Coat of arms of the Soviet Union

The state coat of arms of the Soviet Union (Russian: Государственный герб СССР) was adopted in 1924 and used until the collapse of the Union in 1991. Technically speaking, it is an emblem rather than a coat of arms, since it doesn't respect heraldical rules. Neverthless, in Russian it was always called герб, the word used for a traditional coat of arms.

The coat of arms shows the traditional Soviet emblems of the hammer and sickle and the Red Star over a globe, and two wreaths of wheat covered by the USSR State motto in the official languages of the Soviet Republics, in the reverse order they were mentioned in the Constitution of the USSR. The version used in 1991 had therefore the state motto in 15 languages, since the removal of the Finnish version with the downgrading of the Karelo-Finnish SSR into a mere ASSR of the Russian SFSR in 1956.

Each Soviet Republic (SSR) and Autonomous Soviet Republic (ASSR) had its own coat of arms, largely inspirated in the coat of arms of the Union.