The Soviet calendar was a modified Gregorian calendar that was used in Soviet Russia 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 decree signed (Julian) by Vladimir Lenin. 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, 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. Even it had the full Gregorian calendar on the other side.
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 , 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. On 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 , 15% of industry had converted to continuous production according to Larin, probably an overestimate. On 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 ". 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.