Red and Black Totalitarianism

"You work for a Sith, as all in the Empire do."

"It was not only the Nazis who could lay on a brilliant funeral for their fallen knights; even the colours were the same: everything was red and black."

— Simon Sebag Montfiore, Stalin: Court of the Red Tsar

In the 1800s and 1900s up to the end of World War II, modern totalitarianism began emerging in forms we'd recognize. While scholars and politicians alike have argued about earlier applications of the concept going back to antiquity such as with the Dynasties from Shang to Qing to the Despotic Utopianism of Paraguay's Dr. Francia or Argentina's "Restorer of Laws" Rosas in the 19th century, this gets more widespread recognition in the leadup to World War I with the emergence of nationalist, expansionist, and fiercely anti-democratic conspiracies in Central and Eastern Europe, such as the CUP in the Ottoman Empire, the "War Socialists" of Erich Ludendorff, Marxist-Leninism in Soviet Russia, the black-clad Fascisti of Italy, and finally a certain political movement starting in Germany that utilized fear, intimidation, hate and division to take power, oppress entire, and ultimately lead Europe into the bloodiest war of the 20th century. The National Bolsheviks came after and were bit players, but unsurprisingly did nothing to lessen the association that would quickly form.

One coincidence is that while many of these different totalitarian ideologies didn't agree on each other with much, they did tend to all adopt Black and Red as common motifs. For Ludendorff and his WWI groupies this might have been a simple case of appropriating the pre-existing color schemes of their nations, such as the centuries old Turkish affinity for Red or Imperial Germany and its marriage of the Black-White Prussian and Red-White Hanseatic influence, while for the outwardly socialist movements red was a consistent color of their ideology and revolutionary leanings since the 18th century. However, it quickly took off from there. While different ideologies and movements tended to emphasize or de-emphasize one or others, the commonalities remained. Ultimately when the Nazi party, led by Adolf Hitler, adopted red and black as their official colors, the shorthand was cemented.

Though the Nazis were ultimately defeated, their influence ultimately prevailed in both its tactics and imagery, not helped by the continued prevalence of the Soviets, who while de-emphasizing (and periodically demonizing) the color black continued to use it, with Francesco Nitti noting even before WWII the prevalence of it in Soviet symbolism, and other historians observing how both Nazis and Soviets would use them both as their dominant color motifs during lavish propaganda spectacles.

In many postwar mediums, an oppressive authoritarian regime's colors are depicted as red and black, with white or silver often employed as an accent color. It doesn't matter if the underlying symbol is a swastika, a cross, or a given tool; this particular color scheme is meant to symbolize that the regime in question is totalitarian and unquestionably the bad guys.

Paraphernalia worn by the regime in question may include pins and ceremonial dress. Flags and banners may be flown depicting the colors as well.

A subtrope to Red and Black and Evil All Over and Dressed to Oppress. Putting on the Reich is also relevant here, for the reasons stated above. Intersects with Red Is Violent and Evil Wears Black when the colors are separated. Contrast Red Is Heroic and White and Red and Eerie All Over for a color swap (though its worth noting that many examples listed here also sprinkle white into their color scheme).

Ironically, certain movements on the opposite end of the political spectrum, like the Anarchist movement, also utilize red and black as their color scheme. These could overlap in the case of certain flavors of Bomb-Throwing Anarchist or Anarcho-Tyranny.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Izetta: The Last Witch: The Germanian Empire, an Alternate Timeline equivalent for Nazi Germany, features a red flag with a black dagger in the middle. While the majority of their soldiers wear dark gray uniforms, their most elite troops, their version of the SS, wear black uniforms with decorations on them, indicating their status as the Kaiser's personal troops and as Elite Mooks. In addition, there's Sophie, a clone of the original White Witch fighting alongside the regular Germanian Army and Air Force, who wears a black cloak while also having red eyes, red-striped clothing, and a red shield-shaped logo on her cloak's right shoulder.
• Mobile Suit Gundam: Given that the Principality of Zeon embodies the worst aspects of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, it's unsurprising to note that their Kriegsmarine-esque flag is coloured in... you guessed it, red, black and white.

