The Bolsheviks' professed objective, when they came to power, was to destroy the existing bourgeois order, and create a truly egalitarian society. Yet, as I shall show elsewhere, there soon developed, under their tutelage, a system of privilege which had little in common with their Marxist creed, and which was to last to the present day. My main concern in this chapter is to suggest yardsticks for determining the most materially privileged group in Soviet society, an elite, in the early seventies. It is perhaps desirable to start with a brief review of the forces which still respectively counter and encourage this strange phenomenon. The nature of the regime makes it appropriate to begin with the hindrances. The most fundamental of them is, of course, the state ideology itself. The principle of the legal equality of all Soviet citizens was embodied, after a long delay, in the Stalin Constitution of 1936. Since then Soviet ideologists have claimed that all significant social distinctions are disappearing, as society moves steadily towards the classlessness of full communism. Though inegalitarian policies have often been pursued, this ideological proposition has remained unshakeable, and has left a deep imprint on Soviet law. Secondly there are the elaborate limitations on high earnings. These are so well known as to require only listing. Apart from collective farms and co-operatives, the state is virtually the only employer of labour, and most kinds of legally earned income are under some sort of government control. Wage differentials have nearly always been a matter of government decision, and subject to close scrutiny. Most other sources of income are highly restricted. The means of production are, of course, nationalised and no citizen can hire the labour of others for purposes of private production. Market gardening on private plots is the commonest way in which individuals may legally produce a commodity themselves and trade in it, but the limitations on this practice are considerable, and, given Soviet agricultural economics, it is far from yielding large sums. Buying and selling for profit are labelled as 'speculation' and are 18 Privilege in the Soviet Union punishable by law. Personal talents and skills (primarily in the arts, medicine and teaching) are supposed to be exercised through staterun organisations, and are rewarded at state-approved rates; such private practice as exists is subject to progressive taxes reaching 70 per cent of earnings (Tur, 1973, p. 44). Private accommodation can only be legally rented out for profit with the approval of the local soviet, under a low rent ceiling; in this case tax can swallow up to 80 per cent of the takings. No wonder evasion of the regulations is frequent. Thirdly, controls on wealth are rather strict. Private ownership of land, natural resources and production machinery are constitutionally banned. The citizen can keep as much money as he pleases at home, but inflation (of which there are sure signs), the risk of theft and occasional government manipulation of the currency make this unattractive in the long term. The virtual devaluation of cash holdings under the December 1947 currency reform, for instance, has never been forgotten by the public, nor repudiated by the authorities. Gold and precious stones may be a safer form of wealth than the paper ruble, but they are hard to come by in any quantity. There is no legal limit on personal savings in the state bank, and accounts can be opened with a minimum of formality. At the same time a large balance has its drawbacks. The rate of interest is only 2-3 per cent per annum and the saver has the right to bank only 'earned income', which puts a putative limit on his holdings. A very large sum might attract the attention of the banking authorities who, if they suspect an illegal source, may inform the investigative organs. The present version of the RSFSR Civil Code, approved on 11 June 1964, contains a specific provision for confiscation in such circumstances (Article 395). It is not advisable to have accounts in different towns, for, with the incapacitation or death of the holder, these accounts would come to the notice of the authorities: the estates of deceased persons in any case have to be assessed by a state notary. The use of false names and addresses is also risky, since savings bank officials are at liberty to ask for a depositor's internal passport. The Soviet citizen has the right to own his dwelling. The Civil Code stipulates that the Soviet family may, in normal circumstances, own a house (or flat) containing not more than 60 square metres of living sp!lce (Articles 106-10). The height of any individual dwellinghouse is limited to one storey. Ownership of a dacha, or wooden house, in the country is also permitted, and is indeed widespread, though the Civil Code implies that it should only be for temporary residence. Local rules may prevent its use in winter by prohibiting stoves, etc., and many of these structures are hardly more than sheds. If a person inherits an extra dwelling, he has to sell it; local A Problem of Definition 19 soviets have powers of coercion, and eventually confiscation, in this respect. The law states that property may be handed over to the state in the form of a gift, if the owner so desires. Consumer durables can be held as another form of wealth. The government's longstanding neglect of the consumer industries means, however, that although some durables have great market value, they cannot usually be bought in quantity. Private motor-cars are by Western standards still extremely scarce, and naturally have to be licensed - which in itself is a form of control. Possession of two or more vehicles is hardly conceivable, except for a handful of individuals. The prospects for