Now think about looking through your address book, where every contact’s name is marked by one of several colored dots: red for Tuesday, green for Friday, yellow for Sunday. This does not mean anything special concerning birthdays or appointments, but rather what day of the week a particular person does not need to work. The above mentioned was quite real in the Soviet Union.
In 1929, the Soviet authorities attempted to do away with the traditional seven-day week in favor of a five-day rotation. Workers were classified according to which day they would be on vacation. On the surface, this looked like an ideal plan because workers were supposed to take their rest, and factories did not need to close for the day. However, there was something else that the government overlooked, namely people may have had extra vacation days, yet less time together.
That weird experiment brings up an even bigger issue regarding our regular lives – who determines the way our week should look like?
For most people, the idea of organizing their schedule would be seen as something very personal and related to one’s free will. We choose ourselves when to study, work, do sports, relax, etc. However, the schedule which we follow daily has been established far before our lives even started. Governments, corporations, religions, and labor movements have all influenced the creation of the schedule which we now use.
However, the significance of our spare time does not just consist of the freedom itself but mostly of socializing with others during this time.
The seven-day week is also a great illustration of this statement. Day, month, and year are directly connected with some phenomena from nature. Day appears due to the rotation of the Earth, month – due to the movement of the Moon, and year – due to the movement of the Earth around the Sun. Seven-day week is something unique which cannot be found in nature.
People invented it.
This implies that people have the ability to modify it.
Indeed, during the French Revolution, the French attempted to do so from 1793 to 1805, when they adopted a 10-day cycle termed décade where people had a rest every tenth day rather than every seventh day. This does not imply that they were successful. Nonetheless, it shows a very crucial aspect about the conventional week – it is not inevitable.
The Soviet Union took the notion to even greater heights.
In 1929, a Bolshevik economist by the name of Yuri Larin developed a different working system. Indeed, his promotional pamphlet was titled 360 instead of 300, implying an increase in the number of working days per annum. Soon afterwards, the Soviet Union established the nepreryvka or the continuous working week.
The system was broken down into five categories. Different categories would be taking rest at a different day of the week, with each day being indicated by various colors and symbols. With this setup, the majority of the workers, about 80 percent, could be working in any factory at any point in time.
From the government’s point of view, this was reasonable. The factories would not need to close on a particular common day, like Sunday. The machines could work continually. The production would therefore go up.
In addition, from the workers’ point of view, this also had some benefits. Previously, workers would work for six days and take rest on one day. Now, the worker was supposed to work for four days and take rest on one.
Thus, the workers were having additional days off.
That is why the following development was shocking.
The people detested the system.
This is because the value of the day off was dependent on the fact that there would be just one day off. The worker may be taking a day off on Tuesday, but his wife might be working. Even his friends could be working, and children might be in school.
This issue grew so prevalent that people began marking their addresses by color to keep track of the availability of their friends.
The same issue was faced by families. For example, a father could have his day off on Monday, a mother on Wednesday, and yet another relative on Friday. Instead of giving families more opportunities to be together, the new system would become an obstacle on the way.
A complaint of one worker who appeared in Pravda in 1929 described the issue brilliantly: “It is no holiday if you have to have it alone.”
This statement explains the essence of the whole experiment.
Rest is not necessarily an individual value. It can also be a social one.
Consider any ordinary Saturday. It is not important at all because of the absence of work. It becomes important because other people do not work too. Friends can meet, families can have meals together, children can spend some time with their parents, people can attend church, events in the community, sport matches, or just hang out.
Eventually, this became obvious to the Soviet government. In March 1930, the government modified the system in such a way that family members could have the same day off.
However, the system still caused problems. Stalin criticized the system in 1931 as he felt that the system led to lack of individual responsibility. Even the factories suffered from this system as groups of rotating workers could work on the machines without being individually responsible for those.
Finally, the Soviet government shifted towards six days of work with common day of rest. By 1935, most of the industrial workers worked with this system.
Finally, the system was discontinued in 1940 when the traditional week came back.
However, there is an important misconception regarding the period. Soviet Union did not revise their calendar and the months remained the same and even there was no such day as 30th of February. The change was made only regarding week.
The period was interesting as Soviet government tried to solve a problem using mathematics. More working days meant more production. And individual days off meant more rest.
But human life could not be accommodated into numbers alone.
A good example is the United States.
While the USSR was struggling to run its factories on a continuous basis, Americans were debating on whether people should work less. In 1933, the Black-Connery Bill proposed a five-day 30-hour workweek. Though the Senate accepted the Bill by a vote of 53-30, it ultimately got defeated owing to political pressure.
One firm in the United States tried the six-hour workday experiment.
In 1930, Kellogg tried the six-hour workday at its factory in Battle Creek, Michigan. By reducing three eight-hour shifts to four six-hour shifts, the company created around 400 jobs during the time of the Great Depression.
What makes the experiment unique is the long duration for which it was carried out.
It did not end after some months or years; parts of the company used the system for about 55 years.
It was evident that workers liked it. In 1946, Kellogg’s employees voted against going back to the eight-hour day. The result was not even close; among the workers, 619 women and 858 men were against returning to eight hours, whereas 93 women and 347 men voted for it.
But then why was the shorter day ultimately abandoned?
The reason was partly cultural. By the end of the 1940s, six-hour workdays began to be considered as belonging especially to women, elderly, and disabled workers. It used to be an alternative to the eight-hour day, but it started to be viewed as a special arrangement for some specific groups.
Ultimately, the threat to leave Battle Creek by the company forced the remaining six-hour departments to give in, and by 1985, the experiment was over.
Historian Benjamin Kline Hunnicutt writes that the reason was not that shorter working hours were economically impractical. American society preferred the choice when increased productivity meant increased consumption rather than leisure time.
This decision remains relevant to our days.
There are two options when productivity grows. Workers may either spend their increased productivity on more production and consumption, or spend it on reduced working hours.
The Soviet experience suggests that another question may be even more important: who is free at the same time?
A person can have more free time on paper and still feel as though they have less of it. A Tuesday off is not very useful for seeing friends if everyone else is working Tuesday. A flexible schedule can give someone more control over their own time while making it harder to coordinate with everyone else’s schedule.
That does not mean everyone needs to have exactly the same schedule. Modern life is too complicated for that. But it does mean that shared time has value.
The normal weekend is not just a convenient break from work. It is a form of social coordination. Millions of people are free at roughly the same time, which allows families, friendships, communities, schools, businesses, and entire cities to organize themselves around that shared rhythm.
The history of the week also shows that this rhythm has never been permanent. Governments have changed it. Employers have changed it. Workers have fought over it. Religious traditions have shaped it. Economic crises have tested it.
The week may feel natural because it has become familiar. It is not natural.
It is something society built.
And if society built it, society can change it. But the history of the Soviet nepreryvka offers a warning. Changing the number of working and resting days is not enough. A schedule can give people more individual freedom while taking away something just as important: the ability to use that freedom together.
That may be the real question behind every debate about the future of work.
Not simply, “How much time do we get back?”
But, “Who else is free when we are?”
By: Jolie Chung
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