Comic Books

• Star Wars: Legacy:
  • Darth Krayt's followers, the One Sith, customarily tattoo their bodies in patterns of red and black. The One Sith are essentially a personality cult that swears utter devotion to their charismatic leader, to the point where Darth Talon's Establishing Character Moment is murdering her own Sith Master despite having feelings for him simply because Krayt ordered her to.
  • Subverted with the Imperial Knights. They wear distinctive red and black armored uniforms and swear devotion to the Fel Dynasty that rules the Galactic Empire, but despite the Empire being introduced as antagonists and the franchise typically leaning on Color-Coded for Your Convenience, they're actually a Jedi splinter sect founded by the royal family's matriarch Jaina Solo. While the Imperial Knights are devoted bodyguards to Emperor Roan and Princess Marasiah, part of their remit also includes stopping them from falling to the dark side, up to and including lethal force if necessary.
• Superman from Superman: Red Son uses a grey, black and red suit in place of the mainline superman's blue and red, and fights "for Stalin, Communism, and the expansion of the Warsaw Pact" as an extension of the Soviet government.

Fan Works

• In Never Say Goodbye, pages dealing with the radical political factions that oppose Judy's pro-equality policies are Deliberately Monochrome with a red Splash of Color. These groups are treated as the Zootopia equivalent of the alt-right, and the white, black, and red coloring of these pages can easily remind the reader of Nazi Germany's color scheme. These factions are also shown to use red, white, and black in their iconography.

Films — Live-Action

• Captain America: The First Avenger: HYDRA, and by extension the Nazi regime, make heavy use of red and black on their uniforms and imagery. The HYDRA emblem itself is usually depicted as a red skull and tentacles logo surrounded by a black background. Even after Schmidt splits HYDRA off from the Nazis in secret, they retain the red and black, not helped by the fact that Schmidt himself has a red Skull for a Head.
• In the 1984 film adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four, the Ingsoc Party, the authoritarian political party of Oceania, has a flag that is black, red, and white.
• Richard III is set in an Alternate History in which Britain goes fascist in the 1930s. Naturally, this trope is in full force.
• Star Wars: The antagonists for all three trilogies are designated as red and black.
  • In the original Trilogy, the Galactic Empire
  • In the prequel trilogy, the Sith Order
  • In the sequel series, the First Order
• V for Vendetta: The Norsefire Party adopts the red and black color scheme, as seen in Chancellor Sutler's televised appearances and archive footage of when they take power in England. Note this is an Adaptation Deviation: in the original graphic novel, the party's colors were blue and white.

Live-Action TV

• In Crisis on Earth-X, the villains Overgirl and Dark Arrow (Earth-X's Nazi counterparts of Supergirl and Green Arrow), wear black costumes with red details. Eobard Thawne joined them as Dark Flash, adding a bit of black to his yellow and red costume and changing his black-and-red Chest Insignia to make it similar to the logo of the Nazi organization Schutzstaffel (SS).
• Farscape: The Peacekeepers, who are The Empire in the show, have red and black uniforms and interior decor. Their insignia is based on a rather famous Russian Civil War-era communist propaganda poster, Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge, which depicts a red wedge penetrating a white circle (white being the color of the Russian anticommunist coalition).
• Star Trek: Picard: In the Alternate Timeline that Q creates in Season 2, the fascistic and xenophobic Confederation of Earth adopts a red and black color scheme, with the military wearing all black uniforms.

Literature

• Most covers of Hannah Arend's non-fiction book The Origins of Totalitarianism, which analyzes Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, are red, black, and white, using the same colors as the Third Reich.

Music

• In The Wall, a red and black "crossed hammers" logo is associated with the unnamed fascist regime that Pink imagines himself as the leader of during the album's fourth side; the gatefold interior additionally depicts these hammers marching in goose-step. The film adaptation accentuates this further, showing the regime's members donning and flying red and black colors everywhere they go, punctuated by animated renditions of the marching hammers.
• Yellow Magic Orchestra had a fondness for incorporating totalitarian imagery into their image without adhering to either far-left or far-right ideologies. In particular, the Concert Film Propaganda features the band parodying both fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, donning black military uniforms with red shirts and armbands. A parody of the Nazi flag with silhouettes of the band in place of a swastika also prominently appears in the film's sets.

