A communist deputy in parliament, Oleg Shenkaryov, has come up with a novel attempt to undermine President Boris Yeltsin: a draft law making Russia's flag red again.


Shenkaryov's draft, which was due to go before the State Duma on Wednesday but was held over for lack of time, proposes that Russia should have a red flag with a hammer and sickle in the top left corner, a state emblem of a hammer and sickle amongst wheatsheaves and a national anthem "based on the Hymn of the U.S.S.R."


In his preamble to the law, Shenkaryov craftily makes no mention of the communist roots of his proposed symbols. He notes that "flags with a red color have been well known in Russia since the ninth century," and that the stirring melody of Alexander Alexandrov's Hymn of the U.S.S.R. "is universally known, any citizen can sing it."


Shenkaryov does not propose keeping the words of the Stalin-era anthem which glorify the "unshakeable union of free republics" of the Soviet Union. He suggests a competition could be declared for new words.


Yeltsin has issued decrees making a passage by Glinka the national anthem, without words; a double-headed eagle the state emblem; and the pre-revolutionary red, white and blue flag the state flag. But the constitution says these new state symbols must be confirmed in law.


Shenkaryov, however, will need a whole wave of Soviet nostalgia -- 300 votes in favor -- to get his amendment to the constitution through the Duma.