FORMATION, DEVELOPMENT AND TRANSFORMATION OF NATIONAL ELITES IN THE USSR AND THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-213
Author(s):  
V.S. Vorontsov
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Ethnic Relations ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
Russian Society ◽  
Ruling Class ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Decisive Importance ◽  
Ideological Attitudes ◽  
Vertical Mobility

The article reveals the establishment and transformation of elite groups in the USSR. “The theory of elites” allows to expand our understanding of the crisis of the beginning and end of the 20th century, which affected all spheres of life in the Russian society. The analysis of the ethnopolitical situation right prior to the collapse of the country suggests that it was not only a clash between the “top” and the “bottom”, elites and counter-elites, but also a confrontation within the elites and counter-elites, considering their different ideological attitudes and the ethnonational component. In contrast to pre-revolutionary Russia, in Soviet society elite groups were replenished in the process of “vertical mobility” at the expense of all layers of the multi-ethnic population. This is evident by the statistics on the nationality of the country's leadership and the national composition of the ruling Communist Party. The multinational Communist Party of the Soviet Union was a strong uniting point for the society, and just as in 1917 the fall of monarchy triggered the collapse of the empire, in 1990s it was enough to abolish the monopoly of the Communist Party to trigger and intensify centrifugal tendencies and aggravate inter-ethnic relations. The credibility of the union center, as the supreme arbiter and the guarantor of the integrity of the country, was undermined. Along with socio-economic, political, international, and national factors, the decisive importance in the collapse of the USSR was played by the rebirth and betrayal of the ruling class of the country.

HISTORIAN AND PHILOSOPHER M.S. VOSLENSKY ABOUT THE RULING CLASS OF THE SOVIET SOCIETY

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 58-73
Author(s):  
A.V. GORLOV ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Social System ◽  
The State ◽  
Conspiracy Theory ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
Class Analysis ◽  
Ruling Class ◽  
Capitalist Development ◽  
Dominant Class ◽  
The Soviet Union

The purpose of the article is to analyze M.S. Voslensky’s historical and philosophical views, summa-rized in his work “Nomenclature. The dominant class of the Soviet Union”. In this work, Voslensky using the Marxist class analysis demonstrates the antagonistic nature of the Soviet society. The author of the article agrees with Voslensky’s thesis that the ruling class in the Soviet society was not the bureaucracy. The article illustrates that he mistakenly describes the origin of the Soviet nomen-clature in the framework of his artificially created conspiracy theory, according to which the nomen-clature members are feudal lords who seek to stop capitalist development. The author suggests that the basis of the historical groundlessness of Voslensky’s views is the false interpretation of capital-ism as a social system under which the liberal (classically interpreted) bourgeoisie dominates. That is why Voslensky desires to show that the Soviet ruling class is not bourgeois. According to the au-thor of the article, Voslensky was mistaken, because he did not see that not the liberal but the state bourgeoisie dominated in the Soviet society.

The Kremlin's Professional Staff: The “Apparatus” of the Central Committee, Communist Party of the Soviet Union

1950 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-85
Author(s):  
Louis Nemzer
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Central Committee ◽  
Professional Staff ◽  
Comprehensive Analysis ◽  
Secretary General ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
Efficient System ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Effective Administration

Soviet leaders have long understood the need for effective administration in the modern state, despite their great interest in questions of theory and matters of policy. Joseph Stalin, in his first report as Secretary General of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party, warned in 1923 that “policy loses its sense and is transformed into a waving of hands,” unless an efficient system for policy-execution exists. Consequently, Stalin and his lieutenants have constructed an extensive and diversified system for this purpose, using many agencies and reaching into every corner of Soviet society. Although the paucity of essential data makes a comprehensive analysis of the entire system virtually impossible at this time, it is noteworthy that recent Soviet materials have thrown some light on the functions and operations of one important segment of that system. This is an agency attached to the highest level of the Communist Party, the “Apparatus” of the Party's Central Committee.The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) guides and controls all governmental, economic, social and other organizations in the USSR.

scholarly journals Traumatization of the Past and Martyrological Thinking in the Soviet Union and the Post-Soviet Space

2021 ◽  
Vol 83 ◽  
pp. 47-62
Author(s):  
Daniil Anikin ◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Social Space ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
Russian Society ◽  
Historical Responsibility ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The One

