For indispensable help in gathering and processing the data used in this article, I am grateful to my assistants, James O'Connor, Gregory Tewksbury, Virginia Parkum, and Jerry Jansen, and most particularly to Brian Silver, who accomplished most of the task of programing. All were supported by various University of Wisconsin programs.

1. Black, Cyril E., ed., The Transformation of Russian Society (Cambridge, Mass., 1960).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. Inkeles, Alex and Bauer, Raymond A., The Soviet Citizen: Daily Life in a Totalitarian Society (Cambridge, Mass., 1959; reprint, New York, 1968), pp. 81 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. The two leading comparisons of tsarist and Soviet administration are Alf Edeen, “The Civil Service: Its Composition and Status,” in Black, Transformation of Russian Society, pp. 274-91; and Fainsod, Merle, “Bureaucracy and Modernization: The Russian and Soviet Case,” in Palombara, Joseph La, ed., Bureaucracy and Political Development (Princeton, 1963), pp. 233–67 Google Scholar. Neither article is much concerned with administrative backgrounds; instead both concentrate on organizational and legal questions and on the role of the mass of lower officials. Sources on the tsarist administrative elite are generally scattered and unsystematic. Notable exceptions are Amburger, Erik, Geschichte der Behördenorganisation Russlands vom Peter dem Grossen bis 1917 (Leiden, 1966)Google Scholar; Got'e, Iurii, Istoriia oblastnogo upravleniia v Rossii ot Petra I do Ekateriny II, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1913, 1941) Google Scholar; Demidova, N. F., “Biurokratizatsiia gosudarstvennogo absoliutizma v XVII-XVIII vv.,” in Absoliutizm v Rossii (XVII-XVIII vv.) (Moscow, 1964), pp. 206–42 Google Scholar; Torke, Hans Joachim, “Das russische Beamtentum in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts,” Forschungen zur osteuropäischen Geschichte, 13 (1967): 7–345 Google Scholar; Pintner, Walter M., “The Social Characteristics of the Early Nineteenth-Century Russian Bureaucracy,” Slavic Review, 29 (1970): 429-43CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and five works by Raeff, Marc, “L'État, le gouvernement et la tradition politique en Russie impériale avant 1861,” Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine, 9 (1962): 295–307 Google Scholar; “Home, School and Service in the Life of the 18th Century Nobleman,” Slavonic Review, 40 (1962): 295-307; “The Russian Autocracy and Its Officials,” Harvard Slavic Studies, 4 (1957): 77-91; Origins of the Russian Intelligentsia: The Eighteenth Century Nobility (New York, 1966); and Michael Speransky, Statesman of Imperial Russia, 1772-1839 (The Hague, 1957). The most important of the more numerous treatments of the Soviet administrative elite are referred to below.

4. Stewart, Philip D., Political Power in the Soviet Union: A Study of Decision-Making in Stalingrad (Indianapolis, 1968).Google Scholar

5. An early observer of the similarity of the Russian system and the French prefectural system was Leroy-Beaulieu, Anatole, The Empire of the Tsars and the Russians, 3 vols. (New York, 1893-96), 2: 89 Google Scholar. Recently Jerry Hough discussed the comparison at greater length in The Soviet Prefects: The Local Party Organs in Industrial Decision-Making (Cambridge, Mass., 1969), pp. 3-7.

6. Fainsod, Merle, How Russia Is Ruled, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, Mass., 1963), p. 225.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7. Got'e, Istoriia, 1: 204.

8. Raeff, Michael Speransky, p. 283.

9. Demidova, “Biurokratizatsiia,” p. 232. Of course, the degree to which the tsar was personally involved in selecting gubernatory varied greatly.

