The melody comes from the State Anthem of the Soviet Union, adopted in 1944 with music by Alexander Alexandrov and lyrics by Sergey Mikhalkov and Gabriel El-Registan. A revised version was used from 1977 until the USSR dissolved in 1991, and the same music later returned as the Russian national anthem in 2000. Online, the anthem became a meme shorthand for communism, collective ownership and exaggerated state pride, often paired with hammer and sickle imagery, which keeps this short clip in regular use.