The purpose of the article is to analyze the mechanisms of the transformation of martyrological thinking in the Soviet Union and in post-Soviet Russia. The methodological basis of the study is constituted by the works written by the representatives of functionalism (E. Durkheim, M. Halbwachs, P. Bourdieu, J.C. Alexander), who raise the issue of the important role of religious rituals and forms of thinking in social space. Martyrological thinking creates martyrdom cults, performing an ambivalent function. On the one hand, this thinking is a way to maintain a collective identity, and on the other, a way to damage and destroy it. The author concludes that in Soviet society two main stages that formed martyrdom cults can be distinguished: the periods of the Civil War and the Great Patriotic War. In both cases, martyrological thinking was an important factor in the consolidation of the society. In post-Soviet society, martyrological thinking becomes a factor that causes the deconstruction of the symbolic space and a hidden factor in the destabilization of the political organization. The perception of the conservative part of the Russian society is expressed in the formation of the cult of the last Russian emperor, Nicholas II, which, on the one hand, allows to mitigate the historical responsibility, and on the other becomes a moral justification for criticizing the continuity of modern Russian power in relation to the Soviet Union.

Конструируя Роскошь: Бытовое Пространство Советской Номенклатуры, 1940–1952 годы

2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tatiana N. Nikonorova ◽  
Татьяна Н. Никонорова
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Central Committee ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
Financial Security ◽  
Luxury Goods ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Party Control ◽  
Political Hierarchy

This article is based on previously unpublished sources, mainly the archival materials of the Party Control Commission of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). I argue that luxury can be seen as a phenomenon constructed by the Soviet social and political hierarchy during the 1940s and 1950s. An examination of everyday practices and patterns of consumption of luxury goods (food, clothing, interior furnishings, etc.) indicates that the Soviet elite (nomenklatura) sought to emulate a notional “middle-class” lifestyle. The distribution of so-called “trophy items” imported from East Germany to the Soviet Union caused friction within the party administration and sowed discontent within Soviet society as a whole. The dual policy of the CPSU on the issue of financial security of its members revealed its uncertainty about the state of “permitted” and “unauthorized” luxury.

Pragmatists and Believers: Dynamics of Ideology and Compromise within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1941-1942

2013 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-63
Author(s):  
Daniel Stotland
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
Russian Society ◽  
World War ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Soviet State ◽  
The Impact

The significance of World War II within the Russian historiography is unequivocal– but the impact of that great cataclysm on the Soviet state and Soviet society is frequently understated or overstated. The early 1940s brought massive losses to the upper echelons of the Communist Party, resulting in a rapid mobilization of the state, but these upheavals took place in a society that was already hamstrung by both the traditional scarcity of qualified professionals and the strain that Marxist-Leninist purism placed on an already strained education system. Long before the October Revolution, Russia was plagued with the enduring problem of scarcity of the qualified managerial cadres; after the Revolution, this problem was exacerbated by factional disputes between ideologues, who were primarily concerned with the ideological purity of the Soviet state, and pragmatists, who favoring a greater focus on vocational education. Caught between these two factions was the proto-middle class from which the professional stratum of Russian society was to be recruited. During the opening years of World War II, the demand for educated professionals rose, forcing compromises in their ideological purity. In the long term, the result was a gradual, piecemeal shift toward pragmatic compromise. In the short term, however, faced with a dilemma between under-staffed and under-indoctrinated, caught in a decision-making paradigm locked in by Marxism-Leninism, the Soviet matrix opted for personalized networks and regional cliques over the professional apparatus in its quest for short-term efficiency. Drawing on archival materials such as memoir literature, epistolary documentation and state reports from Moscow and provincial (particularly those of the Tver’ Oblast’) collections, this article examines the tensions that underpinned the conditions of the proto-middle class from throughout the 1940s, tracing the ideological constraints that structured the political landscape, the repeating cycles of essentially identical attempts at reform, and the ways in which the strain of the ideological/pragmatic conflict on Russian professionals was, and was not, resolved in the wake of World War II.

scholarly journals FEATURES OF ETHNOCULTURAL ACTIVITY OF THE UKRAINIAN DIASPORA IN RUSSIA IN THE AGE OF PUTINISM

2021 ◽  
pp. 77-86
Author(s):  
Mykola Obushnyi
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
National Consciousness ◽  
Federal Law ◽  
Court Order ◽  
Ruling Class ◽  
Cultural Autonomy ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Russian Federation

