Why is the dative used in "и красному знамени" in the Soviet anthem?

Question

I'm trying to understand why the dative is used here (last verse of the 1977 Soviet anthem):

В победе бессмертных идей коммунизма
Мы видим грядущее нашей страны
И Красному знамени славной Отчизны
Мы будем всегда беззаветно верны!

This line and the one above translates (roughly) to:

We see the future of our country and the red banner of the glorious homeland.

I can only understand that the dative is used for indirect objects, so the accusative is more appropriate here. Can anyone explain why it's dative here?

Answer 1

I think your confusion comes from trying to parse it as you would an English sentence with a subject-verb-object word order. Also, in your text, there's a missing comma before the conjunction и, which doesn't help. If it was there, you would see more clearly that this is a compound sentence which is made up of two independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction и (and):

В победе бессмертных идей коммунизма мы видим грядущее нашей страны, и Красному знамени славной Отчизны мы будем всегда беззаветно верны!

In Russian, word order in sentences isn't fixed. Красному знамени belongs to the second clause, not the first. So in the second clause, you have the object Красному знамени, followed by the subject мы, followed by the predicate будем верны. If we reorder it to SVO, that's: "мы будем верны Красному знамени", and знамени is the indirect object here.

Answer 2

Your translation is wrong, the stanza literally translates to this:

In the victory of the immortal ideas of Communism
We see the future of our country,
And to the Red Banner of the glorious fatherland
We will be always wholeheartedly faithful.

Answer 3

You are parsing it wrong. Красному знамени here is an indirect object of верны, meaning faithful. We are faithful to the red banner. Верны красному знамени.