private ownership of sea-going yachts or cruisers are poor, given the authorities' sensitivity about the coasts, the ban on the sale of sea charts and the possible use of boats for flight abroad. Ownership of private aeroplanes is specifically restricted by the Civil Code (Article 137). One does occasionally hear of rich collections of smallish objects - porcelain, icons, stamps - in private hands. Unhappily, there have been some well-advertised confiscations (with the application of 'speculation' charges), and a survey of Moscow second-hand shops suggests an exceptionally bare market. These limitations on earnings and wealth, together with the generally low standard of living, ensure that the Soviet elite, in 'capitalist' terms, if not in the context of Soviet society, is relatively poor. * It is also directly and continually dependent on the state for its well-being. Every Soviet citizen is under a constitutional obligation to work, and any income which he earns outside state-approved channels is illegal, carrying considerable risks. Those individuals (mainly artists) who can earn large sums of money from foreign sources apparently have to surrender up to 90 per cent of it to the Soviet government. THE PROTECTION OF PRIVILEGE SO much for the impediments. Even in this unpromising framework, there are powerful factors which favour privileged life-styles. The first undoubtedly comprises the deep-seated attitudes of the population. After all, it has never been demonstrated that Soviet citizens have different responses towards incentives and differentiation from people who were unfortunate enough to be born elsewhere. The impact of a few decades of propaganda, and isolation from the West, cannot be judged with any certainty. All indications are that Soviet citizens have not, to any significant degree, lost their propensity to appreciate, and strive for, material advantages vis-a-vis friends and neighbours. Neither are there grounds for believing that society itself does not benefit from this fact. ? A matter I consider in Chapter 6. 20 Privilege in the Soviet Union Secondly, there is a more functionalist argument. The Soviet Union, like all industrialised states, has a wide range of occupations which vary greatly in content and the demands they make on the individual. Occupational prestige differences are freely admitted, and these, as far as we can tell, correlate with income and skill, much as elsewhere. Labour is still paid according to 'quantity and quality': the need for differentials is thus taken firmly for granted, and only the 'spread' of them is open to question. Lenin always regarded himself as a fervent egalitarian but, as I shall argue below, practical Leninism was in some ways ambivalent and favoured apartness. The leadership of the Soviet Communist Party has, from its early days, been profoundly elitist in its attitudes; it has regarded itself as an enlightened band which understands the march of history and is destined to lead the Russian people - indeed the whole world - to communism. In daily life it has always ensured for itself and its closest associates privileges commensurate with these awesome demands. On an administrative plane, the official policy towards privilege has usually been positively benign. From the earliest months, if not days, of Bolshevik rule considerable differentiation was permitted in such matters as food rationing, accommodation, and access to state services, particularly education. Earnings were a contentious issue even amongst the Bolsheviks, but here, too, long scales soon appeared. After Stalin took power he allowed various social differentials to widen to an extreme degree. Khrushchev did something to reverse this policy, but the Brezhnev years have been characterised by a definite return to differentiation. These developments are something that will be considered in other chapters. Direct taxation has long since been abandoned as an instrument of income redistribution in any significant sense. Income tax reaches a maximum of 13 per cent on regular earnings, and promises have been made to abolish it altogether. Wealth is not taxed as such, and the maximum rate of death duties is only 10 per cent (Tur, p. 149). Many essential consumer goods carry high state duties, a practice which obviously bears heaviest on the poor. The so-called state transfer payments - though educational, health and social services - are of variable quality and only marginally, if at all, redistributive. Privilege is further protected by a veil of secrecy. A comparison of information on elite life-styles which is normally accessible in 'open' societies, and that available in the Soviet Union, shows this plainly. In the USSR (a) no official figures are published on the national distribution of income, probably because they would reveal an unsocialistic degree of inequality, (b) words like 'elite', 'rich', are banned as a description of any social group, (c) hardly any data on higher salaries are printed for open distribution, (d) scarcely A Problem of Definition 21 anything is printed on elite life-styles or material privileges, (e) there is no biographic directory similar in size or scope to a 'Who's Who', (f) there is no popular celebrity or image-building in the Western sense, the Soviet press being, anyway, unsuited to this and (g) there are no light-weight magazines or journals directed at an elite market. Pay, differentials and life-styles at the lower levels of Soviet reality are often discussed in print, so the explanation for these gaps must lie in a censor's prohibition of the topic (Matthews, 1974; Dewhirst and Farrell, 1973), confirmation of this can be found in samizdat sources. HIGH INCOMES We may now turn to the problem of delineating the social group which enjoyed most material privileges in the seventies. * I shall deal with three fairly obvious and closdy related indices here, leaving some less obvious but equally essential ones to the next chapter. First, I shall seek a rather high income which is the minimum requirement for an elite life-style (given other important factors). Secondly, I shall list occupations which arguably allow people to achieve it. The third index - nomenclature listings - really needs to be described in detail, but the censorship ban is complete enough to prevent proper analysis. 