Back in the late fifties, when the need to observe the Lord’s day was being drilled into me as a young child, it was reported to me that the godless communists had experimented with applying a ten day week to their society in order to raise productivity amonst the workers. Apparently this utterly failed.
In forty years, I’ve never heard any reference to this .
Was this bullshit?
After the French Revolution, there was a dim movement to go with ten day weeks. That got nowhere.
The Soviet Union experimented with both 5- and 6-day weeks in the late 1920s-early 1930s, but that was scrapped for the seven-day week.
Not entirely nowhere; the calendar was instituted in 1793 and lasted until 1806 when it was replaced with the regular Julian/Gregorian calendar by Napoleon. I believe it was also used briefly by the Paris Commune; the 18th Brumaire was the date on which the Commune was crushed, hence the title of Marx’ “The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte”.
Here’s a nifty little site that gives you today’s date in the Revolutionary Calendar. I got a small issue with it, but it’s nitpicking, really.