Tabletop Games

• BattleTech has the Draconis Combine, represented by a black dragon on a blood red field with silver accents. They are by far the most militant of the Great Houses and also the most totalitarian, being an explicit dictatorship where everything is directed at the whim of the ruling Kurita family and the Coordinator in particular. Their laws are among the harshest in the setting and it is often said that Combine citizens have no rights, only duties. This briefly improves during the reigns of more enlightened rulers, such as Theodore Kurita and his son Hohiro, but it rarely lasts long before another Coordinator goes off the deep end into complete authoritarianism.
• Averted in Magic: The Gathering. Factions that wear black and red tend to be closely associated with the matching colours of mana, a combination that tends to push a kind of selfish, chaotic individualism rather than authoritarianism per se (which is more strongly associated with white mana). As an example, the Cult of Rakdos on Ravnica, who wear a lot of red and black and/or black with bloodstains, are more along the lines of a thrill-killing demon cult that doubles as the entertainment industry than any kind of centralised power - still not necessarily a net positive, especially with all the murders, but not all that totalitarian.
• Warhammer 40,000: While the Imperium of Man as a whole - the viewpoint faction, but still a fascist theocracy - uses a wide array of colours across its countless subfactions, and the Emperor himself loved Gold Coloured Superiority almost as much as he loved making terrible parenting decisions, the colours of black and red are noticeably associated with the Inquisition.

Video Games

• Bionic Commando (1988) has the "Badds" forces with a distinct red, white, and black color scheme. Generalissimo Killt wears a Commissar Cap and johdpurs, while his Mooks wear jackboots and stahlhelms. Most of the rank and file waver between being militant assholes and being incompetent buffoons. Killt is obsessed with Superweapons and conquest. This looks like a case of Putting on the Reich until you learn that its Japanese name for the NES game was "Top Secret: The Revival of Hitler," explaining why the game's final boss is blatantly just Hitler—the bad guys in Top Secret were basically Nazi remnants.
• The Russian Ultranationalists in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare seek to return to the "glory days" of the totalitarian USSR and combine this trope with Dirty Commies, blending a black and red color scheme with Soviet iconography. Even their urban camouflage is black and red.
  • Continued in Call Of Duty Infinite Warfare with the Settlement Defense Front, genocidally expansionist Zabi expies.
• In the Command & Conquer: Tiberian Series, the Brotherhood of Nod sports a red-black color scheme which fits their nature as an apocalyptic cult hell-bent on transforming the entire world with Tiberium. They are also described as being joined in by both neo-fascist and anarchist groups alike, traditional customers of such color scheme.
• Taking the Order route in Frostpunk increasingly plays this trope straight as the player descends further and further into authoritarianism. Bonus points for the logo proper being white on a red-black banner for the full colour ensemble.
• Superman's One Earth Regime from the Injustice universe of Injustice: Gods Among Us, while the heroes that represent it keep their original colors, very much has the red-and-black motif going for its soldiers, and even has a flag◊ that is predominantly red and black, with white and yellow as its complementary colors.
• Killzone: The symbology of the Helghast Empire is full of red and black. From being the 2 primary colours of the Helghast Triad, to the iconic uniform of their troops. All black Nazi like uniforms, complemented with gas masks with sinister glowing red eyes.
• Papers, Please has Arstotzka, a Commie Land whose color schemes contain shades of red, black, and gray, and its regime is chronicled by a border patrol agent.
• The Duty faction from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is a group of hardcore militarists exercising extreme discipline & fanaticism for their goals to safeguard the entire world from the Zone by purging the mutants emerging there and eventually annihilating the Zone itself. They sport a red-black color scheme derived from popular colors of local far-right adherents dating back from the Ukrainian Insurgent Army since WWII.
• Star Wars: The Old Republic: The Sith Empire's color palette uses a lot of blacks, dark grays, and reds, in contrast to the golds, whites, and blues of the Galactic Republic. This is exemplified by two of the default Imperial-exclusive playable races, red-skinned Sith Purebloods and Zabraks (Republic-affiliated Zabraks have more natural-looking brown skin tones). And the Empire is definitely totalitarian: as the Sith Warrior PC can observe to their companion Vette if they free her, everyone in the Empire, whether slave or free, works for at least one Sith.
• Stellaris: The xenophobic Commonwealth of Man is a military dictatorship that has a red and black in its logo. The same colors are used by the Tzynn Empire, a slaving absolutist police state.
• Valkyria Chronicles:
  • In the first game, the East Europan Imperial Alliance, which, tellingly enough, is referred to as "The Empire", has black and red abundant in their uniforms and sigils, but also incorporate gold highlights, which represents their nobility and elitism.
  • This is continued in Valkyria Chronicles II with the Gallian Revolutionary Army representing reactionary anti-Darcsen racists.
• Warframe: While the basic Grineer troops aren't associated with any specific color palette, the queens and their elite Kuva guard use red and black coloration, representing their goal of purging the system from all non-Grineer life.
• XCOM 2: The ADVENT Administration, the totalitarian regime ruling Earth after it was successfully invaded by the aliens, predominantly uses red and black in its symbols and equipment. This stands in contrast with the heroic XCOM, which uses blue.

