Soviet calendar

During the summer of 1929, five-day continuous work weeks were implemented in factories, government offices, and commercial enterprises, but not collective farms.

[citation needed] These five-day work weeks continued throughout the Gregorian year, interrupted only by the five national holidays.

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.

By the beginning of June 1929, Larin had won the approval of Joseph Stalin, prompting all newspapers to praise the idea.

[4] 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.

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".

Nevertheless, many sources state that the effective date of five-day weeks was 1 October 1929,[7][8][9][10][11][12] which was the beginning of the economic year.

On 30 April 1931, one of the largest factories in the Soviet Union was put on an interrupted six-day week (Шестидневка = shestidnevka).

[11][14][16] Institutions serving cultural and social needs and those enterprises engaged in continuous production such as ore smelting were exempted.

[17] It is often stated that the effective date of the interrupted six-day work week was 1 December 1931,[18][19][8][10][11][16] but that is only the first whole month after the 'official conversion'.

[1][21] 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 spouses, 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.

The 1930 color calendar displayed here has days of purple, blue, yellow, red, and green, in that order beginning 1 January.

[23] However, most sources replace blue with either pink,[18][7][19][8][24] orange,[25][9][10] or peach,[11] all of which specify the different order yellow, pink/orange/peach, red, purple, and green.

[29] 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.

[13] Four Journal of Calendar Reform articles (1938, 1940, 1943, 1954) thought that five-day weeks actually were collected into 30-day months,[18][7][19][36] as do several modern sources.

[23][7] Pravda dated individual issues with 31 January, 31 March, 31 May, 31 July, 31 August, 31 October, and 31 December, but never used 30 February during the period 1929–1940.

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.