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Soviet calendar


While the Gregorian calendar was implemented in Soviet Russia in February 1918 by dropping the Julian dates of 1–13 February 1918 pursuant to a Sovnarkom decree, the Soviet calendar added five- and six-day work weeks between 1929 and 1940. Although the traditional seven-day week was still recognized, a day of rest on Sunday was replaced by one day of rest in each work week. Many sources erroneously state that the weeks were organized into 30-day months.

The Gregorian calendar was implemented in Russia on 14 February 1918 by dropping the Julian dates of 1–13 February 1918 pursuant to a Sovnarkom decree signed 24 January 1918 (Julian) by Vladimir Lenin. The decree required that the Julian date was to be written in parentheses after the Gregorian date until 1 July 1918. All surviving examples of physical calendars from 1929–40 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 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 I–V for each day of the five-day week. Even it had the full Gregorian calendar on the other side. Throughout this period, Pravda, the official newspaper of the Communist Party, and other newspapers continued to use Gregorian calendar dates in their mastheads alongside the traditional seven-day week. 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. 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. Two modern sources explicitly state that the structure of the Gregorian calendar was not touched.


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