Web Original

• gen:LOCK: The Union is a theocracy that aims to save people via religiously-induced suicide. They heavily favor blacks and reds, but as their motivations are explored they get increasingly associated with gold as well.
• Gridiron Heights: When Patrick Mahomes takes over Gridiron Heights, the buildings are adorned with the Chiefs red and white arrowhead logo and the refs are dressed in red and black suits with red striped motorcycle helmets.
• In Look to the West, the various Jacobin Rebellions that swept across Europe all created their new flag by turning the existing flag upside down and recolouring it in red and black.
• Stellaris Invicta: The flag of the Greater Terran Union has a predominantly red and black coloration (with some white added in for flavor).

Western Animation

• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • The Fire Nation uses a red and black color scheme, as shown on the air balloons that the Mechanist is forced to create in Avatar: The Last Airbender. By the time of The Legend of Korra and the more benevolent rules of Fire Lords Zuko and Izumi, the Fire Nation tends to be more primarily associated with a darker red and a muted gold to show their distance from the authoritarian regimes of Fire Lords Sozin, Azulon, and Ozai.
  • Though starting off as freedom fighters, the Equalists quickly turn authoritarian at the end of the first season of The Legend of Korra. Always using black and red, they deface public monuments in manners eerily similar to real life tyrannical regimes.
  • Inverted by the Red Lotus, which are associated with black and red but are thoroughly anarchical.
• Disenchantment: When Dagmar and Satan take over Dreamland, the castle is adorned with red and black posters depicting her face, and the guards are outfitted in black.
• Rick and Morty: In "Edge of Tomorty: Rick, Die, Repeat", when Rick dies and Operation Phoenix reroutes him to other universes, those universes turn out to be fascist empires, complete with red and black flags and symbols.
• Solar Opposites:
  • The Duke's oppressive reign as leader of The Wall is symbolized by red, black, and white posters depicting an eye and the words, "The Duke's mercy is our honor".
  • Subverted when Sister Sisto takes control of the Bowinian Church and uses it as a vehicle to take over the Wall, as she, her devotees, and her guards all wear pink, white, and silver.
• Star Trek: Lower Decks: The planet taken over by AGIMUS, the megalomaniacal computer with a network of drones, is symbolized with red and black and white banners depicting the computer's likeness. When he takes over a second planet, this is updated to include Peanut Hamper the Exocomp's likeness.
• What If…? (2021): In "What If Captain Carter Were The First Avenger?", HYDRA and the Nazis still make heavy use of reds and blacks, much like in the main timeline. The main difference here is that the HYDRA emblem is now a black skull and tentacles in a white circle surrounded by red, more closely resembling the Nazi German flag.

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