But the hat remained visual shorthand for a Russian communist even until World War II, when the hats had mostly disappeared from use. This Nazi propaganda poster proclaims: "Bolshevism is slavery, rape, mass murder, destruction! Defend yourselves! Fight to victory! Never surrender!"
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Georgian-born communist Grigory Ordzhonikidze trussed up in the Red Army uniform in 1920. One hundred years after they were adopted by Russia's communists, original budyonovkas can today sell for hundreds of dollars, and replicas are now on sale in many of Russia's tourist hotspots.
