World War spe-
cial efforts were made to assure that such fields as university teaching and scientific research were largely in the hands of Communists. Conversely, it became much easier for outstanding people to join the Party.
The social composition of the Communist party of the Soviet Union indicated fluctuation. Ostensibly the true party of the proletariat, prior to 1917 it had a largely bourgeois leadership and no mass following of any kind. The workers as a group, however, did support it in November 1917 and during the hard years that followed the Bolshevik seizure of power. The Party naturally welcomed them, while at the same time displaying extreme suspiciousness toward those of 'hostile' class origin. With the stabilization of the Soviet system and the inauguration of the five- year plans, 'Soviet intellectuals,' in particular technical and administrative personnel of all sorts, became prominent. On the eve of the Second World War the Party was described as composed 50 per cent of workers, 20 per cent of peasants, and 30 per cent of Soviet intellectuals, with the last group on the increase. That increase continued after the war, as social origin became less significant with time and the authorities tried to bring all prominent people into the Party. It might be noted that, in relation to their numbers, peasants were poorly represented, indicating the difficulty the Communists experienced in permeating the countryside. The proportion of women increased up to about one-quarter of the membership of the Party.
The Communist party of the Soviet Union was very thoroughly organized. Starting with primary units, or cells, which were established where three or more Communists could be found, that is, in factories, collective farms, schools, military units, and so forth, the structure rose from level to level to culminate in periodic Party congresses, which constituted important events in Soviet history, and in the permanently active Central Committee, Secretariat, and Politburo. At every step, from an individual factory or collective farm to the ministries and other superior governing agencies, Communists were supposed to provide supervision and inspiration, making it their business to see that no undesirable trends developed and that production goals were overfulfilled. At higher government levels, as already indicated, the entire personnel consisted of Communists, a fact which nevertheless did not eliminate Party vigilance and control. In general, rotation between full-time government positions and Party administrative positions was common. It should be noted that the guiding role of the Party has asserted itself with increased force after Stalin's death, for - as L. Schapiro and other close students of Soviet communism have indicated - the late general secretary's dictatorial power had grown to such enormous proportions that it had put even the Party into the shade.
Whereas the Great October Revolution catapulted the Communist party to power, it led to the destruction of entire social classes. Indeed, its initial impact
resulted in a sweeping leveling of traditional Russian society. The landowning gentry, for centuries the top social group in Russia, disappeared rapidly in 1917 and 1918 as peasants seized their land. The upper bourgeoisie, financial, industrial, and commercial, was similarly eliminated when the Bolsheviks nationalized finance, industry, and trade. The middle and especially the lower bourgeoisie, to be sure, staged a remarkable comeback during the years of the New Economic Policy. Their final destruction, however, came with the implementation of the five-year plans. If the gentry occupied the stage in Russia too long, the bourgeoisie was cut down before it came into its own. The clergy, the monks and nuns, and other people associated with the Church, constituted yet another group to suffer harsh persecution, although in their case it stopped short of complete annihilation. The great majority of the intellectuals, too, found themselves in opposition to the new regime. Many of them emigrated. Many others perished in the frightful years of civil war and famine. In fact, although some of its members remained, the intelligentsia as a cohesive, articulate, and independent group was no more.
Whereas the Bolsheviks regarded the upper and middle classes as enemies by definition, they believed themselves to be acting in the interests of the masses, that is, of the workers and of the peasants. As it turned out, however, the peasants have borne the brunt of the privations and sacrifices imposed by the Soviet 'builders of socialism.' The total population of the U.S.S.R. was officially given in the spring of 1959 as only 208,826,000 - and as 262,400,000 according to the census of 1979 - a low figure which testifies to two demographic catastrophes: the one associated with the First Five-Year Plan, more especially the collectivization of agriculture, and the other resulting from the Second World War. In both cases peasants - and peasants as soldiers - suffered the most, dying by the millions. The extent to which the Soviet Union was a land of peasants is indicated by the fact that the rural population constituted 82 per cent of the total in 1928 and still almost a third sixty-five years later.
Of course, peasants carried such a heavy burden in the U.S.S.R. not only because of their vast numbers, but also because of the policies pursued by the government. Lenin's original endorsement of the peasant seizure of gentry land had great appeal in the countryside. Influenced by the Bolshevik land policy and by revolutionary soldiers returning home - a point effectively emphasized by Radkey - the rural masses proved reasonably well inclined toward the new regime and on the whole apparently preferred it to the Whites during the great civil war. But War Communism antagonized many of them. Besides, the Bolsheviks tried to split the peasants, inciting the poor against the better-off and later attempting to utilize the poor and the middle peasant against the so-called kulak. While some social differentiation did exist in the villages, the authorities,
applying abstract Marxist formulas where they did not fit, exaggerated it beyond all measure and ended by, in effect, condemning and punishing all peasants who did not behave in the prescribed manner.
The respite during the N.E.P., in the course of which rural Russia recovered and in part even began to experience something akin to prosperity, was followed by the all-out offensive of the First Five-Year Plan. Five million kulaks and members of their families disappeared. Countless peasants, recalcitrant or relatively prosperous or simply unlucky, populated forced-labor camps. Other uncounted peasants starved to death. Scenes of horror in once bounteous Ukraine defied description. But, as we know, the peasants, in spite of their resistance, were finally pushed and pulled into collectives. The typical member of a kolkhoz was a new phenomenon in Russian history. The novelty resided not in his wretched poverty, not even in the extremely heavy exactions imposed upon him, but in the minute state organization and control of his work and life. While peasants profited from certain Soviet policies, notably the spread of education, and while some of them rose to higher stations in society, on the whole the condition of the rural masses, the bulk of the Soviet people, remained miserable and at times desperate. Largely supporting the five-year plans by their labor, as already explained, Soviet peasants received very little in return. After Stalin's death, Khrushchev and other leaders admitted the grave condition of the Soviet countryside, while writers presented some unforgettable pictures of it during the relative freedom of expression that prevailed for several months in 1956. Subsequent years, to be sure, witnessed an improvement. Yet rural Russia remains poor. Moreover, the party and the government continued their social engineering, as clearly indicated in such postwar measures and projects as the increase in the size of the collective farms, the abortive agrogoroda, the temporary emphasis on the sovkhoz form of agriculture, and the periodic campaigns against the private plots of kolkhoz members. Indeed - logically, from their point of view - Communists were not likely to relax until peasants disappeared as a separate group, having been integrated into a completely socialized, mechanized, and urbanized economy. No wonder that the coming of
Industrial workers in many ways profited most from the Bolshevik revolution. That revolution was made in their name, and they gave the new regime its greatest social support. Because of this, perhaps a million and a half workers and their children rose to new importance. They became Party functionaries, Red Army officers, and even organizers of collective farms. Many received rapid training to be graduated as technologists. Persons of a proletarian background enjoyed priorities in institutions of higher learning and elsewhere. The upward social mobility of workers was all the more remarkable because their total number was not
very large, and it contrasted sharply with the relatively static nature of tsarist society. Many prominent people in all walks of life today owe their positions to that rise.
But, of course, while many workers went up the social ladder, new men and women entered the factories.
