In the paper, we analyse the rankings of the most common colour adjectives used in Russian literature of the early twentieth century and explore the degree of variation over particular periods and authors. Our study draws on the Russian Short Story Corpus (1900–1930) which includes a few thousand short stories produced by hundreds of writers who lived in Russia (and later, in the Soviet Union) at the time. Another source is the frequency dictionaries compiled earlier from the short stories by four prominent Russian writers. Additionally, we use data on colour term rankings in the Silver Age poetry. The analysis of the use of colour terms in the short stories has revealed that although the individual differences may range high, on the average, the intra-group rankings remain largely unaffected by the changing political context. However, the latter can contribute to the activation of the whole group, moving its members up the list in the overall rank distribution. A comparison of the colour term rankings in the poetry and prose written by the same author has shown significant differences which may be attributable to the literary genre.