Decree time () refers to the changes introduced to the Soviet Union time system by a Sovnarkom decree of 16 June 1930. By this decree, all clocks in the Soviet Union were permanently shifted one hour ahead at 00:00 on 21 June 1930 everywhere in the Soviet Union. Applicability of this decree was further extended by two other decrees in 1930 and 1931. The practice was further extended, and its legal basis was amended, in 1980.
It is independent from daylight saving time, which was introduced in the USSR much later, in 1981. In fact, with both time shifts in effect, summer time was two hours ahead of standard time in the USSR.
From 1982 to 1986, decree time was gradually abolished by the Soviet government in 30 oblasts and autonomous republics of the Russian SFSR. In 1989, it was further abolished in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine and Moldavia, followed by the entire territory of the Soviet Union in March 1991 (nine months before its dissolution).
On 23 October 1991, the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR ruled to restore decree time in Russia. It was restored on 19 January 1992 at 02:00, with the following exemptions: the Kaliningrad Oblast was permitted to use Eastern European Time instead of Moscow Time; all federal subjects that would have to use Samara Time in absence of this exemption (Adygea, most part of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Astrakhan Oblast, Chechnya, Chuvashia, Dagestan, Ingushetia, Ivanovo Oblast, Kabardino-Balkaria, Kalmykia, Karachay-Cherkessia, Kostroma Oblast, Kirov Oblast, Krasnodar Krai, Lipetsk Oblast, Mari El, Mordovia, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, North Ossetia-Alania, Penza Oblast, Rostov Oblast, Ryazan Oblast, Samara Oblast, Saratov Oblast, Stavropol Krai, Tambov Oblast, Tatarstan, Udmurtia, Ulyanovsk Oblast, Vladimir Oblast, Volgograd Oblast, Vologda Oblast, Voronezh Oblast, Yaroslavl Oblast) were permitted to use Moscow Time instead; the whole Arkhangelsk Oblast and Komi Republic were permitted to use Moscow Time; the Tyumen Oblast was permitted to use Yekaterinburg Time instead of Omsk Time; and the whole Krasnoyarsk Krai was permitted to use Krasnoyarsk Time (its easternmost parts would have to use Irkutsk Time otherwise). Most of these exemptions are equivalent to abolition of decree time in corresponding territories. At present, all these federal subjects use the exemptions.
In 1992 decree time was only restored in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Kazakhstan, with further changes after 1992 (see the corresponding page in the Russian Wikipedia).
History
In USSR In 1917, summer time was introduced in Russia for the first time, introduced by a decree of the Provisional Government for the period from 1 July to 31 August 1917 - it was ahead of local solar time by 1 hour. By the end of the period, this order was extended until 1 October, and then again - "until further notice". In accordance with the decree of the Soviet government. On 27 December 1917, the clocks were moved back by 1 hour. Local solar time was used in the USSR until the full introduction of the time zone system in 1924. In Moscow and part of the territory of the RSFSR, the time zone system was introduced in 1919.
Time in 1918-1929 In 1918-1921, summer time was introduced in Russia without any order, and from the summer of 1918 to the spring of 1924, in Moscow and in the regions controlled by the Soviet government, mainly in the European part of the country, an advanced time was in effect all year round:
1918 (summer period) - local average solar plus 2 hours (decree); 1918 (winter period) - local mean solar plus 1 hour (decree); 1919 (summer period) - local average solar plus 2 hours (decree hours)), from 1 July - standard time plus 2 hours (decrees); 1919 (winter period) - standard time plus 1 hour (decree hour)); 1920 (all year round) - standard time plus 1 hour; 1921 (summer period) - standard time plus 3 hours (decrees)); 1921 (winter period) - standard time plus 1 hour (decree hour)); 1922—1923 (all year round) - standard time plus 1 hour; 1924 — standard time plus 1 hour, from 2 May - standard time (resolution).
From 1925 to 1929, the country operated on standard time without switching to daylight saving time.
Beginning of the period of decree time In accordance with the decree of 16 June 1930 clocks throughout the USSR at 00:00 on 21 June 1930 were moved forward by 1 hour for the period until 30 September 1930, as stated in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, "for the purpose of more rational use of daylight hours and the redistribution of electricity between household and industrial consumption" (The date of 30 September up until 1930 was considered in the USSR as the end date of the so-called economic year, which began on 1 October).
Resolution of 30 September 1930 extended the validity of the previous decree "until a special decree". This document was the decree of 9 February 1931, which kept the two previous decrees in force "until repealed." The first two decrees were published in the Izvestia newspaper (without commentary) the day after their release, on 17 June 1930 and 1 October 1930, respectively. The publication of the decree of 9 February 1931, at least in the Izvestia newspaper, has not been found. The introduction of the new timekeeping system coincided with the initial period of collectivization and industrialization in the USSR.
It was established that the extension of the advance time in September 1930 was connected to a greater extent not with energy savings, but with the aim of reducing the maximum load of power plants in the fall and winter in the evening hours. The operation of power plants at that time was characterized by an extremely low reserve capacity or a complete lack of such a reserve, therefore in 1931 the Supreme Council of the National Economy proposed to move the clocks forward by another hour, but the State Planning Committee opposed it.
