World Calendars
Soviet calendar date today
From 1929 to 1940 the Soviet Union kept ordinary Gregorian dates but organised work in five-day and then six-day weeks instead of the seven-day week. This page shows where a date falls in those cycles.
Day 5 of the six-day week
Not in use since 1940; the 1931-1940 rule, continued
- In the Gregorian calendar
- Wednesday 11 November 2026
- This day began
- At midnight, as Wednesday 11 November 2026 begins
- This day ends
- At midnight, as Thursday 12 November 2026 begins
- Who used it
- Factories, government offices and shops in the USSR, but not collective farms
- How it works
- Gregorian dates stayed the same - only the work week changed to 5, then 6 days
- Years count from
- Ordinary Gregorian years - newspapers kept Gregorian dates throughout
- Unusual detail
- In the five-day week each worker had a colour or number marking their day off
Next holidays in this calendar
51 days
1 January 2027 ยท Gregorian, Japanese era, Thai solar (Buddhist era), Republic of China (Minguo), Juche, Holocene (Human Era), Discordian, Revised Julian, Soviet work week
How the Soviet calendar works
From 1929 the Soviet Union ran factories and offices on a continuous five-day week. Each day was labelled with one of five colours or a Roman numeral from I to V, and every worker was given one of them as a personal rest day, so most of the staff were at work every day. The cycle ran through the year and stopped only for the five national holidays.
From 1931 most workers moved to a six-day week with a shared day off on the 6th, 12th, 18th, 24th and 30th of every month. The 31st was an extra day outside the cycle, and 1 March was a day off to make up for the short end of February. Months, dates and the ordinary weekday names did not change.
| No. | Month | Days |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | January | 31 |
| 2 | February | 28 (29 in leap years) |
| 3 | March | 31 |
| 4 | April | 30 |
| 5 | May | 31 |
| 6 | June | 30 |
| 7 | July | 31 |
| 8 | August | 31 |
| 9 | September | 30 |
| 10 | October | 31 |
| 11 | November | 30 |
| 12 | December | 31 |
| Week | Days | Rest day |
|---|---|---|
| Five-day week | I, II, III, IV, V | One day of the five for each group of workers |
| Six-day week | 1 to 5 work, 6 rest | The 6th, 12th, 18th, 24th and 30th of the month |
Variants and the method used here
Sources give different start dates. The five-day week spread through industry from mid-1929, and 1 October 1929 is the date most often cited. The six-day week took over during summer 1931 and was made official by a decree of 23 November 1931, so we switch to it on 1 December 1931, the first full month after that decree.
For the five-day week this page counts 1 October 1929 as day I and skips the national holidays. No source gives the number of that day; we chose it because it fits a 1930 calendar that starts the colour sequence on 1 January. Colours differ between sources, so we show the Roman numeral and give the colours printed on that 1930 calendar: purple, blue, yellow, red and green. For dates before October 1929 or after 26 June 1940 we show that the system was not in use.
A short history
Russia switched from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar in February 1918. In May 1929 Yuri Larin proposed a continuous production week, and on 26 August 1929 the Council of People's Commissars ordered the move to continuous production to begin in the 1929-1930 economic year. Rules for the five-day week followed on 24 September 1929, when the list of national holidays was also cut to five.
The continuous week split families and friends who had different rest days, and machines that never stopped broke down more often. In June 1931 Stalin criticised it, and by August most factories were on a six-day week with a common day off. A decree of 26 June 1940 brought back the seven-day week with Sunday as the day of rest from 27 June 1940.
Sources
How this site calculates the date: Gregorian dates with the five-day continuous week (1 October 1929 - 30 November 1931, day I on 1 October 1929, national holidays outside the cycle) and the six-day week (1 December 1931 - 26 June 1940, rest on the 6th, 12th, 18th, 24th and 30th).