'Income' for present purposes means money earned legally from state institutions or co-operatives. All other important sources of material well-being - income in kind, income earned legally by private effort, gratuitous services and illegal gains, etc. - are for the moment excluded. The most satisfactory approach would be to-locate social boundaries adequate for 'elitism', and then find the income levels to which these corresponded. Alternatively, a notional minimum elite income could be found by costing an elite budget in Soviet prices, and making due allowance for dependants. Unfortunately, the dearth of information renders both of these approaches impracticable, and we have to use less direct methods. *As I have already made clear, my interpretation of elitism is not based primarily on power holding or political influence, though privileged life-styles are intimately connected with authority. From the point of view of the privilege they en.joy, there is a strong argument for treating the upper ranks of the Communist Party separately from other groups. Responsible, full-time party functionaries form a distinct entity, and are the first beneficiaries of material privileges. Paucity of information, however, obliges me to include the party elite in my general treatment, though I shall refer to it specifically whenever the need arises. Objections to the use of the 'group' concept for sociological analysis (as opposed, for example, to continua) are as valid for Soviet society as for any others, but its usefulness is no less evident. 22 Privilege in the Soviet Union The income threshold must be high enough to ensure that only a relatively small number of earners exceed it, because smallness is an essential characteristic of an elite. In occupational terms this group should make up no more than a tiny proportion of the labour force (its members, together with their families, must comprise a similar proportion of the population). The minimum income for inclusion in it would also have to be some significant multiple of the average wage of workers and employees (officially stated to be 130 rubles a month, including bonuses, etc., in 1972) or a greater multiple of the minimum wage (60-70 rubles in the same year). For this purpose we might choose a ratio acceptable for American or some other industrialised society. The figure Soviet sociologists themselves suggest, unable though they are to investigate the problem overtly, may serve as a starting point. Five hundred rubles, as the salary of the head of an average-sized family of about three to five persons, supplemented by a wife's income, has been mentioned to me in this connection. I believe, incongruous though it may seem, that the Soviet censors also provide a clue in so far as they are very sensitive about 'high' salaries. In fact there is a very definite upper limit for figures in published wage studies. The highest to come to my notice in a perusal of many published discussions in the early seventies were intervals of 300-400 rubles (V. Ya. Raitsin, 1970) and '400 rubles and over' (I. Ya. Matyukha, 1973). * This may be provisionally accepted as a rule-of-thumb lower limit for the unmentionable elite salaries. Four or five hundred rubles fits my general stipulations for a reasonable elite threshold. This sum was nearly four times the average wage, and about seven times the minimum; as I shall show in a moment, it was received by a suitably small proportion of the workforce. I have collected as much evidence of salaries at and *The works I have managed to consult for this purpose are V. E. Komarov and U. G. Chernyavski, Dokhody i potreblenie naseleniya SSR (Moscow, 1973); I. I. Korzhenevski, Osnovnye zakonomernosti razvitiya sprosa v SSSR (Moscow, 1971); E. A. Lutokhina, Oplata truda inzhenerno-teknicheskikh rabotnikov (Moscow, 1966); I. Ya. Matyukha, Statistika zhiznennogo urovnya naseleniya (Moscow, 1973); V. V. Onikienko and V. A. Popovkin, Kompleksnoe issledovanie migratsionnykh protsessov (Moscow, 1973); N. E. Rabkina and N. M. Rimashevskaya, Osnovy diIJerentsiatsii zarabotnoi platy i dokhodov naseleniya (Moscow, 1972); B. Ya. Raitsin, Matematicheskie metody i modeli planirovaniya urovnya zhizni (Moscow, 1970). A perusal of the Bulletin of the State Committee for Labour and Wages for recent years yielded a top figure of only 330 rubles (the maximum for collective farm chairmen). The 1960 comprehensive list of basic wage and salary rates for industry, published in a confidential numbered edition for official use only, revealed a top basic salary of 450 rubles for that year, Tari/nye stavki i dolzhnostnye oklady, pereshchitannye v svyazi s izmeneniem tsen (Moscow, 1960). Edition of State Committee for Labour, 3,000 copies. A Problem of Definition 23 above this level as was practicable. The results of my efforts are shown in Tables 1.1 to 1.7. Some of the figures were obtained from printed sources, others from my interview work: unless otherwise stated they refer to the period 1971-3. Table 1.1 * Earnings of Individual Party and State Officials Reported Possible Possible Basic Extrasb Total Party Officials First (General) Secretary of Party 900a Secretary of Central Committee 700-800a First Secretary of a Union Republic (without