In 1935, a government decree was being prepared on returning to standard time; it passed all the necessary approvals, but for some reason was not adopted. In early December 1935, a number of newspapers reported that the clocks would allegedly be moved back by 1 hour on 1 January. The Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) issued a resolution on this matter, according to which the head of the Central Administration of Weights and Measures K. V. Shur received a reprimand "for publishing information about this inappropriate project", and newspaper editors were instructed on "the inadmissibility of publishing reports about draft decisions submitted to the government for consideration but not adopted by the government". After this, TASS issued a refutation (published, for example, in the newspapers Pravda and Trud on 23 December 1935): "TASS is authorized to report that no movement of the clock hand back by an hour is proposed and such proposals are considered inappropriate by the government".
The decree of 9 February 1931 not only extended the validity of the decrees of 1930, but also cancelled the decree of 8 February 1919 with the designated time zone boundaries, assigning the function of establishing the boundaries to the Time Service Committee at the Pulkovo Observatory. Perhaps in the years following this, new time zone boundaries would have appeared, but it is known that a large group of the observatory's employees were repressed in 1936-1937, and in 1947 the Interdepartmental Commission of the Unified Time Service was created under the Committee for Measures and Measuring Instruments under the Council of Ministers of the USSR - the function of establishing the boundaries of time zones passed to it.
Changes after 1937 On the 1938 USSR transport map, the time zone boundaries are marked by a line called in the legend: "Boundary of the zones of international time (practically accepted)." The boundaries plotted on the map correspond to the boundaries established in 1924 according to the decree of 8 February 1919.
According to cartographic data, after 1937Atlas of the Red Army Commander. Moscow: General Staff of the Red Army, 1938 changes were made that eliminated the use of different times in relatively small areas. Thus, daylight saving time in some regions (in their western part) was changed by 1 hour forward, ahead of the standard time established in 1924 by 2 hours, and in others (in the eastern part) - by 1 hour back, that is, the "daylight saving hour" was actually cancelled.
After Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia joined the USSR, the clocks on their territory in August 1940 were switched from GMT+2 to Moscow time, GMT+3, which was also established in the Kaliningrad region on 7 April 1946.
In accordance with the decision of the Interdepartmental Commission of the Unified Time Service, from 1 December 1956, the official boundaries of time zones were to change, in particular to eliminate the presence of a number of regions in two time zones. As a result, daylight saving time in a number of places had to change either by 1 hour forward or by 1 hour back. The clocks were planned to be changed on 1 December 1956 at 00:00 Moscow time, but the procedure was postponed to 1 March 1957. Information about the clock change on this day was in the newspapers "Sovetskaya Rossiya" and "Gudok",С 1 марта 1957 года: Новые границы часовых поясов // Советская Россия : газета. — 1957. (1 марта).Изображение часовых поясов (без заголовка) // Гудок : газета. — 1957. (2 марта). however, it was not in other central newspapers (Izvestia, Trud). Obviously, the change of clocks in the regions was described in local newspapers. For example, in the regional newspaper Zvezda (Molotov region) it was noted that "today, March 1, in the Karagai, Ocher, Sivinsky, Vereshchaginsky districts of our region, the working day began an hour earlier than before. (…) Now in our entire region, the time differs from Moscow by two hours".По новому времени // Звезда : газета. — 1957. (1 марта).
Ahead of standard time by 2 hours The time zone established in 1924 was 2 hours ahead of the standard time in the western part of the following regions:
by 1947 - Kostroma, Ivanovo, Vladimir, Ryazan, Lipetsk, Voronezh and Rostov regions and a number of other regions; by 1962 - excluding those listed above, Altai Krai, Arkhangelsk, Vologda, Novosibirsk, Perm, Sakhalin (Sakhalin Island), Tomsk, Tyumen and Chita regions of the RSFSR, Ural and Guryev regions of the Kazakh SSR and a number of other regions.
The de facto abolition of decree time in a number of regions After the 1957 reform, some regions in the European part of the RSFSR, located east of Moscow in longitude, while officially remaining in the 3rd time zone, switched to Moscow time, that is, they moved their clocks back 1 hour, thereby effectively abolishing the "decree hour" on all or part of their territory. The explanation on the subsequently published maps of time zones in the geographical atlases of the USSR was, for example, as follows: "Territories in which the actual accepted time differs from the decree time (not officially approved)". In other republics of the USSR there were no similar changes until 1989.Постановление Совета Министров СССР от 14.03.1989 № 227Атлас СССР, М., ГУГК, 1990
By 1973, the "decree hour" was abolished in the following regions (in all or part of the region's territory):Small Atlas of the USSR, Moscow, GUGK under the USSR Council of Ministers, 1973
Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria, Kalmykia, Komi, Mari, Mordovian, North Ossetian, Tatar, Chechen-Ingush, Chuvash, Yakut ASSR (Ust-Maisky and Tomponsky districts); Krasnodar, Stavropol, Krasnoyarsk, Khabarovsk territories; Amur, Arkhangelsk, Vladimir, Vologda, Voronezh, Gorky, Ivanovo, Irkutsk, Kostroma, Lipetsk, Magadan, Penza, Rostov, Ryazan, Tambov, Tyumen, Yaroslavl regions.