The phenomenon of Soviet subbotniks, or how party and non-party citizens cleaned the country

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

In 2019, the communist subbotnik celebrated its 100th anniversary. In Russia, since antiquity, joint work has been widespread and it was called cleanup. The peasants worked together for the good of a common cause - harvesting, deforestation, building churches or houses. But in the form in which people perceive the word subbotnik, work for the good of society appeared a little over a century ago. Read how the first subbotniks arose, why Lenin carried weights and what happened to this tradition today.

Beginning: how Burakov organized the workers of the Kazan railway

In 1919, the old joint labor (cleanup) began to be called the communist subbotnik. It was spontaneous, and it was organized "from below". So, on April 12, several fifteen workers of the Moscow-Sortirovochnaya railway depot (Kazan railway), in the number of fifteen people, decided not to go home after the shift, but to start repairing steam locomotives. The ringleader was Ivan Burakov, the head of the locksmith brigade, and this decision was approved at a meeting of the party cell. The clean-up work lasted ten whole hours, during which time the participants managed to put in order 3 steam locomotives. After work, people celebrated their successes with tea, after which they went home, not forgetting to sing "Internationale".

How volunteer work became compulsory: the communist Saturday workload

On May 10, the second subbotnik was held on the Kazan railway, there were already 205 participants. Then the same actions began to be carried out at various railway stations. Saturday events in April and May 1919 were voluntary. But only a week has passed, and a decree on compulsory work is adopted. In July, already 1,510 communists worked for free on weekends.

Non-partisans were not obliged, but they tried to attract them to work. At the meetings before the subbotnik, they were asked to sign up for participation. Individual communists voted for the most stringent measures, for example, the deprivation of food rations, bonuses. Fortunately, this did not happen.

Subbotniks gradually moved up to the state level. In June 1919, Lenin's article on the "Great Initiative" was published, which says that subbotniks are very important for the development of Russia. As a result, such events have become more frequent, and the number of participants has increased. A Moscow bureau of subbotniks was organized, as well as regional special departments, informing enterprises about how many people need to be sent to work. Themed weeks were held, defining the direction of the subbotnik. For example, during the OSH and repair weeks, depots and workshops were repaired and cleaned.

In January 1920, the statistics were approximately the following: 25 thousand non-party people and only 10 thousand communists took part in subbotniks. And in April, at the IX Congress of the RCP, a resolution was adopted to turn the May Day holiday, which fell on Saturday, into the All-Russian Subbotnik. It was also proposed to severely punish communists who are trying to evade work: to draw up black lists so that in the future such people do not take up a serious post.

How Vladimir Lenin dragged logs on a subbotnik

On May 1, 1920, the First All-Russian Subbotnik was held in the country, 450 thousand people were involved in Moscow alone. In order to infect people with his example, V. Lenin also took up work - he cleaned the territory of the Kremlin. There is a historical photograph in which the leader of the revolution carries a log together with the workers. This case was actively used in party propaganda. The plot was taken for posters and pictures, cited in books and poetry. It was described how the commissar and Lenin work in pairs, and fight to grab the heavy end of the log. Lenin gets angry, saying that "a comrade is letting him down with his work," taking on the most difficult things. The commissar asserts that Lenin is older, and therefore must carry the lighter part of the log. Whether it really was so, one can only guess, but the country's pioneers believed in this story.

Voluntary-compulsory subbotnik, and their second life after a hundred years

After the end of the Civil War, the original purpose of Subbotniks (assistance to the front) began to disappear. But free work on Saturdays remained. Subbotniks began to be seen as the newest way to organize the working people, a symbol of the society of the future.

In the 1920s, Muscovites still attended communist subbotniks, but critical people appeared, most of them communists. They were dissatisfied with the imperativeness of these measures. The non-partisans kept quiet, since for them work was still voluntary, and the absence from the Saturday event did not affect their careers in any way.

However, soon they got to the non-party people: by the 30s, subbotniks became obligatory for them as well. At first, the deviators were shamed in front of the collectives, then the "labor holidays" forever passed into the category of voluntary-compulsory. Like it or not, you had to pick up a broom, mop or rag, other necessary equipment or working tools.

In the USSR, subbotniks existed until the 90s. Obligatory was the "labor feat" on Lenin's birthday, April 22. In the rest of the months, subbotniks were held from time to time. Schoolchildren and students, as well as other Soviet citizens, were engaged in cleaning, tidying up and clearing the territory at the place of their work and study.

When the USSR collapsed, subbotniks also disappeared. It was ridiculous to talk about building communism. Only in the mid-90s did subbotniks start again in Moscow, but they became completely voluntary. Many take part in them, realizing that this helps to clean up the capital after a long winter. And voluntariness allows you to gather really responsible people who want to make a personal contribution to the neatness of the city.

The Russian language, in turn, also sometimes throws up real surprises for foreigners. Although, to be honest, it is perfect to cope with it and not all Russians can do it. Especially for our readers, we have collected the most ridiculous and very common mistakes in the Russian language that even educated people make.