oblast divisions) 600 210 810 First Secretary of Tula Oblast 600 210 810 Secretary of Partkom, USSR Council of Ministers 500 122 622 Assistant to Member of Politburo 425 115 440 'Instructor' (Junior Official) of Central Committee (1971-73) 290-310 105 400 (1974) 350-450 110 510 State Officials Member of a Republican Council of Ministers 430 195 625 1972 Minister of Communications, Belorussia 630 a Rumour only. b Extras: I have here merely inserted a figure for the 'thirteenth month' as discussed on p. 36, and an allowance for certificate rubles, these being transposed into ordinary rubles by multiplying by a factor of five. Officials above oblast first secretary are considered to receive the 32-ruble rate (see Chapter 2 below). *Note on Individual Income Tables Details in Tables 1.1 and 1.4 to 1.7 are from selected individual respondents, and relate to the years 1970-3; see note on interview sources, p. 186. Rises for party and legal personnel after 1971 have been included here. All earnings are in rubles, monthly. Rates of exchange, 1971: official Soviet - 2.16 rubles to the pound; Soviet free market (illegal, rumoured) - 12-15 rubles to the pound; London free market (illegal in Soviet law) - 8-10 rubles to the pound. A dash indicates that no information was available. 24 Privilege in the Soviet Union Table 1.2 Basic Salary and Total Wage of Managers of Largest (Category 1) Industrial Enterprises, by Branch* (J) (2) (3) (4) Branch of Industry Published Estimated Estimated Basic Basic total Salariesa Salaries wage 1960 Post-1971 1970b (Plan) Coal 400 480 656 Non-Ferrous 325-375 420 573 Ferrous 300-350 390 533 Machine Building 300-330 378 516 Chemical 290-330 372 508 Oil and Gas 290-300 354 483 Building Materials, } Light, Textile, 180-250 258 352 and Food Industries a From Tarifnye stal'ki . .. (1960); see Bibliography. All sums are quoted in rubles per month. The currency reform of 1 January 1961 meant the replacement of 'old' rubles by new ones at a ratio of 10:1. b Estimated from column (2) and L. E. Kunelski, 'Sotsialno-ekonomicheskie problemy zarabotnoi platy', Moscow, 1972, where some figures for bonus supplements are provided. ·The salary system for managers and specialists is complex, and in industry alone is said to consist of 150 'schemes'. The elements determining a given wage are (a) branch of industry, (b) category of enterprise (up to seven, by size and importance to the state), (c) geographical location of enterprise, (d) economic performance within the framework of state plans, (e) training and length of service, (f) skill in martipulating the regulations. Minor changes in the schemes are frequent - witness the size of the monthly Byulleten Gosudarstvennogo Komiteta po trudu i zarabotnoi plate. Table 1.3 Distribution of Industrial Enterprises by Category, Size of Workforce and Managers' Earnings, 1971-1972 (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) Category No. of % Distribution Managers' Total Wages of Workers of Enterprises All industry Light industry Coal industry Enterprises 7 1000rless 34·6 163-213 391 6 101-500 41·9 180-221 180-197 425 5 501-1,000 ll'O 196-262 197-229 458 4 1,001-3,000 8-1 229-385 229-262 491 3 3,001-6,500 1·2 278-417 262-295 540 2 6,501-10,000 1·2 295-491 295-328 589 1 10,001 and over 0·3 344--573 328-343 656 C Sources: Columns (1), (2) and (3), Narodnoe khozyaistvo SSSR (1972), pp. 159, 192. Category 6 is the sum of two contiguous categories in this source; categories 2 and 3 are a single category halved, so as to fit other data. Columns (4), (5) and (6) are estimated from Tarifnye stavki ... , relevant pages, as for column (4) of Table 1.1. 'All industry' in column (4) excludes coal-mining, c which had the highest rates, and light industry, which had the lowest. These are given separately in columns (5) and (6). No data ....... tJ are available for the defence industry. :::.. c· ;:s N IJ'o 26 Privilege in the Soviet Union Table 1.4 Earnings of Main Categories of Senior Academic and Research Personnel Director of VUZ, Research Institute Pro-rector Professor, Chief Researcher Assistant Professor, Dotsent, Leading Researcher Senior Researcher a To which might be added the following extras: Basica 500-700b 400 325-525 300-350 200-250 Membership of Academy of Sciences 350-500 rubles Headship of Faculty (dekanat) 30% on basic rate Headship of Department (kafedra) 100 rubles b Depending on category of establishment, of which there were three. Table 1.5 Earnings of Individuals in the Arts and Publishing First Secretary of Union of Composers Reported Basic 800 First Secretary of Union of Cinematograph Workers 500 General Secretary of the Leningrad Division of the Union of Writers Editor of Union Republican Newspaper Deputy Editor, Union Republican Newspaper Expert painting restorer Well-known Writer (All-Union level) Well-known ballet dancer (All-Union level) a Including honoraria from outside work. 350 240 210 160 500 Table 1.6 Earnings of Individual Legal Officials Deputy Chairman of Republican Supreme Court (no oblast divisions) Head of the Moscow Foreign Judicial Collegium Head of the Moscow Section of Advocates Moscow Advocate ·See footnote, Table 5. Reported Basic 450-480 400 400-500 250 Reported Tolala 1,400 500-600 500 800-1,000 800-1,000 900-1,200 Reported Tolala 500 A Problem of Definition 27 Table 1.7 Earnings of Senior Military Officers and Individual Diplomats* Marshal of the USSR Major General Colonel Lieutenant Colonel Minister-Counsellor accredited to a large capitalist state Ambassador, small underdeveloped country Counsellor, small underdeveloped country Reported Basic 600 500 400 500 400 360 Reported Total 2,000 *Military salaries reported for categories of personnel; diplomatic salaries of individuals, paid partly in certificate rubles, see p. 