Continuous Work Week: Outcomes of the Deformation of the Social Time Rhythm

Abstract

The article discusses the social reception of the continuous five-day work week introduced in the USSR in September, 1929. Industrial workers and white-collar workers had to be divided into five groups; each group had its own day-off, so that instead of a traditional week with one Sunday for everybody they had an unceasing cycle of four working days and one holiday. I presume that an attempt to deprive society of the unifying day caused major changes: erosion of the sense of responsibility, social stratification, and increase in symbolic significance of Sundays. All these revealed that the society had a clear need for one uniform holiday.