1. I. V. Stalin, “Rech1 na vypuske akademikov Krasnoi Armii” (May 4, 1935), in Stalin, I. V., Sochineniia, ed. McNeal, Robert H., 3 vols. (Stanford, 1967), 1(14): 61.Google Scholar

2. Leon, Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed (London, 1937), chapter 5.Google Scholar

3. See, for example, Tucker, Robert C.'s discussion of the new “serving class,” in Tucker, Robert C., ed., Stalinism (New York, 1977), p. 99–100.Google Scholar

4. On the concept of permanent purge, see Brzezinski, Zbigniew K., The Permanent Purge: Politics in Soviet Totalitarianism (Cambridge, Mass., 1956).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5. Sotsial'nyi i natsional'nyi sostav VKP(b): Itogi vsesoiusnoi partiinoi perepisi 1927 g. (Moscow, 1928), p. 41.

6. Data for thirty-two gubernii of the RSFSR can be found in Kommunisty v sostave apparata gosuchreshdenii i obshchestvennykh organisatsii: Itogi vsesoiusnoi partiinoi perepisi 1927 g. (Moscow, 1929), p. 15.

7. Partiinaia zhisn', 1977, no. 21, p. 30.

8. Molotov, V, “Podgotovka novykh spetsialistov,” Krasnoe studenchestvo, 1928-29, no. 1 (October 1, 1928), p. 21.Google Scholar

9. The nonparty expert on the presidium was A. N. Dolgov, the dominant expert in the metallurgical administration was S. A. Khrennikov.

10. Sotsial'nyi i natsional'nyi sostav VKP(b), p. 41.

11. Iudin, I. N., Sotsial'naia baza rosta KPSS (Moscow, 1973), p. 129.Google Scholar

12. Kommunisty v sostave apparata, p. 25. The figure relates to Communists “on leading work” in thirty-two gubernii of the RSFSR.

13. Ibid., p. 12.

14. In 1927-28, 26.5 percent of students in Soviet higher schools (excluding party and military schools) were classified as working-class, while 17.1 percent were full or candidate members of the Communist Party (see'Bol'shaia sovetskaia entsiklopediia, 1st ed., vol. 16 [Moscow, 1929], p. 34).

15. The total figure for graduations is taken from Iudin, Sotsial'naia baza rosta KPSS, p. 181. Of the 8, 396 Communists with higher education in January 1927, 91 percent had entered the party as white-collar workers (see Sotsial'nyi i natsional'nyi sostav VKP[b], p. 41).

16. Pravda, March 10, 1928, p. 1.

17. The officials were S. P. Bratanovskii and N. I. Skorutto (see Bratanovskii's confession, quoted in Ekonomicheskaia kontrrevoliutsiia v Donbasse [Itogi Shakhtinskogo dela] [Moscow, 1928], pp. 268-69).

18. Ibid., p. 209.

19. See the account in Avtorkhanov, A., Stalin and the Soviet Communist Party (London, 1959), p. 29.Google Scholar

20. I. Stalin, “O rabotakh aprel'skogo ob “edinennogo plenuma TsK i TsKK” (April 13, 1928), in Stalin, I. V., Sochineniia, 13 vols. (Moscow, 1949-51), 11: 53–54, 57-59.Google Scholar

21. Ibid., p. 58.

22. Stalin, “O zadachakh khoziaistvennikov” (February 4, 1931), Sochineniia, 13: 41.

23. Stalin, “Rech’ na VIII s “ezde VLKSM” (May 16, 1928), Sochineniia, 11: 76-77.

24. Ibid.

25. Kommunisty v sostave apparata, p. 25.

26. This is inferred from the educational levels shown in ibid., p. 12.

27. Stalin, , “Novaia obstanovka—novye zadachi khoziaistvennogo stroitel'stva” (June 23, 1931), Sochineniia, 13: 66–67.Google Scholar

28. On the industrial academies, see P. M., Mikhailov, “Iz istorii deiatel'nosti Kommunisticheskoi partii po podgotovke rukovodiashchikh kadrov promyshlennosti v period sotsialisticheskoi rekonstruktsii narodnogo khoziaistva,” Voprosy istorii KPSS, 1976, no. 10, pp. 79–86.Google Scholar

29. See Central Committee resolution of November 1928, “O verbovke rabochikh i regulirovanii rosta partii,” in KPSS v resoliutsiiakh i reshcniiakh s “esdov, konferentsii i plenumov TsK, vol. 4 (Moscow, 1970), p. 143. A weaker statement is contained in the Central Committee and Central Control Commission resolution of April 1928, “Shakhtinskoe delo i prakticheskie zadachi v dele bor'by s nedostatkami khoziaistvennogo stroitel'stva,” in ibid., p. 91.

30. Central Committee resolution of July 1928, “Ob uluchshenii podgotovki novykh spetsialistov,” in ibid., pp. 111-18. The April plenum's resolution contained a weaker and somewhat contradictory recommendation (see “Shakhtinskoe delo,” pp. 88-90).

31. Reported by Ordzhonikidze in XVI s “czd Vsesoiusnoi Kommunisticheskoi partii: Stenograficheskii otchet, part 1 (Moscow, 1931), p. 568.

32. Quoted in Voprosy istorii KPSS, 1966, no. 2, p. 33.

33. The entire controversy was kept out of the press, but it was known to all Communists because of the practice (apparently discontinued in the early 1930s) of circulating verbatim reports of Central Committee meetings to local party organizations.

