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Anarcho-Syndicalism

Red and black diagonal flag of Anarchism

image by António Martins, 8 August 2004

Overview
Variants
Non-diagonal variant

See also:

External sites:

Why the red-and-black flag? (part of An Anarchist FAQ)

Overview

Red and black is most commonly used by anarcho-syndicalists, anarcho-communists, and libertarian-left unions or labour activists.
Matthias Speer, 5 February 2003

First used by anarchists during the Spanish Civil War: The red flag of socialism (Confederación Nacional del Trabajo) and the black flag of anarchism (Federación Anarquista Ibérica). The red and black colours are also often used by the syndicalism movement [trade unionism].
Marcus Wendel, 16 August 1999

The red and black flag goes from bottom left to top right, with red on top and black on bottom. The red is the red of the communist flag, and symbolises material equality, or the principle of "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs." The black is the black of the anarchist flag, and symbolises social freedom, the freedom of each individual to do as they please so long as their actions don't cause harm to others. Together red and black symbolise libertarian communism. It goes diagonally as a negation of nationalism and a reaffirmation of internationalism.
Ben, 2 February 2000

The red over black diagonal is most used as anarchist flag in Denmark.
Ole Andersen, 14 August 1999

Not in Portugal: The only anarchist flag I've seen around here was the black flag with encircled "A".
Jorge Candeias, 16 August 1999

Variants

image by António Martins, 8 August 2004

At www.infoshop.org/faq/, there is another design of anarchist flag, with the red-black partition in the other diagonal.
João Madureira, 29 April 2003

It's not a case of unadverted flipping or turning of a flag cloth image, as the image at www.infoshop.org/faq/flag.gif shows red over black with diagonal from top hoist to lower fly.
António Martins, 8 August 2004

image by Tomislav Todorović, 15 February 2015

Anarchist diagonal flags may also have black field above red one. Such flags, parted diagonally from bottom hoist to top fly, were seen in Krakow, Poland, at the anti-NATO protests on 19 February 2009 and in London, at the protests against the G20 on 28 March 2009. They were seen again at the anarchist demonstrations in Russia on 23 December 2012, which took place in Irkutsk [3], Kirov [4, 5], Moscow [6, 7, 8], St Petersburg [9] and Ufa [10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15]. More recently, they were seen in Istanbul in 2013, during the Gezi Park protests [16].
Tomislav Todorović, 15 February 2015

image by Tomislav Todorović, 15 February 2015

Black-above-red diagonal flags, parted from top hoist to bottom fly, were seen in London, at the protests against the G20 on 28 March 2009 [2]. They were seen again in Istanbul, at the May 1st demonstrations [17], and at the anarchist demonstrations in Russia on 23 December 2012, which took place in Irkutsk [18, 19], St Petersburg [20, 21] and Ufa [10, 11, 13, 22]. More recently, they were seen in Ankara, Turkey, in 2013, at the 1 May demonstrations [23, 24, 25, 26].
Tomislav Todorović, 15 February 2015

Non-diagonal variant

image by Marcus Schmöger, 10 May 2002

In the 1 May 2002 demonstration in Münich, a simple black over red bicolour was also shown.
Marcus Schmöger, 10 May 2002

This flag was also seen in Riverside, California on 26 September 2009, during the protests against the rally of National Socialist Movement, as shown here.
Tomislav Todorović, 26 December 2015

The red-black horizontal and dimensional variant was also historically used by the FSLN - Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, sometimes with the "FSLN" lettering superimposed.
Todd Schneider, 26 December 2015

image by Tomislav Todorović, 1 May 2022

The flag is also used with reversed colors. Such an arrangement was seen on a flag which was used during the 1 May demonstrations in Bursa, Turkey, in 2012. The photo is available here: http://bursa-anarsistkarnaval.blogspot.com/2012/05/1-mays-coskusu-isyanla-harmanland.html(image: https://imgur.com/Gk7Ad) and it reveals that the flag was nearly square.
Tomislav Todorović, 1 May 2022