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Note that a five-day week scheme is very close to being a working calendar, lacking only a leap year rule. Since 365 modulo 5 = 0, a five-day week synchronizes the week and year. A blank day intercalated outside the week, would produce a perpetual calendar of 73 weeks. |
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By 1932 (January 1930, according to Parise), the Soviet government realized that the changes were not working and dropped the color system and the five-day week. The practice of numbering the days was retained, however. A new system was implemented, which established 12 periods of five weeks, roughly corresponding to months. Each week was now declared to contain six days. |
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This scheme established the days evenly divisible by six as general days off. By continuing to adhere to the Gregorian month structure, the framers of this reform created more difficulties for themselves, since only four months of the 12 contain 30 days and are thus evenly divisible by six. The 31st day of most months was a problem. Likewise, the 28 days of February were a problem. In dealing with these situations by various methods, such as overtime pay, extra holidays, and so on, Soviet authorities created over 50 different schedules. |
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By 1934 (1932 according to Parise), the Soviet government had realized that this system was also unworkable, so it implemented more changes, attempting to adjust the Soviet calendar scheme to conform to the Gregorian pattern. The Soviet government muddled along with this state of affairs until 1940, when it finally abandoned the Soviet calendar altogether and returned to the Gregorian calendar on 27 June 1940. |
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Like the FRC, the Soviet calendar failed for both technical and social reasons. In both cases, the calendar was based upon doctrinaire considerations which produced unworkable results. |
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9.12
Proposed Reform Calendars |
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This general section discusses the issue of calendar reform as it applies to the Gregorian calendar and presents some calendars that have been proposed to correct the alleged evils of the Gregorian calendar. |
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Before proceeding any farther, I should clearly state my position on several related matters: |
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Calendar reform, as it has been conceived in the past, is a dead issue. As a society becomes informationally more complex, its investment in past and existing information structures becomes greater and the cost of major change increases in a nonlinear way. In Julius Caesar's day, calendar reform was a matter of proclamation. Today, the cost of changing software alone would literally amount to trillions of dollars. |
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The calendars discussed in this section are undoubtedly good ideas in certain respects. They may even have been preferable to the Gregorian calendar in their time. The year 1939, however, was probably the last time that precomputer tech- |
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