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The Soviet Political Elite 1917–1922

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

T. H. Rigby
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Extract

The ‘October Revolution’ gave Russia a new political elite, manifesting very limited continuity with the elite that preceded it. This article has focused on the characteristics of this elite not at the top leadership level but at the level of the few hundred who were most significantly politically at the national stage and the few thousand who were most significant politically in the provinces. The data show that the Revolution dramatically widened access to the political elite for the following overlapping categories of the population, whose access had been limited or minimal before 1917:

(a) members of revolutionary parties;

(b) very young adults;

(c) persons drawn from lower social strata, notably workers and peasants;

(d) the poorly-educated;

(e) non-Russians;

(f) women.

Type
Articles
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 1 , Issue 4 , October 1971 , pp. 415 - 436
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1971

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References

1 Parry, Geraint, Political Elites (London: Allen and Unwin, 1969), p. 13.Google Scholar

2 See in particular Schueller, George K., The Politburo (Stanford: Stanford U.P., 1951)Google Scholar; Fischer, George, The Soviet System and Modern Society (New York: Atherton House, 1968)Google Scholar; and Rigby, T. H., Communist Party Membership in the USSR, 1917–1967 (Princeton: Princeton U.P. 1968).Google ScholarArmstrong's, John A.The Soviet Bureaucratic Elite: A Case Study of the Ukrainian Apparatus (New York: Praeger, 1959)Google Scholar deals with much the same strata as are discussed in the present article, focusing, however, on one republic in the late Stalin and early post-Stalin years.

3 See Rustow, Dankwart A., ‘The Study of Elites: Who's Who, When and How’, World Politics, XVII (07 1966), 702–3.Google Scholar This excellent review article offers a sophisticated discussion of the problems under consideration here. See also Parry, Political Elites; Bottomore, T. B., Elites and Society (London: Watts, 1964)Google Scholar; and Keller, Suzanne, Beyond the Ruling Class: Strategic Elites in Modern Society (New York: Random House, 1963).Google Scholar

4 Cf. Frey, Frederick W., The Turkish Political Elite (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1965), p. 157.Google Scholar

5 Bol'shaia Sovetskaia Entsiklopediia, 1st ed., vol. II, col. 531.Google Scholar See also Gollan, D. E., ‘Bolshevik Party Organization in Russia 1907–1912’, unpublished M.A. thesis, Canberra, Australian National University, 1967, pp. 68–9.Google Scholar

6 See Rigby, , Communist Party Membership, pp. 61–2.Google Scholar

7 Izvestiia Tsentral’nogo Komiteta Rossiiskoi Kommunisticheskoi Partii (bol'shevikov), Nos. 7–8, August-September 1923, p. 60 (referred to hereafter as Izv Ts. K). Five years later, in 1927, there were still 9,000 undergrounders in the party and 30,000 who joined in 1917. See Bol'shaia Sovetskaia Entsiklopediia, 1st ed., vol. II. col. 537.Google Scholar

8 Izv Ts K, No.9, 12 1919.Google Scholar

9 XI s'ezd RKP (b), pp. 50, 555, 659.

10 Izv Ts K, No. 42, June 1922.

11 Izv Ts K, No. 43, July 1922.

12 IX s'ezd RKP(b), p. 483.

13 X s'ezd RKP(b), p. 762.

14 IX s'ezd RKP(b), pp. 482–3.

15 IX s'ezd RKP(b), p. 485.

16 Izv Ts K, No. 15, March 24, 1920.

17 With the emergence of the ‘Democratic Centralists’ and ‘Workers’ Opposition’ in 1920–1 ex-members of other parties began to attract attention as sources of disaffection and ‘petitbourgeois’ ideas. Officials conducting the 1921 purge were instructed to scrutinize this category of party members with particular care (see Izv Ts K, No. 33, October 1921), and they constituted nearly 5 per cent of all expelled or dropping out voluntarily during the purge (see Izv Ts K, No. 4, (40), 1922).

18 Izv Ts K, No. 39, March 1922.

19 Vos‘mois”ezd RKP(b) Mart 1919 goda: Protokoly, Moscow, 1959, p. 452, (referred to hereafter as VIII s”ezd RKP(b).).

20 IX s"ezd RKP(b), p. 482.

21 Xs’ ezd RKP(b), p. 762.

22 Izv Ts K, No. 29, March 7, 1921. The connection, if any, between this influx of exMensheviks and such developments as the emergence of the Workers’ Opposition and the difficulties encountered by the regime in the trade union movement at the end of the Civil War is a question requiring further investigation.

23 See Rigby, Communist Party Membership, chapter II.

24 On the Politburo, see Schueller, , The Politburo, pp. 15, 45Google Scholar; on the Central Committee, see Bol'shaia Sovetskaia Entsiklopediia, 1st ed., vol. II, col. 539–40.

25 VIIl s"ezd RKP(b). p. 452. This percentage is based on incomplete data and includes delegates aged 40, whereas the percentages given for the Ninth and Tenth Congresses refer to delegates aged 41 and over.

