Vote on 12 Dec 1937!

Translation of calendar page: twenty first year of the Socialist Revolution 1937 DECEMBER 1937 12 sixth day of the six-day week ------------------ Day of elections to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR

This cute calendar page was part of an electoral poster that appeared towards the front of "Oktyabr'" magazine, 1937, Issue #12 (Dec).

The six-day week (continuous work week)--

This was promoted by economist Yurij Larin (1882-1932 -- he died of natural causes) and established in 1928-29, as a way to keep factories in continuous production. Workers had five days on and one day off (not the same day off for everyone). Work days were divided into three seven-hour shifts, presumably each ending with a one-hour changeover period. The abolition of the common day off (Sunday) was unpopular with many working families: members on different shifts would see each other only rarely. The scheme was even harder on some factory equipment, which no longer could be maintained properly.
Source: Donald Filtzer, Soviet Workers and Stalinist Industrialization: The Formation of Modern Soviet Production Relations, 1928-1941, Pluto Press, London, 1986; p. 73.
The six-day week was abolished in 1938.

Some bourgeois propagandists question the legitimacy of the 12 Dec 1937 elections, on the pretext only one candidate appears on the ballot for each office. Socialist elections, however, should not be judged by bourgeois standards.

Other candidates are allowed to compete in elections. Nevertheless, our Party and our Great Leader and Teacher are so overwhelmingly popular that no one even wants to run against them. Our workers and peasants are all too familiar with the charade in bourgeois states, where supposedly "competing" candidates, all financed by the bourgeoisie, simulate attacks on each other in capitalist-owned newspapers. No matter who "wins," it is simply one more occasion for newspaper-capitalists to anesthetize the masses against the real opportunity of Proletarian Revolution.

But suppose a cabal of wreckers somehow managed to put an unworthy candidate (eg a hidden Zinovievite) onto the local Party slate? Informed workers and peasants can still cross his name off the ballot; if he gets less than 50% of the votes, his candidacy is defeated. An enclosed booth is available for voters, in secret, to cross names off ballots. For the overwhelming majority of voters, however, publicly casting their ballot is a proud affirmation of solidarity with all workers and peasants; they wouldn't think of skulking in some booth. The proper way to deal with a suspected Zinovievite, after all, is a denunciation, anonymous if necessary, to the Competent Organs.

Furthermore, even favorable votes in one-candidate elections can have significance. For example, at the 17th Party Congress in Jan 1934, the 1,966 delegates cast ballots for the new Central Committee. Somewhere between 150 and 300 of them crossed the Great Leader and Teacher's name off their ballots, supposedly indicating a preference for Sergei M. Kirov.
[Of course, this was a shameless provocation. These Trotskyite scum and other capitalist hirelings had no love for Comrade Kirov, whom they would murder only 11 months later. They were merely grasping at any way to embarrass the Party. --NIE]
The ballots were secured by the Competent Organs and examined to determine the wreckers responsible. They were all dealt with as they deserved; indeed, just to make sure, 1,034 of the 1,966 delegates would be liquidated over the next few years. [Robert Conquest,"The Great Terror: A Reassessment," Oxford University Press, 1990; pp. 31-33]

For a more detailed exposition on the sham of bourgeois "democracy," see an article in the 1931 Malaya Sovetskaya E^nciklopediya ("Small Soviet Encyclopedia") (so far only available in Russian).