Subbotnik

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Subbotnik (disambiguation).

May 1st: All-Union Subbotnik, a propaganda poster by Dmitry Moor

V. I. Lenin at the All-Russia Subbotnik in the Kremlin grounds. Moscow. May 1 1920

Subbotnik and voskresnik (from Russian words subbota for Saturday and voskresenye for Sunday) were days of volunteer work in Soviet Union. The tradition is continued in modern Russia.

The first subbotnik was held on April 12, 1919, at the Moscow-Sortirovochnaya railway depot of the Moscow-Kazan Railway upon the initiative of local bolsheviks.

The first all-Russian subbotnik was held on May 1, 1920, the one participated by Vladimir Lenin who took part in removing building rubble in Moscow Kremlin, an episode portrayed in a famous painting by Vladimir Krikhatsky, Lenin at the First Subbotnik, of Lenin carrying a log.

Lenin was excited with the idea of subbotniks, regarding them as seeds of free labour of communism.

Eventually "communist subbotniks" and "voskresniks" became obligatory political events in the Soviet Union, with annual "Lenin's Subbotnik" being held in the vicinity of Lenin's birthday.

Subbotnik was also promoted in the 1950s in the Eastern Bloc countries and in particular in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), as the USSR sought to build up the GDR as the westernmost outpost of socialism in Europe. They did not meet with much enthusiasm from most workers who complained of the need to work during weekends. Nevertheless, a so-called "working Saturday" was infrequently declared in the communist-bloc countries until the fall of the iron curtain.