10. Got'e, Istoriia, 1: 385 ff.

11. With certain exceptions the crucial heavy industrial and transportation facilities have not been under the obkom secretary's jurisdiction. See especially Hough, Soviet Prefects; Azrael, Jeremy R., Managerial Power and Soviet Politics (Cambridge, Mass., 1966)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Armstrong, John A., “Party Bifurcation and Elite Interests,” Soviet Studies, 17 (1966): 417-30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12. Portal, Roger, L'Oural an XVIIIe siicle: Etude d'histoire economique et sociale (Paris, 1950), pp. 105 ff.Google Scholar; Kislinsky, N. A., Nasha shelcznodorozhnaia politika po dokumentam arkhiva komiteta ministrov: Istoricheskii ocherk (St. Petersburg, 1902), sec. 1, p. 86.Google Scholar

13. Fainsod, How Russia Is Ruled, chap. 13; Monas, Sidney, The Third Section: Police and Society in Russia Under Nicholas I (Cambridge, Mass., 1961), p. 71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14. Skalon, D. A., ed., Stoletie Voennago Ministerstva, 1802-1902: Glavnoe intendantskoe upravlenie (St. Petersburg, 1903), pp. 5, 11Google Scholar. The relation of the gubernator to military activities is one of those highly complicated and variable aspects of his powers which, as indicated earlier, transcend the scope of this article. Although a separate military procurement system existed, the gubernator was heavily involved in the equally important task of recruitment. The extent of his troop command functions varied enormously. During the reign of Nicholas I many officials were specifically designated “military governors”; in some instances there was a military governor and a civil governor in the same guberniia (we have included both in our sample). Usually, however, any governor had at least a local detachment of troops under his direct orders, and governor-generals in frontier areas sometimes commanded entire armies. See especially Eroshkin, N. P., Ocherki istorii gosudarstvennykh uchrezhdenii dorevoliutsionnoi Rossii (Moscow, 1960), p. 222.Google Scholar

15. Armstrong, John A., The Politics of Totalitarianism (New York, 1961), pp. 143, 319.Google Scholar

16. Stewart, Political Power in the Soviet Union, p. 141.

17. I describe the construction of my sample of tsarist officials in detail in “Old-Regime Governors: Bureaucratic and Patrimonial Attributes,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 14 (1972): 2-29. The discussion is too lengthy to be repeated here. Among the most relevant points I make are the following ones: (1) The gubernatory considered do not include those in outlying, predominantly non-Russian areas; consequently the gubernator sample used in this article is less affected by nationality factors than Stewart's and may more closely resemble the Ukrainian-RSFSR obkom secretaries. (2) Both the “obkom first secretary” and the “gubernator” categories include territorial officials of equivalent authority but formally different designation (e.g., kraikom first secretaries, governor-generals). (3) Stewart considers his total sample of 377 obkom first secretaries to include about 80 percent of the universe (holding office 1950-66), with a slight bias (useful for my purposes) in favor of the larger RSFSR obkoms (p. 141); on the other hand, using various estimates of the universe of gubernatory, I estimate my sample (415) to be about two-thirds of saturation. (4) My larger sample of 1, 417 tsarist elite administrators (including gubernatory) was derived from the same sources and constructed in the same manner as the gubernatory sample, except that all persons listed in the sources as having held high civil administrative posts approximately equivalent to those usually held by members of the first four chiny (ranks) were included—with a man counted as a civilian if he ever held a high civil chin, whether or not he had also had a military chin. (5) In most cases data on particular subjects, such as age levels, are less available than the overall data, hence N's (as indicated in the tables) are much smaller. Further details on the tsarist data bank are available from the Social Science Data and Program Library Service, University of Wisconsin. After December 31, 1972, the machine-readable data will be available under the usual conditions.

18. At least one such study, by Steven Sternheimer, is in progress in the Department of Political Science, University of Chicago.

19. See particularly the discussion in Lasswell, Harold, Lemer, Daniel, and Rothwell, C. Easton, The Comparative Study of Elites (Stanford, 1952).Google Scholar

20. Hodnett, Grey, “The Obkom First Secretaries,” Slavic Review, 24 (1965): 643 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Armstrong, John A., The Soviet Bureaucratic Elite: A Case Study of the Ukrainian Apparatus (New York, 1959), p. 1959.Google Scholar

21. Pintner, “Social Characteristics,” p. 437.

22. Raeff, “Home, School and Service,” p. 301. I discuss familial socialization at greater length in “Old-Regime Governors.”