42. All figures in Soviet rubles. When categorised they reveal which occupation groups are the highest paid. It would doubtless be possible to find individuals in every walk of Soviet life who, for some reason or other, earned enough to enjoy an elite life-style, but I am concerned with groups large enough to be socially significant. The data suggest that the party and state bureaucrats, managers of large productive enterprises, representatives of the technical and artistic intelligentsia (the equivalent of our free professions) and the military security and diplomatic services were most favoured in this respect. In general terms the tables contain just those categories that one would expect, given the nature of the Soviet economy. The differences from the pattern we are used to in the West require little comment here. (See p. 181 below for a comparison with the USA.) The so-called 'free professions' which are normally well-off under capitalism are relatively poorly paid in the USSR; indeed only their topmost representatives cross my suggested threshold. Many types of party and state official pass our threshold, but the evidence is that on the whole they have a surprisingly low money income. Some compensation for this is afforded by easier access to secondary benefits, which will be discussed in detail below. The people with the largest money incomes in the USSR are artists, academicians and military leaders, followed possibly by the most responsible industrial managers. The income scales for managers of collective and state farms (which in the early seventies employed no less than 30 per cent of the labour force) were on the whole very low, and I have not, in fact, found any salaries high enough to record in this sector. Even inside elite as posited here, there is a great diversity of income, between both occupation groups and individuals. The 'basic earnings' we have registered in the tables result from complex government scales, incentive bonuses and other factors. In 28 Privilege in the Soviet Union many cases, however, they may be supplemented by extra income from sinecures, academic titles, second posts, consultancies, publishing and various kinds of private practice, depending on the training or occupation of the individual involved. Such supplements deserve a word of explanation. The best-known sinecure available to people who have made some sort of mark in their trade or profession is a seat in one of the Supreme Soviets. The 1,517 deputies to the 1970-4 Supreme Soviet of the USSR were entitled to a honorarium of 100 rubles a month, some free travel, and paid biennial trips to Moscow for sessions of that body. Seats were held on average for eight years; about half of them went to outstanding 'workers' and 'peasants', the rest to first secretaries of krai and oblast party committees and persons holding responsible posts in the localities. The 5,879 deputies to Union Republic Supreme Soviets got 50 rubles a month and tended to keep their seats for rather shorter periods. It is noteworthy, however, that since 1966 deputies have tended to be more involved in legislative work, so the money has become rather less of a gift. In the early seventies the country's 2,521 academicians received 350-500 rubles a month by virtue of holding full or corresponding rank at All-Union or branch level of the Academy of Sciences. This was, of course, in addition to salaries earned at their place of work. Doctors of Science occupying production posts were usually entitled to monthly supplements of 100 rubles, while the rate for Candidates of Science in like employment was 50 rubles. (Degree payments for teachers and researchers were apparently keyed into their basic salary scales.) The achievement of academic distinction in the USSR is by no means easy in normal circumstances. Yet the system is tainted with corruption and the extra salary takes all academicians, and some doctors, over our 'elite' income threshold. Professional people who can write, teach or give private consultations of different kinds are well placed to make money on the side. Estimates of extra income from such sources have been shown, as available, in the tables. The rates actually paid for some of these activities, either as fixed by law or established by popular custom, are set out below. They are all surprisingly high, bearing in mind that the average non-peasant wage for a working day was only about 6 rubles. (1) Official Royalty Rates (per 6,000 words). Outstanding literary work by authors of AU-Union fame, All-Union publishing houses: up to 600 rubles, by agreement. Ordinary literary and journalistic work for All-Union publishing A Problem of Definition 29 houses: 150-300 rubles, depending on the standing of the writer and the nature of the work. Provincial publishing houses: 70-150 rubles. Subsequent publication of same material in a different medium may be paid for at similar rates. Subsequent editions in the same medium provide the author with automatically reducing royalties. Technical and scientific literature: 100-200 rubles. Learned articles are frequently unpaid. Income from Personal Endeavour. (Reported rates, early seventies) (For official outlines, as of 25 April 1968, see Spravochnik partiinogo rabotnika, no. 9, Moscow, 1969, p. 249.) (2) Official Concert Honoraria. 