AHC: Blue the Color of Revolution instead of Red

The color red is commonly associated with socialism and revolution, while the color blue is commonly associated with conservatism and the status quo. How/why did this happen, and is there a PoD that can change it?
 
Probably a medieval PoD.
Red flag was previously associated with "no quarter", or eventually a threat of no quarter fight (both by revolutionaries/rioters and troop in the late XVIIIth)

Of course such a PoD about colour symbolism could have interesting and unforseen allohistorical consequences.
 
Well, red is going to have a lot of association with war and combat in any situation, just by virtue of being the color of human blood.

That being said, let's try to downplay its importance in specifically socialism and revolution a bit. A lot of the potentials here relate to France; you could try making the Garde's riot flag a different color, and/or changing the Parisian symbols. Changing either of these would probably (from my understanding) butterfly the colors used by the Paris Commune (assuming here that colors, or the choices behind them, don't somehow change history themselves), which in turn makes it less likely than socialism.

Again, though, there's a lot of use for red, so it'll probably still be symbolic, just less so than OTL.

Now, as for blue, we can start looking at some of the same PoDs. Blue was already popular in military uniforms by those times (for cost reasons), and had been associated with the American revolution - plus, it was already in use by French uniforms, especially so on the revolutionary side as things continued. It appears (I freely admit that I've been poking around wiki so far, basically as soon as I thought of the Revolution and Paris Commune) that it was associated with revolution until the middle part of the century, when it began to have an association with government authority.


So, taking all of that, I'd say the easiest way to do this is to remove red from the symbols of the French Revolution, by drawing the flag from sources other than Parisian symbols or by giving Paris different symbols (assuming that wouldn't butterfly the Revolution away entirely, somehow). As a result, with red being less important, blue could be picked up with groups being attacked by the Garde and other revolutionaries (in addition to being a symbol of the revolution itself); with this fledgling symbolism, have governments not be too interested in taking on the color of revolution as a symbol of authority, and perhaps brown or gray (because of their low visibility in comparison to red) end up being the OTL symbols of stability and government power.
 
Is red always associated with revolutionaries? I mean, the Continental Army wore blue after all, and didn't the French as well?
 
Is red always associated with revolutionaries? I mean, the Continental Army wore blue after all, and didn't the French as well?

I think the OP is going for socialist revolution more than anything, but yes, traditionally, blue has also been associated with revolution.
 
Red is associated with socialism, blue rather with (republican) revolution.

Remember there were not many heraldic colors, and fewer corresponding to cheap dyes. Strong, durable yellows are expensive, and until the late 19th C. greens faded away quickly. Leaving mostly white, blue and red. Both the 'Stars & Stripes' (but I doubt they were much displayed during the AWI) and the French Trois Couleurs combine both.
I'm unfamiliar with the history of US colors symbolism, but indeed blue was the color of the first 'decent' US Army uniform (red was excluded, being the traditional uniform color of the British Army). And the American Revolution was republican indeed, but socially conservative.
As for France the Trois Couleurs indeed combine the white of royalty with the blue and red of Paris (ironically blue and red were also the older colors of the French royalty, since the 2 French war banners, the lilies on blue Bannière and the flames on red Oriflamme ; blue being the field color of the French coat of arms became the king's color and red the queen's : white came far later, late in the Renaissance iirc, at first as the mark of the king's prsence on the battlefield, later as the mark of a delegation of the king's authority). White really became explicitely the color of royalty only among the Emigrés, Vendéens et Chouans by oppostion to the '3 colors'. This left blue and red as the potential 'revolutionary' / 'republican' colors. Since the uniform of the hereditary enemy, the Englishman, was red the new uniform of the Volontaires Nationaux, then the whole republican infantry, was blue (1). "Les Bleus" became synonymous with 'republicans' during the civil war in Vendée: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYWjSfXspNI

During the "50 the little town in provence I spent my summer holidays in still had 2 marching bands: the "Blancs" (right-wing & devouts) and the "Bleus" (left-wing and skeptical)! Blue being already taken by the (now moderate) republicans, left only red for the 'more radical' socialists; fittingly red, because of its association with blood and red, looks more 'extremist' than blue.

So blue is historically associated with 'republican' and, initially at least with 'revolutionary' (and not specially with peaceful ones, re the Terror). Blue became in some context associated with 'conservatism' (by contrast with 'reactionary' [& often Christian fundamentalist] white, 'socialist' red and 'extremist [both anarchism and some forms of right-wing extremism] black) partly because once settled many republics (and republicans) turn politically and socially more conservative with time (in France the Radicaux ('radical republicans'), the leftmost parlementary group under the early 3rd Republic, are now moderatly right wing): republics become 'the established order'. Parly because of the blue shirts of several 'hard' right wing groups during the Interwar and WWII, but this is ambiguous because many of these groups felt 'revolutionary' ("against the Red and the ploutocrats") and even 'socialist' (Doriot and the militants of his PPF were basically 'communists converted to patriotism').

How -to come back to the OP- could blue become the color associated with 'socialist revolution'? Had the traditional color of the British army be blue, both the 'Continentals' and the French Volontaires would had received red coats, red would mean 'republican' [± soon moderately so], leaving blue for socialism. But in our culture black (by defect of red) have far more 'revolutionary / extremist' appeal than blue, the color of Virgin Mary...
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1 Another consequence is that "bleu" in French came to mean 'newbie / new recruit / beginner' (as 'green' in English) because after the amalgame infantry 'demi-brigades' combined 2 battalions of volunteers in blue coats and 1 battalion of 'professionals' of the old royal army still in white uniforms.
 
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Dorozhand

Banned
I think green would an interesting colour for socialism to adopt

altUSSR.png

altUSSR.png
 
Green as the color socialism? Would make sense (to stay within the traditional 'Western' colors code) since green is associated with the '3rd function', theoretized again by the medieval theologians as the 'Laborantes' ('those who work') and still defining the 'Third Sate' in 1789 France. But green is traditionally more associated with agriculture (Codreanu's Iron Guard -the 'Legion of Archangel Michael'- which had green banners and wore green shirts was a 'rural fascit' movement. So green would probably fit better for an agrarian socialism.
 
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