Soviet calendar
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The Soviet calendar was a modified
Gregorian calendar The Gregorian calendar is the calendar used in most parts of the world. It was introduced in October 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII as a modification of, and replacement for, the Julian calendar. The principal change was to space leap years dif ...
that was used in
Soviet Russia The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...
between 1918 and 1940. Several variations were used during that time. The Gregorian calendar, under the name "Western European calendar", was implemented in Soviet Russia in February 1918 by dropping the Julian dates of . As many as nine national holidays (paid days of rest) were implemented in the following decade, but four were eliminated or merged on , leaving only five national holidays: 22January, 1–2May, and 7–8November until 1951, when 22January reverted to a normal day. During the summer of 1929, five-day continuous work weeks were implemented in factories, government offices, and commercial enterprises, but not collective farms. One of the five days was randomly assigned to each worker as their day of rest, without regard to the rest days assigned to their family members or friends. These five-day work weeks continued throughout the Gregorian year, interrupted only by the five national holidays. While the five-day week was used for scheduling work, the Gregorian calendar and its seven-day week were used for all other purposes. During the summer of 1931, six-day interrupted work weeks were implemented for most workers, with a common day of rest for all workers interrupting their work weeks. Five six-day work weeks were assigned to each Gregorian month, more or less, with the five national holidays converting normal work days into days of rest. On five- and six-day work weeks were abandoned in favor of seven-day work weeks.


History


Gregorian calendar

The Gregorian calendar was implemented in Russia on by dropping the Julian dates of pursuant to a
Sovnarkom The Councils of People's Commissars (SNK; russian: Совет народных комиссаров (СНК), ''Sovet narodnykh kommissarov''), commonly known as the ''Sovnarkom'' (Совнарком), were the highest executive authorities of ...
decree signed (Julian) by
Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...
. The decree required that the Julian date was to be written in parentheses after the Gregorian date until All surviving examples of physical calendars from show the irregular month lengths of the Gregorian calendar (such as those displayed here). Most calendars displayed all the days of a Gregorian year as a grid with seven rows or columns for the traditional seven-day week with Sunday (Воскресенье; "Resurrection") first. The 1931 pocket calendar displayed here is a rare example that excluded the five
national holidays National holiday may refer to: * National day, a day when a nation celebrates a very important event in its history, such as its establishment *Public holiday A public holiday, national holiday, or legal holiday is a holiday generally establishe ...
, enabling the remaining 360 days of the Gregorian year to be displayed as a grid with five rows labeled for each day of the five-day week.ИЗ ИСТОРИИ ОТЕЧЕСТВЕННОГО КАРМАННОГО КАЛЕНДАРЯ by Дмитрий Малявин
("Calendar stories from reforms in the USSR" by Dmitry Malyavin) Does not mention colors, only numbers.
Even it had the full Gregorian calendar on the other side.


Work weeks

During the second half of May 1929,
Yuri Larin Yuri may refer to: People and fictional characters Given name *Yuri (Slavic name), the Slavic masculine form of the given name George, including a list of people with the given name Yuri, Yury, etc. *Yuri (Japanese name), also Yūri, feminine Jap ...
( Юрий Ларин, 1882–1932) proposed a continuous production week (''nepreryvnaya rabochaya nedelya'' = ''nepreryvka'') to the Fifth
Congress of Soviets The Congress of Soviets was the supreme governing body of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and several other Soviet republics from 1917 to 1936 and a somewhat similar Congress of People's Deputies from 1989 to 1991. After the crea ...
of the Union, but so little attention was paid to his suggestion that the president of the Congress did not even mention it in his final speech. By the beginning of , Larin had won the approval of
Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
, prompting all newspapers to praise the idea. The change was advantageous to the anti-religious movement, as Sundays and religious holidays became working days. On the Supreme Economic Council of the
RSFSR The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...
directed its efficiency experts to submit within two weeks a plan to introduce continuous production. Before any plan was available, during the first half of , 15% of industry had converted to continuous production according to Larin, probably an overestimate. On the
Council of People's Commissars The Councils of People's Commissars (SNK; russian: Совет народных комиссаров (СНК), ''Sovet narodnykh kommissarov''), commonly known as the ''Sovnarkom'' (Совнарком), were the highest executive authorities of ...
(CPC) of the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
(Sovnarkom) declared "it is essential that the systematically prepared transition of undertakings and institutions to continuous production should begin during the economic year ".Gary Cross, ''Worktime and industrialization'' (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988) 202–205. The lengths of continuous production weeks were not yet specified, and the conversion was only to ''begin during the year''. Nevertheless, many sources state that the effective date of five-day weeks was which was the beginning of the economic year. But many other lengths of continuous work weeks were used, all of which were gradually introduced.


