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Social Orientation of Recruitment and Distribution of Membership in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2019

T. H. Rigby
T. H. Rigby*
Affiliation:
London School of Economics, London, England
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Extract

Four different conceptions of the role of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union can be discerned as having had an influence upon its recruitment policy at different periods. One or the other of these conceptions has dominated in each phase of the Party's growth, with the exception of the Civil War years and the period of World War II. In those two turbulent times a relatively open door policy prevailed, and devoted war service seems to have been the main criterion of suitability for membership.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Slavic and East European Review , Volume 16 , Issue 3 , October 1957 , pp. 275 - 290
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1957

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References

1 See “Voprosy chlenstva v VKP (b), Partijnaja zhizn’ No. 20 (1947), 80.

2 See XVIII s'ezd VKP(b). Stenograficheskij otchet, p. 577, where the 1938 decision is quoted by a Georgian Party official as authority for a roughly tenfold increase in the rate of recruitment of kolkhoz chairmen, doctors, agronomists and other “intelligentsia” groups.

3 See Stalin's and Zhdanov's speeches to the Eighteenth Congress, especially Problems of Leninism, 11th edit., pp. 663-5, and the Land of Socialism Today and Tomorrow, pp. 181-3.

4 Shamberg, “Some questions of intra-Party work,” Partijnoe stroitel'stvo, No. 4 (1946), 28.

5 As figures quoted at the Eighteenth Congress make clear, in many places a half or more of the “peasant” and “worker” recruits may have been so employed. See XVIII S'ezd VKP (b), pp. 578, 586.

6 For a detailed treatment of the social orientation of Party recruitment during these earlier periods, see Fainsod: How Russia is Ruled, pp. 209-32.

7 See Shamberg, loc. cit.

8 Moskovskij bol'shevik, February 2, 1949.

9 See figures given by Belorussian First Secretary Patolichev in his report to the Twentieth Congress of the Belorussian Communist Party, Sovetskaja Belorussija, September 22, 1952.

10 See Zarja Vosloka, February 2, 1951.

11 See Moskovskaja pravda, March 31, 1951.

12 Sovetskaja Kirgizija, September 21, 1952. The trend was less marked in some areas than others. For example, white-collar workers and intelligentsia still represented 59 percent of the Party organizations in Georgia in 1952. See Zarja Vostoka, September 18, 1952.

13 See Sovetskaja Belorussija, February 13, 1954.

14 See Table I.

15 Sovetskaja Belorussija, February 17, 1954.

16 Zarja Vostoka, February 18, 1954.

17 See Pravda Ukrainy, March 24, 1954.

18 Pravda, March 21, 1954.

19 Based on a comparative analysis of figures given in the republican press. Increases in the individual republics for the periods before and after February, 1954, were as follows: Ukraine: before 3.1 percent, after 7.4 percent; Belorussia: before 1.25 percent, after 12 percent; Georgia: before 1.8 percent, after 4.9 percent; Azerbaidzhan: before 1.6 percent, after 5.5 percent; Armenia: before 2.2 percent, after 5.3 percent; Uzbekistan: before -.4 percent, after 5.9 percent; Kirgizia: before, -.5 percent, after 4.6 percent; Taddzhikistan: before, .8 percent, after 7.3 percent.

20 “See Sovetskaja Belorussija, January 27, 1956.

21 See Partijnaja zhizn, No. 17, 1955, p. 7.

22 See Pravda Ukrainy, January 20, 1956; Bakinskij rabochij, January 27, 1956; Sovetskaja Latvija, January 18, 1956; Kommunist Taddzhikistana, January 20, 1956; Kommunist (Erevan), January 20, 1956.

23 Bakinskij rabochij, January 27, 1956.

24 C. C. Secretary Suslov, as reported in Pravda, February 17, 1956.

25 Pravda Ukrainy, January 23, 1956.

26 The Resolution called for greater attention to recruitment. Emphasis was to remain upon the quality rather than the numbers of recruits, but this was to involve enrolling “the foremost people, principally from among workers and collective farmers.” See Pravda, February 25, 1956.

27 For example, the leading article in Pravda, April 6, 1956, stated that “it is essential to obtain a decisive increase in the relative weight of workers and collective farmers among those enrolled in the Party.“

28 The above figures are taken from B. S. E. (1st edit.), XI, 533-4.

29 See ibid., p. 535.

30 Partijnoe stroitel'stvo, No. 1 (1934), 54.

31 Ibid. No. 2(1934), 33.

32 See Pravda, March 21, 1939.

33 Andreev, in Land of Socialism Today and Tomorrow, p. 244.

34 See Partijnaja zhizn', No. 9 (1947), 43.

35 See Partijnaja zhizn', No. 11 (1947), 22.

36 See Partijnaja zhizn', No. 9 (1947), 3.

37 Partijnaja zhizn', No. 5 (1947), 27.

38 Partijnaja zhizn', No. 7, (1947), 14.

39 Ibid.

40 Partijnaja zhizn', No. 11 (1947), 34.

41 Paritjnqja zhizn', No. 5 (1947), 27.

42 Partijnaja zhizn', No. 5 (1948), 20.

43 Partijnaja zhizn', No. 7 (1948), 7.

44 Pariijnaja zhizn', No. 5 (1948), 21.

45 See G. M. Popov's report in Moskovskij bol'shevik, February 2, 1949.

46 See Khrushchev's report to the Sixteenth Congress of the Ukrainian Communist Party, Pravda, January 26, 1949.

47 See Charkviani's report to the Fourteenth Congress of the Georgian Communist Party, Zarja Vostoka, January 28, 1949.

48 Khrushchev, loc. cit.

49 See B. Gafurov's report to the Seventh Congress of the Tadzhik Communist Party, Kommunist Tadzhikistana, December 22, 1948.