The article is devoted to the analysis of the Ukrainian diaspora organizations ethnocultural activity peculiarities in the Russian Federation (RF), the beginning of which is connected with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the proclamation of Ukraine‟s independence (1991). The author connects their appearance with the growth of national consciousness, which was based on the idea of Ukraine‟s independence. This idea has always been perceived extremely negatively and cautiously by the ruling class of Russia, as well as by a significant number of Russians, at all times when Ukrainians were under the imperial roof. Even in the conditions of the total crisis at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, when the systemic disintegration of the USSR began, the Communist Party leadership constantly kept the "Ukrainian question" in view. This is confirmed, in particular, by the termination in 1989 of the magazine "Ukrainian Question", the publication of which was organized by the Moscow branch of the "Ukrainian Helsinki Union". A similar fate befell a number of other Ukrainian communities already in modern Russia. Among them are the two largest all-Russian diaspora organizations of Ukrainians in Russia: the Union of Ukrainians of Russia (ESD) and the Federal National-Cultural Autonomy "Ukrainians of Russia" (FNKAUR). The analysis below shows that their activities were carried out in accordance with Russian legislation, in particular the Federal Law of Russia "On National and Cultural Autonomy" and was aimed at organizing and conducting ethnocultural work among Ukrainians. However, Putin's leadership found "evidence of political activity" from both ESD and FNKAUR and banned their activities by court order. In fact, the main reasons for the author's cessation are the independence policy of modern Ukraine and the leaders of Ukrainian diasporas, their "disobedience" to pursue Russia's state imperial policy among Ukrainians, and their unwillingness to ignore the ethnocultural needs of Ukrainians. Currently, there is no all-Russian organization of Ukrainians in Russia. Activists of the Ukrainian diaspora have repeatedly, and since 2014, tried to register at least one of them, but they are constantly denied on the grounds that they will allegedly "glorify Bandera" and negatively affect Ukrainian-Russian relations. In fact, the reason is different, namely, in the traditional imperialism not only of Russia's ruling class, but also of a significant number of Russians who do not see a Russian neo-empire without Ukraine. This Russian propaganda cliché penetrated deeply not only into the consciousness of Russians, but also distorted the national consciousness of a significant number of Ukrainians in Russia, who cease to identify themselves as Ukrainians. The article emphasizes that the deidentification of our compatriots is based on persecution, harassment, contempt, not only the Kremlin authorities, but also a significant number of Russians towards Ukrainians in Russia.

Vanguard of the Revolution

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. James McAdams
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
North Korea ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
Modern World ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Revolution

This book is a sweeping history of one of the most significant political institutions of the modern world. The communist party was a revolutionary idea long before its supporters came to power. The book argues that the rise and fall of communism can be understood only by taking into account the origins and evolution of this compelling idea. It shows how the leaders of parties in countries as diverse as the Soviet Union, China, Germany, Yugoslavia, Cuba, and North Korea adapted the original ideas of revolutionaries like Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin to profoundly different social and cultural settings. The book is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand world communism and the captivating idea that gave it life.

New Materials for Studying Preparation and Staging of the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students in 1957

2018 ◽  
pp. 550-563
Author(s):  
Daniel Sawert ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
Unique Event ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Cultural Standards ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Local Traditions

The article assesses archival materials on the festival movement in the Soviet Union in 1950s, including its peak, the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students held in 1957 in Moscow. Even now the Moscow festival is seen in the context of international cultural politics of the Cold War and as a unique event for the Soviet Union. The article is to put the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students in the context of other youth festivals held in the Soviet Union. The festivals of 1950s provided a field for political, social, and cultural experiments. They also have been the crucible of a new way of communication and a new language of design. Furthermore, festivals reflected the new (althogh relative) liberalism in the Soviet Union. This liberalism, first of all, was expressed in the fact that festivals were organized by the Komsomol and other Soviet public and cultural organisations. Taking the role of these organisations into consideration, the research draws on the documents of the Ministry of culture, the All-Russian Stage Society, as well as personal documents of the artists. Furthermore, the author has gained access to new archive materials, which have until now been part of no research, such as documents of the N. Krupskaya Central Culture and Art Center and of the central committees of various artistic trade unions. These documents confirm the hypothesis that the festivals provided the Komsomol and the Communist party with a means to solve various social, educational, and cultural problems. For instance, in Central Asia with its partiarchal society, the festivals focuced on female emancipation. In rural Central Asia, as well as in other non-russian parts of the Soviet Union, there co-existed different ways of celebrating. Local traditions intermingled with cultural standards prescribed by Moscow. At the first glance, the modernisation of the Soviet society was succesful. The youth acquired political and cultural level that allowed the Soviet state to compete with the West during the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students. During the festival, however, it became apparent, that the Soviet cultural scheme no longer met the dictates of times. Archival documents show that after the Festival cultural and party officials agreed to ease off dogmatism and to tolerate some of the foreign cultural phenomena.

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