Subbotnik

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Subbotnik (disambiguation).

For the Jewish-identifying community, see Subbotniks.

May 1st: All-Russian 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 суббота [suˈbotə] for Saturday and воскресенье [vəskrʲɪˈsʲenʲjɪ] for Sunday) were days of volunteer work in the Soviet Union. The tradition is continued in modern Russia. Subbotniks are mostly organized for cleansing the streets of garbage.

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 the 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 by 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.