90-220 rubles per performance, depending on the standing of the artist and medium. (3) Official Restoration of Icons. Up to 1,000 rubles per contract, said to be the top rate for state-registered experts. (4) Private Lessons. Mathematics teacher (with university post): 5 rubles per pupil for 45 minutes, two to four pupils per class. Language teacher (faculty or department head): 10 rubles per pupil per hour. Language teacher: 5 rubles per hour. (5) Private Medical Consultations. State registered home visit: 5 rubles plus taxi fare. Private dentistry (filling): 6 rubles; home visit, 10 rubles. Post-operational gift to surgeon: 30-40 rubles. RESPONSIBLE JOBS I have already indicated the main socio-occupational groups which, in my view, enjoy an elite income; it remains to estimate their size and say something more about their occupational configuration. A detailed breakdown of the most responsible jobs in the USSR would be extremely useful for this purpose. Such information is, of course, collected by Soviet statisticians, but very little of it is published. I have therefore had to make do with a few tables from the All-Union Population Censuses, material from official handbooks, and in some cases my own estimates. * Given that I am dealing with *The difficulties of estimating occupation group size, even from official primary sources, are great. In the census returns the full-time party officials, arguably the core of the elite, are merged with much less important adminis- 30 Privilege in the Soviet Union two sets of unknowns - high money incomes and the number of people who receive them - a few words of justification for the results, as set out in Table 1.8, are essential Only those 'officials', 'heads' and 'managers', and creative workers who may be presumed to receive more than, say, a 450-ruble minimum can go in. I have on this basis distinguished thirteen groups of personnel who together total a little under a quarter of a million. A smaller elite could, as I have noted, be surmised by raising income limits and reducing the number of posts, and a larger one by the reverse process. This, however, would change the numerical ratios between the thirteen categories which we distinguish, since the internal hierarchies of some groups must be steeper than others. I would not venture to claim more than practical adequacy for the dimensions chosen. Let us now take the categories in turn. The size and composition of the party bureaucracy is, as I have noted, amongst the most difficult to estimate. It seems possible to arrive at a figure of some 200,000 for the so-called 'responsible' full-time party officials by using indications from party and other publications (Rigby, p. 348; Vetrov, pp. 132ff.; G. Fischer, 1965, etc.). This figure would have to be multiplied by a factor of perhaps two to cover all party employees, including office, technical and part-time staff. It would probably be safe to assume that many, but not all, responsible party officials would enjoy an elite life-style. One might include some whose formal salaries were barely on the threshold; the reason for this is that such officials have special money supplements and easier access than other people to the secondary benefits described in the next chapter. I would, however, be inclined to exclude the many thousands of lower-grade officials, like the so-called 'instructors', in the localities. As to officials in the state legislative and executive structure, the Communist Youth League and the Trade Union trators, so the census figure is virtually useless for the present purpose. In fact the size of the party bureaucracy has long been secret. I have therefore tried to estimate a figure for the most responsible party officials from references in party literature. The various rukovoditeli - managers, directors, heads of enterprises and institutions, etc. - appear in the censuses of 1959 and 1970 in a more manageable form, but the figures have again to be refined or supplemented. For instance, the category of 'industrial managers' (sometimes called 'directors of enterprises') comprised nearly 123,000 members in 1970, though there were apparently fewer than 50,000 industrial enterprises. Many deputy directors must, therefore, have been included in it. Enterprises vary greatly in size, as Table 1.3 shows. Reference to an annual statistical handbook allows one to distinguish some sort of hierarchy of managers on this basis; only the most important could possibly achieve elite incomes. Similarly, special estimates need to be made, using the census figures as a basis only, for the most responsible figures in the intelligentsia. The census contains no data for military personnel, the militia, KGB or defence sector. A Problem of Definition 31 Table 1.8 Elite Occupation Groups in Soviet Society - a Hypothetical Distribution for the Early Seventies (Persons in responsible or nomenclature posts earning 450 rubles a month plus, and having access to substantial secondary benefits) Party Officials (responsible, full-time) State, Komsomol and Trade Union Officials Enterprise Managers Industry Construction Transport and Communications Trade and Catering, Public Services Agriculture (Collective and State Farm heads) The 'Intelligentsia' Academicians, heads of VUZy, institutes, faculties, laboratories, etc. Head doctors Senior legal officials Editors and senior journalists Leaders in arts and artistic bureaucracy The military, police, diplomatic service TOTAL a Figures in brackets are sub-totals. thousands 80 60 17 40 30 227 (5) (2) (2) (4) (4) (lO)a (7) (2) (17) (4) % 36 26 7 18 13 100 hierarchies, only the highest, at virtually ministerial level, could aspire to elite incomes. I have entered overall figures for all of these personnel. The term 'enterprise managers', or 'directors', rukovoditeli, as used in the census, is a loose classification covering a body of about 300,000 persons employed in construction, transport and communications, as well as industry. As far as the industrial managers are concerned, the problem is to sift out those who are in the top income brackets. Table 1.2 contains estimates of the basic salaries and actual earnings of managers of the largest, or first category of enterprise in different branches of industry. The most highly paid were those who worked in coal-miQ-ing. Table 1.3 shows a distribution of managers by size of enterprise headed, and suggested total earnings; the figures imply that only the top 10 per cent or so of these people received an elite salary. The figures in these tables suggest that assistant managers in the biggest and most favoured enterprises also had very high earnings, since, as we know, the differentials between them and their principals could have been as little as 10-20 per cent. The 'total' earnings given in Tables 1.2 and 1.3 do not include all the extra bonuses accessible to managers but are estimates, perhaps over-modest, based on Soviet averages. In view of these facts it is hoped that the magnitude of 5,000 for highly paid industrial managers is not too far from reality. 