Implementation of continuous production weeks

Specific lengths for continuous production weeks were first mentioned when rules for the five-day continuous work week were issued on . On building construction and seasonal trades were put on a continuous six-day week, while factories that regularly halted production every month for maintenance were put on six- or seven-day continuous production weeks. In , it was reported that about 50 different versions of the continuous work week were in use, the longest being a 'week' of 37 days (30 continuous days of work followed by seven days of rest). By the end of 1929, orders were issued that the continuous week was to be extended to 43% of industrial workers by and to 67% by . Actual conversion was more rapid, 63% by . In it was decreed that the conversion of all industries was to be completed during the economic year , except for the textile industry. But on peak usage was reached, with 72.9% of industrial workers on continuous schedules. Thereafter, usage decreased. All of these official figures were somewhat inflated because some factories said they adopted the continuous week without actually doing so. The continuous week was applied to retail and government workers as well, but no usage figures were ever published.Solomon M. Schwarz, ''Labor in the Soviet Union'' (New York: Praegar, 1951) 258–277. The continuous week began as a five-day cycle, with each day color-coded and marked with a symbol. The population would be carved up into as many groups, each with its own rest day. These circles indicated when you worked and when you rested.


Implementation of six-day weeks

As early as May 1930, while usage of the continuous week was still advancing, some factories reverted to an interrupted week. On , one of the largest factories in the Soviet Union was put on an interrupted six-day week ( Шестидневка = ''shestidnevka''). On , Stalin condemned the continuous work week as then practiced, supporting the temporary use of the interrupted six-day week (one common rest day for all workers) until the problems with the continuous work week could be resolved. During , most factories were put on an interrupted six-day week as the result of an interview with the People's Commissar for Labor, who severely restricted the use of the continuous week. The official conversion to non-continuous schedules was decreed by the Sovnarkom of the
USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
somewhat later, on .Elisha M. Friedman, ''Russia in transition: a business man's appraisal'' (New York: Viking Press, 1932) 260–262. Institutions serving cultural and social needs and those enterprises engaged in continuous production such as ore
smelting Smelting is a process of applying heat to ore, to extract a base metal. It is a form of extractive metallurgy. It is used to extract many metals from their ores, including silver, iron, copper, and other base metals. Smelting uses heat and a ch ...
were exempted. It is often stated that the effective date of the interrupted six-day work week was but that is only the first whole month after the 'official conversion'. The massive summer 1931 conversion made this date after-the-fact and some industries continued to use continuous weeks. The last figures available indicate that on 74.2% of all industrial workers were on non-continuous schedules (almost all six-day weeks) while 25.8% were still on continuous schedules. Due to a decree dated , the traditional interrupted seven-day week with Sunday as the common day of rest was reintroduced on .


Five-day weeks

Each day of the five-day week was labeled by either one of five colors or a
Roman numeral Roman numerals are a numeral system that originated in ancient Rome and remained the usual way of writing numbers throughout Europe well into the Late Middle Ages. Numbers are written with combinations of letters from the Latin alphabet, eac ...
from I to V. Each worker was assigned a color or number to identify his or her day of rest. Eighty percent of each factory's workforce was at work every day (except holidays) in an attempt to increase production while 20% were resting. But if a husband and wife, and their relatives and friends, were assigned different colors or numbers, they would not have a common rest day for their family and social life. Furthermore, machines broke down more frequently both because they were used by workers not familiar with them, and because no maintenance could be performed on machines that were never idle in factories with continuous schedules (24 hours/day every day). Five-day weeks (and later six-day weeks) "made it impossible to observe Sunday as a day of rest. This measure was deliberately introduced 'to facilitate the struggle to eliminate
religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...
'".Nicolas Werth, ''The Black Book of Communism'' (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1999) 172. The colors vary depending on the source consulted. The 1930 color calendar displayed here has days of purple, blue, yellow, red, and green, in that order beginning .Clive Foss, "Stalin's topsy-turvy work week", ''History Today'' 54/9 (September 2004) 46–47. Blue was supported by an anonymous writer in 1936 as the second day of the week, but he stated that red was the first day of the week.The Riga correspondent of the London Times, "Russian experiments", ''Journal of Calendar Reform'' 6 (1936) 69–71. However, most sources replace blue with either or peach,
Eviatar Zerubavel Eviatar Zerubavel (born 1948) is professor of sociology at Rutgers University, a specialist in the sociology of cognition and everyday life, including topics such as time, boundaries, and categorization. Biography Zerubavel is a grandson of ...
, "The Soviet five-day ''Nepreryvka''", ''The seven-day circle'' (New York: Free press, 1985) 35–43.
all of which specify the different order yellow, pink/orange/peach, red, purple, and green.


