Soviet Revolutionaries have always tried to change the calendar as we know it. Their aim was to make the population develop habits which the revolutionaries prefer.
The Soviets are not alone in this attempt to change the calendar. The French revolutionaries also tried this game and made an effort to replace the calendar with a 10-day week but three weeks in each month.
The names of all months were changed and on the process all the Christian holidays were discarded and in their place, the revolutionaries created the commemorations of plants such as cauliflower and turnips.
This was part of the major reforms which have been undertaken in the past by the communists. The soviets too make attempts to abolish the calendar as we know it. They removed Sundays and disrupted the 7-days week as we know it.
These experiments never worked. However, the Soviets we successful in one thing: removal of Christian holidays from the calendar. These celebrations had for a long time been influenced by Eastern Orthodox Christian religion.
The abolition of Christian holidays was done immediately after the communists took over the Russian State.
It was illegal to celebrate Easter holiday in Russia. Also weekends were removed for some years. In fact some writers say that it was very hard to celebrate Easter even in the privacy of your house.
However, the soviets found that it was very hard to abolish Christmas. That is why the soviets resorted to replacing Christmas with a secular version which was a mirror of Christmas. This means that it had similar rituals as those of Christmas.
Christmas was replaced by a Soviet celebration called komsomol. This name refers to a youth communist league. However, this never happened. It was in 1928 when Christmas was banned in its entirety. Hence 25 December became a usual working day in the Soviet Union.
In 1935, one Joseph Stalin who was the soviet leader at the time decided to reintroduce the celebrations specifically for the Soviet Children who had been oppressed by Great Terror and the great famine. He thought that at least the children needed the celebratory tree. But the soviet leaders did not want the celebratory tree to be associated with Christmas but a secular new year. This was completely in line with the soviet ideologies.
Santa Claus was effectively replaced by a similar figure named Ded Moroz. This ‘soviet Santa Claus’ came with an assistant named Snegurochka. The new holiday which was introduced as a replacement of Christmas was not religious. It was civic and was marked my tossing of champagne and singing of Soviet Union Hymns. Gifts were exchanged and big parties held.
The word ‘Christmas’ was effectively replaced with ‘winter’ as narrated by a Congressional report of 1965. Father Christmas was then known as Father Frost. The Christmas Tree later became known as Winter Tree and above all Christmas Holiday changed name to Winter Holiday.
Stalin was impressed by the father-figure known as Santa Claus which he thought of preserving. The Virginia Advocate reported in 1949 that: “children’s gatherings in the holiday season … grandfather frost lectures on good Communist behavior. He customarily ends his talk with the question “to whom do we owe all the good things in our socialist society?” To which, it is said, the children chorus the reply, ‘Stalin.’