32 Privilege in the Soviet Union It has not proved practicable to attempt an analysis of managerial earnings in construction, transport and communications, so I have simply allowed for groups comprising, in each case, 10 per cent of the census totals. Salaries in the defence industries are certainly very high, but at the time of writing unknown to me. A low putative figure has been inserted for managers of trade, catering and public service establishments, who numbered in all 285,000. The basic earnings in this sector were very modest, while the indulgence of such managers in lucrative but illegal commerce falls beyond the scope of this discussion. The managers of agricultural enterprises (state and collective farms) in all numbered some 50,000. New sets of salary scales for collective farm managers and specialists which were published in 1970 showed that even on the largest farms the top basic salary was only 300 rubles, and the maximum rate, including bonuses but excluding extra payment for research degrees, was only 330 rubles. Most state farm directors would have been only marginally better off. The allowance which must be made for farm benefits in kind and services would certainly have taken some of these people over our 450-ruble minimum. But the great incommodities of residence in rural Russia alone would preclude, in most cases, the attainment of an 'elite' standard of living. This is why I have entered a figure of only 4,000 for them in the table. I take the 'intelligentsia' to include professional people ranging from very highly qualified individuals engaged in research and academic work through doctors, lawyers and journalists to artists, and the state bureaucrats who monitor their activities. (This definition is much narrower than that used in official sources.) Earnings in this sector are on the whole rather poor; but each group contains small numbers of leading figures with very high incomes. It is these whom I have attempted to quantify. My first category under this heading contains published figures for academicians and VUZ rectors, and estimates for deans of large faculties and heads of research laboratories. The paucity of highly paid medical doctors and lawyers has often been commented upon. Even the difectors of hospitals can have salaries in the 220-ruble range. I have entered a figure for the heads of the larger medical establishments only. At the same time it must be remembered that doctors probably have the best opportunities (among the intelligentsia) for good earnings on the side. Local legal officials (judges, procurators and defence counsels or advokaty) are also badly paid, and my estimate is intended to embrace personnel only at the oblast level and above. I have based my magnitude for editors and senior journalists on the number of publishing houses and periodic publications. The comparatively few leading artistic figures have been included in the same category as the 'artistic bureaucracy'. A Problem of Definition 33 The most difficult personnel to quantify are the secret police, militia and senior military officers. In 1972, the Soviet Union had an estimated 3,500,000 men in the armed forces, and 300,000 more border troops. The KGB had, in addition to its own large full-time staff, many high-standing personnel working secretly in Soviet organisations dealing with foreigners, both inside the USSR and abroad. It is probable that officers of the armed forces reach elite income levels at the rank of colonel or major general, which leaves us with a group of a few thousand. KGB officers may have been paid at militia rates, with substantial supplements, or they may have received something like military officers' salaries. The army and KGB are, however, said to be particularly good at obtaining secondary benefits so that a lower salary may have been sufficient to provide an elite life-style. Soviet officials who serve in noncommunist countries, including career diplomats, have rather modest formal salaries, and we suspect that only a proportion of them achieve the equivalent of elite incomes at home. They have, on the other hand, a subsidised existence whilst abroad, easy access to capitalist consumer goods, and the possibility of selling such purchases surreptitiously to their countrymen at home. I would hope that the magnitude entered for all of these personnel together is again not too unrealistic. * The total of 'elite' personnel yielded by these methods stands at some 227,000. This was about 0'20 per cent of the labour force as registered in the 1970 census, or one employed person in just over 500. It is a magnitude small enough for designation as an 'elite', and opens the way to cautious comparison with other societies (see p. 179 below for a comparison with the American elite). It is fortunately tiny enough to be considered in isolation from the difficult problems of overall income distribution in Soviet society. t As far as the relative sizes of the different groups are