Six-day weeks

From the summer of 1931 until , each ''Gregorian month'' was usually divided into five six-day weeks, more and less (as shown by the 1933 and 1939 calendars displayed here). The sixth day of each week was a uniform day off for all workers, that is days 6, 12, 18, 24, and 30 of each month. The last day of 31-day months was always an extra work day in factories, which, when combined with the first five days of the following month, made six successive work days. But some commercial and government offices treated the 31st day as an extra day off. To make up for the short fifth week of February, was a uniform day off followed by four successive work days in the first week of . The partial last week of February had four work days in common years and five work days in leap years . But some enterprises treated as a regular work day, producing nine or ten successive work days between and , inclusive. The dates of the five national holidays did not change, but they now converted five regular work days into holidays within three six-day weeks rather than splitting those weeks into two parts (none of these holidays was on a "sixth day").


National holidays

On 10 December 1918 six
Bolshevik The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
holidays were decreed during which work was prohibited.Irina Shilova
"Building the Bolshevik calendar through ''Pravda'' and ''Izvestiia''"
, ''
Toronto Slavic Quarterly The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...
'' No. 19 (Winter 2007). She named the holidays associated with five- and six-day weeks the "Stalin calendar" to distinguish them from the holidays of the previous eleven years, which she called the "Bolshevik calendar".
* 1 January – New Year's Day * 22 January – Day of 9 January 1905 *: Commemorates
Bloody Sunday Bloody Sunday may refer to: Historical events Canada * Bloody Sunday (1923), a day of police violence during a steelworkers' strike for union recognition in Sydney, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia * Bloody Sunday (1938), police violence aga ...
on 9 January 1905 (Julian) or 22 January 1905 (Gregorian) * 12 March – Day of the Overthrow of the Autocracy *: Commemorates the mutiny of the
Imperial Guard An imperial guard or palace guard is a special group of troops (or a member thereof) of an empire, typically closely associated directly with the Emperor or Empress. Usually these troops embody a more elite status than other imperial forces, in ...
s (about 60,000 soldiers) in Petrograd (now
Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
) on (Julian) or (Gregorian) during the
February Revolution The February Revolution ( rus, Февра́льская револю́ция, r=Fevral'skaya revolyutsiya, p=fʲɪvˈralʲskəjə rʲɪvɐˈlʲutsɨjə), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and somet ...
* 18 March – Day of the
Paris Commune The Paris Commune (french: Commune de Paris, ) was a revolutionary government that seized power in Paris, the capital of France, from 18 March to 28 May 1871. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the French National Guard had defended ...
*: Commemorates the uprising of the
National Guard National Guard is the name used by a wide variety of current and historical uniformed organizations in different countries. The original National Guard was formed during the French Revolution around a cadre of defectors from the French Guards. Nat ...
of
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
on (Gregorian) which established the Paris Commune * 1 May – Day of the International *: Celebration within Russia and later the Soviet Union of
International Workers' Day International Workers' Day, also known as Labour Day in some countries and often referred to as May Day, is a celebration of labourers and the working classes that is promoted by the international labour movement and occurs every year on 1 May, ...
* 7 November – Day of the
Proletarian Revolution A proletarian revolution or proletariat revolution is a social revolution in which the working class attempts to overthrow the bourgeoisie and change the previous political system. Proletarian revolutions are generally advocated by socialists ...
*: Commemorates the
Bolshevik The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
uprising on 25 October 1917 (Julian) or 7 November 1917 (Gregorian) In January 1925, the anniversary of Lenin's death in 1924 was added on . Although other events were commemorated on other dates, they were not days of rest. Originally, the "May holidays" and "November holidays" were one day each ( and ), but both were extended from one to two days in 1928, making and public holidays as well. Until 1929, regional labor union councils or local governments were authorized to set up additional public holidays, totaling to up to 10 days a year. Although people would not work on those days, they would not be ''paid'' holidays. Typically, at least some of these days were used for religious feast, typically those of the
Russian Orthodox Church , native_name_lang = ru , image = Moscow July 2011-7a.jpg , imagewidth = , alt = , caption = Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, Russia , abbreviation = ROC , type ...
, but in some localities possibly those of other religions as well. On 24 September 1929, three holidays were eliminated, , , and . Lenin's Day on was merged with . The resulting five holidays continued to be celebrated until 1951, when ceased to be a holiday. See История праздников России (History of the festivals of Russia). olomon M. Schwarz "The continuous working week in Soviet Russia", ''
International Labour Review The International Labour Review is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering labour and employment studies. It was established in 1921 by the International Labour Organization The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a United N ...
'' 23 (1931) 157–180.
Duncan Steel, ''Marking Time'' (New York: John Wiley, 2000) 293–294. * 22 January – Day of Remembrance of 9 January 1905 and of the Memory of V.I. Lenin *: Commemorates Bloody Sunday on 9 January 1905 (Julian) or 22 January 1905 (Gregorian) and the death of
Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...
on (Gregorian) * 1–2 May – Days of the International * 7–8 November – Days of the Anniversary of the
October Revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...
Two ''Journal of Calendar Reform'' articles (1938 and 1943) have two misunderstandings, specifying and , not realizing that both are
Julian calendar The Julian calendar, proposed by Roman consul Julius Caesar in 46 BC, was a reform of the Roman calendar. It took effect on , by edict. It was designed with the aid of Greek mathematicians and astronomers such as Sosigenes of Alexandr ...
dates equivalent to the unspecified Gregorian dates and , so they specify , , , , and , plus a quadrennial leap day.