23. Pintner, “Social Characteristics,” table 5, p. 434, shows that by the mid-nineteenth century nearly half of the officials sampled had higher educations, but table 12, p. 440, indicates that the proportion dropped sharply among those who started their careers before 1839. As his table 11, p. 439, indicates, high officials at the center were much likelier to have higher educations than lower officials, but high territorial officials were no more likely to have higher educations than were central officials in general. The data in my table 4 (below) are too biased in favor of those reporting educational background for published biographies to be of any use in determining average educational attainment.

24. Hough, Soviet Prefects, chap. 3; Armstrong, Soviet Bureaucratic Elite, pp. 31 ff., 48-50; Mickiewicz, Ellen P., Soviet Political Schools (New Haven, 1967).Google Scholar

25. Stewart, Political Power in the Soviet Union, p. 149. My somewhat arbitrary decision not to classify any training in agricultural institutes as “higher education” is contrary to Stewart's practice, and also to that of other authors such as Fischer, George, The Soviet System and Modern Society (New York, 1968)Google Scholar. I am influenced by the facts that (1) some of the agricultural institutes were (especially in the 1920s and 1930s) very much lower in terms of stringent, modern educational standards than institutions such as engineering schools, and (2) the terms in agricultural institutes were, like party schooling, often interludes in adult careers.

26. Fischer, Soviet System and Modern Society, p. 103 (data recalculated).

27. Stewart, Political Power in the Soviet Union, p. 145.

28. My data in table 1 may be compared with Pintner's table 6, p. 434. Considering his “top central officials” only (his top territorial sample is too small to be useful), and assuming (somewhat dubiously) that each year-contingent is equal, approximately 24 percent of his sample were forty or under, 36 percent forty-one to fifty, and 41 percent fifty-one or older. He used all persons with fifth chin or above, while I used only those at fourth chin or higher; hence his sample should have been younger. On the other hand, apparently the age he gives is the age of the officials at the time the official census was taken. For a large number this would be many years after attainment of the fifth chin, whereas the ages in my sample are at attainment of the fourth chin.

29. For example, Rigby, T. H., “The CPSU Elite: Turnover and Rejuvenation from Lenin to Khrushchev,” Australian Journal of Politics and History, 16 (1969): 22 Google Scholar; Hough, Soviet Prefects, pp. 76-77; Armstrong, Soviet Bureaucratic Elite, pp. 21-22. The conclusion is also reached for major plant managers (Hough, p. 62) and central industrial directors (Azrael, Managerial Power, pp. 107 and 247, n. 91). I should infer that for both the latter groups the age at initial entry was also similar to obkom first secretaries, although the data presented do not permit one to be certain.

30. Pintner, “Social Characteristics,” p. 431 and table 3, p. 433.

31. Got'e, Istoriia, 1: 217-19.

32. Demidova, “Biurokratizatsiia,” p. 238; Dukes, Paul, Catherine the Great and the Russian Nobility (Cambridge, 1967), pp. 23, 185CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pavlov-Sil'vansky, Nikolai P., Gosudarevy sluzhilye liudi, 2nd ed. (St. Petersburg, 1909), p. 147.Google Scholar

33. Kobeko, Dmitrii, Imperatorskii tsarskosel'skii litsei: Nastavniki i pitomtsy, 1811-1843 (St. Petersburg, 1911), pp. 105, 477.Google Scholar

34. Raeff, “État,” p. 302.

35. Leroy-Beaulieu, Empire of the Tsars, 2: 189.

36. See, for example, Fainsod, How Russia Is Ruled, chap. 14; Armstrong, Politics of Totalitarianism, pp. 61, 142, 319; Erickson, John, The Soviet High Command (London, 1962), pp. 509, 668Google Scholar; Bialer, Seweryn, ed., Stalin and His Generals: Soviet Military Memoirs of World War II (New York, 1969), pp. 34 ff.Google Scholar

37. Dimitriev, F, “Speranskii i ego gosudarstvennaia deiatel'nost',” Russkii arkhiv, 1868, no. 10, p. 1639 Google Scholar.