concerned, * A handful of leading churchmen are said to get up to 2,000 rubles, and priests about 600, a month. These sums, however, must be reduced to about 600 and 280 rubles respectively by income tax, for church employment ranks as private practice; see p. 103 below. tSoviet earnings have been found to be more equally distributed than those of the UK and USA, but less so than those of other East European countries (Prior, 1973, p. 639). Incomes are, of course, rather closely related. International comparisons of entire income ranges are, however, bedevilled by chronological change, undeclared or illegal earnings, etc. Another difficult problem is the numerical relationship between an occupational group and its social equivalent. It is virtually impossible to estimate the size of the elite as a social entity since this involves dependants (whose upkeep may require a higher threshold for earnings) and second or third earners (who may lower it). There is some evidence that people higher in society have fewer children, while influential husbands (or wives) certainly help their spouses and children into the more lucrative or attractive jobs. 34 Privilege in the Soviet Union party officials, in our interpretation, make up the largest. Party and state officials together comprise some 60 per cent of the occupational elite; if we add the military, the police and the diplomatic service - which are also concerned with the maintenance of Soviet polity - we have the great majority of elite occupations accounted for, a reflection of the preponderance of the state machine. Of all the 'apparatuses' considered as entities, party officialdom may have the largest proportion of its members over the elite threshold; in other words, a full-time party post might bring one to this point quickest. THE NOMENCLATURE LISTINGS The nomenclature system is, in a sense, a continuation of the old Tsarist table of ranks; it remotely resembles party patronage in some 'open' societies, but taken to a unique degree. It is one of t,he main levers by which the party leadership ensures its control of the state. The upper layers of the nomenclatura, particularly at the level of the All-Union and republican Central Committees, could themselves serve as an excellent basis for delineating an elite in the USSR. These lists include on the one hand virtually all responsible, highly paid, highly skilled and prestigious occupations in all branches of administration and the economy, and on the other suitable candidates for them. In so far as it is covered by nomenclature listings, the Soviet elite is virtually state-registered. Unfortunately, we do not know enough about the posts or people involved for detailed analysis (Harasymiw, 1969). Although the nomenclature is frequently referred to in official sources, facts on its size and distribution are hard to come by (which explains my reliance on the income and occupation yardsticks), Nomenclature evidently developed with the extension of party bureaucracy in the early twenties. Simple in principle, it is vast and complicated in practice. Nomenclature posts may be thought of as two basic types, those filled (a) by direct party appointments or (b) with party approval, both inside and outside the Party itself. Power to make nominations is evidently distributed vertically (depending on the importance of the post), and geographically, according to its location. The Politbureau itself probably deals with a few key positions. Posts of All-Union and probably Union-Republican standing are controlled by the Party Organs Department of the Central Committee in Moscow; posts of decreasing importance lie within the competence of republican Central Committees, oblast, town or district party committees. Some organisations, like the Council of Ministers, the KGB, the Trade Unions and Komsomol, have their own nomenclatures, but all nominations in these presumably require Party approval. So much for the posts. The candidates for them are, A Problem of Definition 3S it seems, chosen from parallel registers of promising individuals at the corresponding administrative level. Changes in the nomenclature control of a given post may take place from time to time, and the whole system may expand or contract. It is difficult to estimate the form of the hierarchy, or the number of positions involved. The Party Organs Department in Moscow probably exercises direct control over many hundreds, if not thousands, and approves many more. There is evidence that some of the smaller republican Central Committees handle around 2,000 each. Oblast party offices may have from a few hundred to four or five thousand, depending on the size and complexity of local organisations; town organisations (apart from the republican capitals, where the lists are apparently immense) also have a few hundred. Raion party offices control some appointments at the lowest administrative level. The nomenclatura is a means of controlling posts requiring, essentially, learned skills, particularly management or administration. (Members of the 'creative' intelligentsia, whose talents are fortuitous, cannot easily be accommodated in it, but some degree of coverage is achieved through the bureaucracies of the artistic unions.) The nomenclature has, however, another important function which is closely relevant to the problem of privilege. It is used as a base for providing access to a whole series of restricted material benefits and services, which are thus made dependent on particularly valuable service to the state. Having suggested some means of defining an elite, in the sense of the most materially privileged group in Soviet society, and hypothesised its size and composition, I shall now proceed to a description of the benefits which are afforded to it by administrative order.