26 IX s"ezd RKP(b), p. 480.

27 X s"ezd RKP(b), p. 760.

28 See IX s"ezd RKP(b), p. 486. No average age was published for Tenth Congress delegates but the detailed breakdowns into age-groups referred to in footnotes 26 and 27 indicate that the averages for these two congresses must have been very close.

29 Cf. X s"ezd RKP(b), p. 760 and XI s"ezd RKP(b), p. 367.

30 Izv Ts K, No. 39, March 1922.

31 Izv Ts K, No. 29, March 7, 1921.

32 Based on analysis of lists of Central Committee members.

33 Izv Ts K, No. I, January 1923 gave the figure of 7·8 per cent for January 1922.

34 Izv Ts K, No. 39, March 1922.

35 X s"ezd RKP(b), p. 760.

36 Izv Ts K, No. 29, March 7, 1921.

37 IX s"ezd RKP(b), p. 480.

38 X s"ezd RKP(b), p. 760.

39 XI s"ezd RKP(b), p. 367.

40 Izv Ts K, No. 39, March 1922.

41 On the Politburo, see Schueller, , The Politburo, pp. 9–12.Google Scholar On the relative over-representation of Great Russians among the pre-revolutionary Bolsheviks, see Lane, David, The Roots of Russian Communism (Assen Netherlands: Royal Van Gorcum, 1969), pp. 44–46.Google Scholar

42 See Rigby, , Communist Party Membership, p. 366.Google Scholar

43 Izv Ts K, No. 39, March 1922.

44 See Schapiro, Leonard, The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (New York: Random House), 1960, pp. 220–7.Google Scholar

45 Izv Ts K, No. 37, January 1922.

46 See Bol'shaia Sovetskaia Entsiklopediia, 1st ed., vol. II, col. 539–40.Google Scholar

47 See Schueller, The Politburo, pp. 23, 70.

48 Izv Ts K, No. 1, January 1923. Analysis of a substantial sample of party members in 1919 gave the proportion with secondary and higher education as 13 per cent. While some uncertainty attaches to these figures’, the implication of a significant decline in educational levels in the party after 1919 seems plausible. See Rigby, , Communist Party Membership, p. 401.Google Scholar

49 In 1913 only 290,000 of the Russian Empire's population of 159 million (i.e., 0·2 per cent) possessed a secondary or higher education. (See Itogi vsesoiuznoi perepisi naseleniia 1959 goda: SSSR, Moscow, 1962, p. 80.) The proportion cannot have been much higher in the early 1920's.

50 Rigby, , Communist Party Membership, pp. 401–3.Google Scholar

51 Izv Ts K, No. 9, December 20, 1919.

52 Izv Ts K, No. 39, March 1922.

53 Table 6 suggests a steady decline in educational levels among Congress delegates. However, the number of delegates increased substantially with every congress till those attending the Tenth were about three times as numerous as those at the Sixth. Thus the later congresses clearly represented wider circles of the party elite than did the earlier ones, and since educational levels rose at successively higher echelons, some decline in average educational qualifications was to be expected. This steady expansion in Congress size (though with some reduction between the Tenth and Eleventh) is also relevant to interpreting the data in Tables 1 and 5, but the possibility of its having seriously disturbing effects on the comparison is considerably greater in the case of Tables 6 and 7. Nevertheless, one can say that, as the Bolshevik elite at national level expanded and entrenched itself after the Revolution, it recruited increasing numbers with modest educational attainments.

54 Based on data in Izv Ts K, No. 39, March 1922, and X s'ezd RKP(b), p. 761.

55 See Rigby, , Communist Party Membership, pp. 67, 74–5, 85.Google Scholar

56 Izv Ts K, No. 42, June 1922. There was a similar growth in peasant representation in the party at large, from 8 per cent in 1917 to 15 per cent in 1918 to 28 per cent in 1921. See Rigby, , Communist Party Membership, pp. 79, 85.Google Scholar

57 On the reasonable assumption that the proportion of gubernia officials classified as ‘intelligentsia’ remained, as in the previous year, about 7 per cent (Izv Ts K, No. 29, March 7,1921). An official attempt to collapse the 1921 figures reported in Table 10 into broad class categories did not separate intelligentsia and office workers. It gave the following breakdown of officials:

(Izv Ts K, No. 39, March 1922).

58 Izv Ts K, No. 29, March 7, 1921.

59 IX s"ezd RKP(b), p. 485. The best represented ‘blue collar’ unions were the Metal-workers (87 delegates), Railways (22), Printers (17), and Textile-workers (11). ‘White collar’ unions included ‘Responsible Workers’ (113), Education and Culture (39), and Journalists (19). All but 160 of the 530 delegates covered were enrolled in some union or other.

60 See Schapiro, , The Communist Party, pp. 209, 276–7Google Scholar, and Rigby, , Communist Party Membership, 74–5, 104–8.Google Scholar