Erroneous reporting of "30-day months"

Many sources erroneously state that both five- and six-day work weeks were collected into 30-day months. A 1929 ''Time'' magazine article reporting Soviet five-day work weeks, which it called an "Eternal calendar", associated them with the French Republican Calendar, which had months containing three ten-day weeks. In a government commission proposed a "Soviet revolutionary calendar" containing twelve 30-day months plus five national holidays that were not part of any month, but it was rejected because it would differ from the Gregorian calendar used by the rest of Europe. R. W. Davies, ''The Soviet economy in turmoil, 1929–1930'' (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Cambridge University Press, 1989) 84–86, 143–144, 252–256, 469, 544. Four ''Journal of Calendar Reform'' articles (1938, 1940, 1943, 1954) thought that five-day weeks actually were collected into months,Elisabeth Achelis, "Calendar marches on
Russia's difficulties
", ''Journal of Calendar Reform'' 24 (1954) 91–93.
as do several modern sources. A 1931 ''Time'' magazine article reporting six-day weeks stated that they too were collected into 30-day months, with the five national holidays between those months. Two of the ''Journal of Calendar Reform'' articles (1938 and 1943) thought that six-day as well as five-day weeks were collected into 30-day months. A couple of modern sources state that five-day weeks plus the first two years of six-day weeks were collected into 30-day months. Apparently to place the five national holidays between 30-day months since , Parise (1982) shifted Lenin's Day to , left two Days of the Proletariat on , and shifted two Days of the Revolution to and , plus (all Gregorian dates). Stating that all months had 30 days between and , the ''Oxford Companion to the Year'' (1999) 'corrected' Parise's list by specifying that "Lenin Day" was after ( Gregorian), a two-day "Workers' First of May" was after ( Gregorian), two "Industry Days" were after ( Gregorian), and placed the leap day after ( Gregorian). Throughout this period, ''
Pravda ''Pravda'' ( rus, Правда, p=ˈpravdə, a=Ru-правда.ogg, "Truth") is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, and was the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most influential papers in the co ...
'', the official newspaper of the
Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...
, and other newspapers continued to use Gregorian calendar dates in their mastheads alongside the traditional seven-day week. Pravda dated individual issues with , , , , , , and , but never used during the period . The traditional names of "Resurrection" (Воскресенье) for Sunday and "Sabbath" (Суббота) for Saturday continued to be used, despite the government's officially anti-religious atheistic policy. In rural areas, the traditional seven-day week continued to be used despite official disfavor. Several sources from the 1930s state that the old Gregorian calendar was not changed.P. Malevsky-Malevitch, ''Russia U.S.S.R.: A complete handbook'' (New York: William Farquhar Payson, 1933) 601–602. Two modern sources explicitly state that the structure of the Gregorian calendar was not touched.Lance Latham, ''Standard C date/time library: Programming the world's calendars and clocks'' (Lawrence, KS: R&D Books, 1998) 390–392.Toke Nørby
The Perpetual Calendar: A helpful tool to postal historians: What about Russia?


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Soviet Calendar Society of the Soviet Union Obsolete calendars 1929 introductions 1929 establishments in the Soviet Union 1940 disestablishments in the Soviet Union