When the Russian autocracy collapsed in February 1917, the old "God save the Tsar" was replaced by the French Marseillaise, but in a very free Russian translation.

After the October revolution and all the way up to 1944, the official anthem of Soviet Russia and, later, the Soviet Union was "The International," an emblem of the Soviet Union's commitment to internationalism and world proletarian revolution. The 1938 Hymn of the Bolshevik Party (A.V. Aleksandrov's music to the words by V. Lebedev-Kumach), was to become the foundation of the 1944 Stalinist Hymn of the Soviet Union. The anthem of 1944 was produced by A.V. Aleksandrov. The lyrics were authored by S. Mikhalkov and G.G. El-Registan (edited by Stalin himself). As the Soviet national anthem, it was first publicly performed on 1/1/1944 and officially adopted on 3/15/1944).

After Stalin's death and the de-Stalinization under Khrushchev, the anthem continued to function in its former capacity, but because of the now offensive lyrics, it became a "song sans paroles." In 1977, during the peak of the Leonid Brezhnev era, the lyrics were revised (minor amendations to remove the mention of Stalin), and anthem could be sung once again.

After the collapse of communism, under Boris Yeltsin, the music of Glinka's "Patriotic Song" was declared the national anthem by Presidential decree.

The issue was revived in the early months of Vladimir Putin's presidency. Instead of choosing among various factional versions, he pushed for the adoption of a hybrid set, including some of the sacred Soviet symbols. On December 8, 2000, after much debate and acrimony over competing versions of the "symbolism legislation," the State Duma adopted the music of the old Soviet anthem with the modified text by Sergey Mikhalkov, along with the old Moscovite tsarist double-headed eagle and the reformers' favorite tri-color flag.

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