38. Kobeko, Imperatorskii tsarskosel'skii litsei, pp. 7 ff.; Flynn, James T., “The Universities, the Gentry and the Russian Imperial Service, 1815-1825,” Canadian Slavic Studies, 2 (1968): 493.Google Scholar

39. Leikina-Svirskaia, V. R., Intelligentsiia v Rossii vo vtoroi polovine XIX veka (Moscow, 1971), pp. 58 ff., 77.Google Scholar

40. Based on Tsentral'noe statisticheskoe upravlenie pri SSSR, Sovete Ministrov, Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR v 1968 g. (Moscow, 1969), p. 689 Google Scholar. It is also significant that during the formative period of the Soviet elite administrators we are considering, the proportion of legal specialists among all specialists with higher education declined drastically, from 5.6 percent (1928) to 2.3 percent (1941) and 2.2 percent (1956). Tsentral'noe statisticheskoe upravlenie, Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR v 1958 g. (Moscow, 1959), p. 674.

41. Stewart, Political Power in the Soviet Union, p. 144.

42. “The Teaching of Administrative Sciences in the Higher Educational Establishments of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics: Report of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR,” International Review of Administrative Sciences, 1959, no. 4, p. 452.

43. Fischer, Soviet System and Modern Society, p. 93. See note 25 above for my reasons for differentiating sharply between agronomy and other technological education. See also Gerd Hortleder, “Leninismus, Technik und Industrialisierung: Zur Rolle der Technik und des Ingenieurs in der Sowjetunion und der DDR,” Humanismus und Technik, 22, no. 1 (1968): 11, 18.

44. Stewart, Political Power in the Soviet Union, p. 156.

45. Petot, Jean, Histoire de l’administration des ponts et chaussées, 1599-1815 (Paris, 1958), p. 470 Google Scholar; Pinet, Gaston, Écrivains et penseurs polytechniciens (Paris, 1898);, pp. 135 ff.Google Scholar; Cameron, Rondo E., France and the Economic Development of Europe, 1800-1914: Conquests of Peace and Seeds of War (Princeton, 1961), pp. 56, 276.Google Scholar

46. See also Raeff, “Russian Autocracy,” p. 85; and a forthcoming article by Alfred Rieber on tsarist railroad development, which he has kindly let me have in manuscript.

47. Armstrong, Politics of Totalitarianism, p. 271.

48. “Innenpolitik (Neuwahl des Obersten ‘Sowjetparlaments’ und Parteisäuberungen: Ein Jahr personeller Veranderungen),” Osteuropa, 4 (1954): 223.

49. Because of the numerous historical factors potentially involved, no reasonably simple computer program would have identified all potential clusterings of initial appointments. Consequently I plotted the reduced sample indicated by hand, year by year.

50. Most of the gubenatory without civil chin had, of course, exclusively military chin; but a few (relatives of the imperial family or foreigners) had neither, and for others the relevant chin could not be determined. Obviously, gubernator service was a more regular, and consequently more protracted, stage in the career of the regular civil servant.

51. Armstrong, Soviet Bureaucratic Elite, pp. 54-55; Rigby, T. H., “The Selection of Leading Personnel in the Soviet State and Communist Party,” Ph.D. thesis (University of London, 1954), pp. 181 ff.Google ScholarIt should be noted* however, that Rigby concludes (though he does not present detailed data on the question) that transfers between certain central positions (particularly in industrial administration) and territorial posts were frequent.

52. Hodnett, “Obkom First Secretaries,” tables 6 and 8, pp. 646, 648 (data for 1962-64).

53. Conquest, Robert, Power and Policy in the U.S.S.R. (New York, 1967), pp. 304 ff.Google Scholar; Armstrong, Politics of Totalitarianism, pp. 309 ff.; and “Party Bifurcation and Elite Interests.“

54. Schapiro, Leonard, The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (New York, 1959), pp. 393–95 Google Scholar; Armstrong, Politics of Totalitarianism, pp. 268 ff.

55. Pintner, “Social Characteristics,” tables 1 and 2, pp. 431-32.

56. Ibid., table 3, p. 433.