Page of the Soviet revolutionary calendar showing December 12, 1937

The Soviet revolutionary calendar was in use in the USSR from 1929 to 1940. Image File history File links Revolution_kalendar. ... Image File history File links Revolution_kalendar. ... December 12 is the 346th day (347th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar, with 19 days remaining. ... 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ...

Shortly after the October Revolution of 1917, Vladimir Lenin had decreed to change the calendar in the Soviet Union from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar. This change involved bypassing the days from February 1 until February 13, 1918. The October Revolution, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution or November Revolution, was the second phase of the Russian Revolution of 1917, the first having been instigated by the events around the February Revolution. ... (Russian: Влади́мир Ильи́ч Ле́нин, Vladimir Ilič Lenin; IPA:; born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov; April 22 [O.S. April 10] 1870 – January 21, 1924), was a Communist revolutionary of Russia, the leader of the Bolshevik party, the first Premier of the Soviet Union, and the main theorist of what has come to be called... A calendar is a system for naming periods of time, typically days. ... The Julian calendar was introduced in 46 BC by Julius Caesar and took force in 45 BC (709 ab urbe condita). ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... February 1 is the 32nd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... February 13 is the 44th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1918 (MCMXVIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. ...

Starting on October 1, 1929 a new rationalized version of the calendar was introduced. In this version, all months had 30 days and the remaining five days were added as holidays in between, not belonging to any month or week. These days were: October 1 is the 274th day of the year (275th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1929 (MCMXXIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ...

• Lenin day after January 30
• Labour Days, two days after April 30
• Industry Days, two days after November 7
• in leap years, a leap day after February 30

Also, as an anti-religious measure, the seven-day week was abolished and replaced with a five-day week, to banish the Christian Sunday as day of rest. Instead, all workers were divided into five groups according to colour (yellow, pink, red, purple, green), and each group had one of the remaining weekdays as their day of rest. The intention was to improve industrial efficiency by avoiding the regular interruption of a non-working day. January 30 is the 30th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Listen to this article · (info) This audio file was created from the revision dated 2005-08-20, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. ... April 30 is the 120th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (121st in leap years), with 245 days remaining. ... November 7 is the 311th day of the year (312th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 54 days remaining. ... A leap year (or intercalary year) is a year containing an extra day, week or month in order to keep the calendar year in sync with an astronomical or seasonal year. ... Swedish calendar February 1712 Under the Gregorian calendar, February contains 28 or 29 days. ... A week is a [ PER [unit]] of time longer than a day and shorter than a month. ... Christianity is a monotheistic[1] religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recounted in the Gospels. ...

Although workers had more days off work under the new system (one day in five instead of one day in seven), the separation into five groups made family and social life inconvenient and proved very unpopular. In addition, the projected efficiency gains of the shorter week did not show up in reality.

It appears that the Gregorian calendar kept being used in the Soviet Union during this period. This is confirmed by consulting the successive dates in daily issues of Pravda, the official newspaper of the Communist Party, in which February had 28 days in 1930 and 1931. This article describes the Soviet/Russian newspaper. ...

Starting December 1, 1931, the Western schedule of month lengths was restored. The 5-day workweek was replaced with the 6-day workweek, with a common day of rest on every 6th, 12th, 18th, 24th and 30th of the month. The 31st was kept outside this six-day week cycle and varied between a holiday and a working day, and March 1st was used instead of February 30th. December 1 is the 335th (in leap years the 336th) day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1931 (MCMXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link is to a full 1931 calendar). ...

In practice the Sunday rest tradition proved hard to eliminate, with workers often taking both Sunday and the new day of rest. Finally, in 1940, the old seven day week was restored.

Sources

• The Oxford Companion to the Year. Bonnie Blackburn & Leofranc Holford-Strevens. Oxford University Press 1999. ISBN 0192142313. Pages 688-689.

See also

• French Republican Calendar

The French Republican Calendar or French Revolutionary Calendar is a calendar proposed during the French Revolution, and used by the French government for about twelve years from late 1793. ...

External link

• A (partly satirical) article discussing the 6-day calendar