Soviet calendar (nonfiction)

The Soviet calendar refers to the Gregorian calendar implemented in 1918, national holidays, and five- and six-day work weeks used between 1929 and 1940. The Gregorian calendar, under the name "Western European calendar", was implemented in Soviet Russia in February 1918 by dropping the Julian dates of 1–13 February 1918. As many as nine national holidays (paid days of rest) were implemented in the following decade, but four were eliminated or merged on 24 September 1929, leaving only five national holidays, 22 January, 1–2 May, and 7–8 November, to celebrate until 1951, when 22 January reverted to a normal day. During 1929 to 1940, five- and six-day work weeks were used to schedule work, but the Gregorian calendar and its seven-day week were used for all other purposes.

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 a worker as their day of rest without regard to the rest days assigned to members of their family or friends. These five-day work weeks continued throughout the Gregorian year, interrupted only by the five national holidays. 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 27 June 1940 both five- and six-day work weeks were abandoned in favor of seven-day work weeks. Work weeks were never collected into 30-day months.

Continuous work weeks

During the second half of May 1929, Yuri Larin (Юрий Ларин, 1882–1932) proposed a continuous production week (nepreryvnaya rabochaya nedelya = nepreryvka) to the Fifth Congress of Soviets 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 June 1929, Larin had won the approval of Joseph Stalin, prompting all newspapers to praise the idea. The change was advantageous to the anti-religious movement, as Sundays and religious holidays became working days.[10] On 8 June 1929 the Supreme Economic Council of the RSFSR 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 June 1929, 15% of industry had converted to continuous production according to Larin, probably an overestimate. On 26 August 1929 the Council of People's Commissars (CPC) of the Soviet Union (Sovnarkom) declared "it is essential that the systematically prepared transition of undertakings and institutions to continuous production should begin during the economic year 1929–1930". 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 1 October 1929, 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 24 September 1929. On 23 October 1929 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 December 1929, 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 1 April 1930 and to 67% by 1 October 1930. Actual conversion was more rapid, 63% by 1 April 1930. In June 1930 it was decreed that the conversion of all industries was to be completed during the economic year 1930–31, except for the textile industry. But on 1 October 1930 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.

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 30 April 1931, one of the largest factories in the Soviet Union was put on an interrupted six-day week (Шестидневка = shestidnevka). On 23 June 1931, 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 August 1931, 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 somewhat later, on 23 November 1931. Institutions serving cultural and social needs and those enterprises engaged in continuous production such as ore smelting were exempted.[20] It is often stated that the effective date of the interrupted six-day work week was 1 December 1931,[21][22][13][5][15][19] 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 1 July 1935 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 26 June 1940, the traditional interrupted seven-day week with Sunday as the common day of rest was reintroduced on 27 June 1940.

Five-day weeks

Each day of the five-day week was labeled by either one of five colors or a Roman numeral from I to V. Each worker was assigned a color or number to identify his or her day of rest.

Eighty per cent 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'".[25]

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 1 January.[26] 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.[3] However, most sources replace blue with either pink, orange, or peach, all of which specify the different order yellow, pink/orange/peach, red, purple, and green.

Six-day weeks

Days grouped into six-day work weeks. Each day 31 is outside six-day week. Last six-day week of February is short.Six national holidays in red From the summer of 1931 until 26 June 1940, 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, 1 March was a uniform day off followed by four successive work days in the first week of March (2–5). The partial last week of February had four work days in common years (25–28) and five work days in leap years (25–29). But some enterprises treated 1 March as a regular work day, producing nine or ten successive work days between 25 February and 5 March, 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").

Commentary

Judith Shulevitz on "Why You Never See Your Friends Anymore":

Just under a century ago, the Soviet Union embarked on one of the strangest attempts to reshape the common calendar that has ever been undertaken. As Joseph Stalin raced to turn an agricultural backwater into an industrialized nation, his government downsized the week from seven to five days. Saturday and Sunday were abolished.

In place of the weekend, a new system of respite was introduced in 1929. The government divided workers into five groups, and assigned each to a different day off. On any given day, four-fifths of the proletariat would show up to their factories and work while the other fifth rested. Each laborer received a colored slip of paper—yellow, orange, red, purple, or green—that signified his or her group. The staggered schedule was known as nepreryvka, or the “continuous workweek,” since production never stopped.

Socially, the nepreryvka was a disaster. People had no time to see friends; instead they associated by color: purple people with purple people, orange with orange, and so on. Managers were supposed to assign husbands and wives to the same color but rarely did. The Communist Party saw these dislocations as a feature, not a bug, of the new system. The Party wanted to undermine the family, that bourgeois institution. “Lenin’s widow, in good Marxist fashion, regarded Sunday family reunions as a good enough reason to abolish that day,” according to E. G. Richards, the author of Mapping Time, a history of the calendar.

Workers, however, were upset. One of them openly complained to Pravda: “What are we to do at home if the wife is in the factory, the children in school, and no one can come to see us? What is left but to go to the public tea room? What kind of life is that—when holidays come in shifts and not for all workers together? That’s no holiday, if you have to celebrate by yourself.”

The staggered workweek didn’t last long. Officials worried that it affected attendance at workers’ meetings, which were essential for a Marxist education. In 1931, Stalin declared that the nepreryvka had been implemented “too hastily,” leading to a “depersonalized labor process” and the mass breakage of overtaxed machines. That year, the government added a day of collective rest. The seven-day week was not restored until 1940.

Experiments like this one have given social engineering a bad name. Nevertheless, Americans are imposing a kind of nepreryvka on ourselves—not because a Communist tyrant thinks it’s a good idea but because the contemporary economy demands it. The hours in which we work, rest, and socialize are becoming ever more desynchronized.

("Why You Never See Your Friends Anymore: Our unpredictable and overburdened schedules are taking a dire toll on American society." The Atlantic, November 2019)

See also

• Soviet calendar @ Wikipedia