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League of Communists of Slovenia - Party of Democratic Renewal (Political party, Slovenia)

Zveza komunistov Slovenije - Stranka demokratične prenove - ZKS

Flag of ZKS, 1990 - Image by Tomislav Todorović & Mladen Mijatov, 13 March 2008

Presentation of ZKS
Flag of ZKS
Subsequent political flags influenced by the ZKS flag

See also:

Slovenia

Presentation of ZKS

On 23 January 1990, the delegates of the League of Communists of Slovenia departed from the 14th Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (in further text: LCY), after their proposal for the transformation of the LCY into a confederacy of parties from the constituent Republics of Yugoslavia - "League of the Leagues", as they called it - had been rejected by the majority of other delegates.
On 4 February 1990, the League of Communists of Slovenia officially broke away from the LCY. At the same time, the party name was changed to League of Communists of Slovenia - Party of Democratic Renewal (Zveza komunistov Slovenije - Stranka demokratične prenove).

Tomislav Todorović, 13 March 2008

Flag of ZKS

A new flag was adopted after the renaming of the party, which was completely different from the previous one: as shown in the daily newspapers Borba and Politika, 5 February 1990, the flag was blue with a yellow star in canton and a green stripe in bottom fly corner, and the white letters "ZKS" inscribed in white above the green stripe. The letters were explained not only as the party name initials, but also as the abbreviations of two mottoes: Za korjenite spremembe ("For radical changes") and Za konfederalno Slovenijo ("For a confederal Slovenia"), expressing the party's intention to transform the society from Communism into a modern democracy and to demand the transformation of Yugoslavia into a confederacy (Borba, 5 February 1990).

Detail of the EVROPA ZDAJ poster, 1989 - Image by Tomislav Todorović & Mladen Mijatov, 13 March 2008

This design was not new to the party, because a very similar pattern had appeared in November 1989, on the posters for the 11th Congress of the League of Communists of Slovenia, which took place in December that year. These had blue field with a large blue rectangle outlined white and charged with the following: a yellow star in the top left-hand corner; a green stripe, separated from the field by a white fimbriation, in the bottom right-hand quarter, slightly beneath the midline; and the motto EVROPA ZDAJ ("Europe now"), inscribed in white above the stripe. The proportions of the whole pattern differed from that of the subsequent flag and the colour shades were lighter as well.
Above the whole pattern, the words "11th Congress of the League of Communists of Slovenia" (in Slovene) were inscribed in white (not shown in the above image, as being irrelevant for the subject). The official explanation of the poster's symbolism was that blue field stood for working on improvement of the quality of life, green stripe - for the care for the environment, and yellow star - for the cease of the continuity with the past.

Tomislav Todorović, 13 March 2008

Subsequent political flags influenced by the ZKS flag

The flag based on this design remained in use until the beginning of November 1990, although the party name was shortened to the Party of Democratic Renewal in the meantime; this was certainly enabled by existence of several alternative explanations of the inscription; then, at the Nova Gorica Congress on 3-4 November 1990 (named after the town where it took place, the ordinal number - 12th - being intentionally dropped to mark the cease of the continuity with the past), the party was renamed Social Democratic Renewal of Slovenia (Socialdemokratska prenova Slovenije) and a new flag was adopted, with the red field and the flag of European Union in the canton (Novi forum, fortnightly magazine, 9 November 1990).

Although this "post-Communist" flag was used for a rather short time, the impact of its symbolism can be traced up to the present day: a yellow star, between a red heart and a green leaf, appeared on blue field as the logo and flag of United List of Social Democrats (Združena lista socialnih demokratov), the party formed by the fusion of Social Democratic Renewal of Slovenia and two other parties in 1993, and was included into its new logo after it had been renamed Social Democrats (Socialni demokrati) in 2005.
The flag has also inspired the designs of several other flags and flag proposals, in Slovenia as well as in other parts of the then Yugoslavia. The described poster for the 11th Congress of the League of Communists of Slovenia has recently inspired another one with a similar pattern, which can be seen at the website of Youth Forum (image no longer online), the youth organization of the Social Democrats (Mladi forum).

Tomislav Todorović, 13 March 2008