50 See Malenkov's report at the Nineteenth Congress of the CPSU, Pravda, October 6, 1952.

51 See CPSU statutes, sec. 55, “On Party Groups.“

52 Pravda, August 22, 1952; Nijazov, in Pravda Vostoka, September 20, 1952.

53 See L. I. Brezhnev, Report to the Fourth Congress of the Moldavian Communist Party, Sovetskaja Moldavija, September 20, 1952.

54 Sovetskaja Belorussija, September 22, 1952.

55 See Pravda, February 22, 1956.

56 Sovetskaja Belorussija, January 26, 1956.

57 Including 16,000 who were sent to stock-raising jobs on the farms. See Partijnaja zhizn', No. 9(1955), 17.

58 See Kaganovich's speech in Pravda, January 21, 1956.

59 See Sovetskaja Latvija, January 18, 1956.

60 Sovetskaja Belorussija, January 26, 1956.

61 See Khrushchev: O merakh dot'neishego razvitija sel'skogo khozjaistva SSSR (Gospolitzdat 1953), pp. 4, 72.

62 See Aristov's speech in Pravda, February 17, 1956.

63 In Belorussia, an area of comparatively thin Party membership the proportion of kolkhozes with Party cells rose from 56 percent to 91.5 percent between January, 1954, and January, 1956. See Sovetskaja Belorussija, January 26, 1956. The Baltic republics are the chief remaining area of weakness. Party cells have not yet been formed on 712 of the kolkhozes in Lithuania (Sovetskaja Litva, January 26, 1956). There are still collective farms in Estonia without a single Communist (Pravda, February 19, 1956).

64 For 1954 figures see Khrushchev: ‘O dal'neishem uvelichenii proizvodstva zerna v strane i ob osvoenii celinnykh i zalezhnykh zemel' (Gospolizdat, 1954), p. 58.

65 See Pravda, July 17, 1955.

66 Khrushchev's Report to the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU, Pravda, February 2, 1956.

67 See Zarja Vostoka, January 28, 1949. A significant proportion of the workers doubtless attained managerial or technical status at some time after joining the Party.

68 See Partijnoe stroitel'stvo, No. 3-4 (1945), 19.

69 See Moskovskaja pravda, March 31, 1951.

70 Partijnaja zhizn\ No. 17 (1955), 25.

71 Khrushchev: O dal'neishem uvelichenii proizvodstva zerna … , p. 58.

72 See Partijnaja zhizri, No. 5 (1948), 21.

73 Khrushchev: O dal'neishem uvelichenii proizvodstva zerna . . . , p. 58. The Russian phrase used indicated that this covered not only government offices, but Party and other para-governmental bodies as well. However it is not clear whether it also included the chairmen of village Soviets. Most of the 50,000 village Soviet chairmen appear now to be Party members.

74 Moskovskaja pravda, March 31, 1951.

75 Kirjaev, N., Partija bol'shevikov v bor'be za ukreplenie sovetskoi armii v gody mirnogo socialisticheskogo stroitel'stva, (Moscow, 1951), p. 32 Google Scholar.

76 Ibid, p. 34.

77 Ibid.

78 Pravda, March 22, 1939.

79 Pravda, February 17, 1956.

80 A. Avtorkhanov points out however (Vestnik Instituta po izucheniiu SSSR No. 2 [19] 1956, p. 7) that Twentieth Congress delegates from the armed forces, as pictured in the press, numbered 116, and that if all military delegates appeared in the photograph, this would imply a figure of about 580,000 for Communists in the armed services.

81 See Pravda Ukrainy, February 5, 1949, and September 26, 1952.

82 £arja Vostoka, January 29, 1949.

83 Leningradskaja pravda, September 28, 1952.

84 Pravda Ukrainy, September 25, 1952.

85 See Partijnaja zhizn', No. 20 (1947), 83.

86 Some indirect confirmation of these results is derived from comparison with various local analyses published since 1952 (see Pravda Ukrainy, September 25, 1952; Leningradskaja pravda, September 28, 1952; Krasnoe znamja, February 13, 1954; Sovetskaja Kirgizia, September 21, 1952; Sovetskaja Belorussija, February 15, 1956); and by the fact that the estimates add up to a figure very close to the 7,215,505 given by Khrushchev at the Twentieth Congress as the size of the Party membership—see Pravda, February 15, 1956.