Flag of Switzerland The use of the Swiss flag or coat of arms on merchandise is technically prohibited by the 1931 Federal Act for the protection of public coats of arms and other public insignia, but that prohibition is not enforced. The Red Cross symbol used by the International Committee of the Red Cross, a red cross on white background, was the original protection symbol declared at the first Geneva Convention, the Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field of 1864. According to the ICRC the design was based on the Swiss flag by reversing
Flag of the Soviet Union statute on the flag was adopted which resulted in a change of the hammer's handle length and the shape of the sickle. A final modification to the flag was adopted in 1980 in which the colour was brightened to a lighter shade of red. The flag continued to be the official national flag until the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Its imagery is now the basis for the flags of many communist parties: a yellow hammer and sickle on a red background. The flag of the Soviet Union consisted of a plain red flag with a gold hammer crossed with