34. Vtoroi plenum MK VKP(b), 31 ianvaria-2 fevralia 1928: Doklady i rezoliutsii (Moscow, 1928), p. 43.

35. For a detailed discussion of this episode, see Sheila, Fitzpatrick, Education and Social Mobility in the Soviet Union, 1921-1934 (London and New York, 1979), pp. 127–29.Google Scholar

36. The Central Committee's resolution, “Ob uluchshenii podgotovki novykh spetsialistov” (July 1928), was based on a report by Molotov (see Savelev, M. and Poskrebyshev, A., Direktivy VKP[b] po khosiaistvennym voprosam [Moscow-Leningrad, 1931], p. 466).Google Scholar Its later resolution, “O kadrakh narodnogo khoziaistva” (November 1929), calling for further expansion of higher and technical education and increased educational recruitment of Communists and workers, was based on a report by Kaganovich (see text of resolution in KPSS v resolintsiiakh, vol. 4, pp. 334-45; identification of the rapporteur is found in Eshenedel'nik Narodnogo komissariata prosveshcheniia RSFSR, no. 50 [1929], p. 3). For other statements by Molotov and Kaganovich, see notes 45-47 below.

37. Vyshinskii was appointed head of Narkompros's administration of technical educacation in the summer or early fall of 1928 (see Pravda, September 25, 1928, p. 6).

38. In early 1929, the Central Council of Trade Unions (VTsSPS) responded quite skeptically to Vyshinskii's report on recruitment of workers into higher education: speakers said the mobilization of the first trade-union “Thousand” had been a chaotic last-minute effort, and some feared massive dropouts of worker-students. By December 1930, the unionists' attitude had changed completely. They now referred to the vydvishentsy as the cream of the working class, abused Vesenkha for delaying college admission of some thousands of graduates of trade-union preparatory courses and other faults of educational administration, and in general expressed an officiously proprietorial attitude toward the higher technical schools (see Tsentral'nyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Oktiabr'skoi revoliutsii i sotsialisticheskogo stroitel'stva SSSR [TsGAOR], fond 5451, opis1 13, delo 14, pp. 188-92, and f. 5451, op. 13, d. 15, pp. 125-34, stenographic reports of meetings of VTsSPS, January 11, 1929 and December 8, 1930).

39. Data from Fediukin, S., Sovetskaia vlast’ i biirshuasnye spetsialisty (Moscow, 1965), p. 243 Google Scholar; and B. S. Telpukhovskii in Voprosy istorii KPSS, 1976, no. 8, p. 93.

40. TsGAOR, f. 5451, op. 15, d. 785, p. 65, VTsSPS, Sector of Industrial Cadres.

41. Data from Iudin, Sotsial'naia baza rosta KPSS, p. 180; Sotsialisticheskoe stroitel'stvo SSSR: Statisticheskii ezhegodnik (Moscow, 1934), p. 410; and Witt, Nicholas de, Education and Professional Employment in the USSR (Washington, D.C., 1961), pp. 638–39.Google Scholar

42. For the calculation on which this estimate is based, see Fitzpatrick, Education and Social Mobility, p. 187.

43. Biographical data from Borys, Levytsky, The Soviet Political Elite (Munich, 1969)Google Scholar and Ezhegodnik Bol'shoi sovetskoi entsiklopcdii 1971 (Moscow, 1971). Additional data on Brezhnev from John, Dornberg, Brezhnev, The Masks of Power (New York, 1974), pp. 54- 55Google Scholar; and Leonid I. Brezhnev: Pages From His Life (New York, 1978), pp. 26-32; data on Malyshev from Pravda, November 22, 1937, p. 2; on Patolichev from N. S. Patolichev, Ispytanie na srelosf (Moscow, 1977), passim; and on Chuianov from Chuianov, A. S., Na stremnine veka: Zapiski sekretaria obkoma (Moscow, 1976), passim.Google Scholar

44. Sostav rukovodiashchikh rabotnikov i spetsialistov Soiusa SSR (Moscow, 1936), pp. 8-11. The figures are based on a survey of leading cadres taken in November 1933. The group numbered over eight hundred thousand and constituted about one-tenth of all whitecollar workers at that time. Cadres working in the military, security, and party apparats were excluded.

45. Kommunisticheskaia partiia-Um, chest’ i sovest’ nashei epokhi (Moscow, 1969), pp. 221-22.

46. Molotov, V. report ( “The Construction of Socialism and the Contradictions of Growth”), in Pervaia moskovskaia oblastnaia konjerentsiia Vsesoiuznoi Kommunisticheskoi partii (bol'shevikov): Stenograficheskii otchet, vol. 1 (Moscow, 1929), p. 42.Google Scholar

47. TsGAOR, f. 5451, op. 13, d. 14, p. 23, stenographic report of meeting of VTsSPS January 2, 1929.

48. Ibid., p. 51, stenographic report of meeting of VTsSPS, January 25, 1929.

49. Materialy k otchctu TsKK VKP(b) XVI s “ezdu VKP(b) (Moscow, 1930), p. SO.

50. Ibid.

51. Ibid., pp. 44-45.

52. Ibid., p. 49.

53. Ibid., p. 39.

54. Ibid., p. 40.

55. Ibid., p. 53.

56. Ibid., pp. 54-55.

57. Khavin, A. F., U rulia industrii (Moscow, 1968), p. 82 Google Scholar.

58. The official was G. E. Prokofiev, probably the same G. E. Prokofiev who attended the Seventeenth Party Congress in 1934 as an OGPU delegate. He was appointed head of the temporary group for the liquidation of the consequences of wrecking in November 1930, moved to head of Vesenkha's control (proverka ispolncniia) section in January, and released from the Vesenkha presidium in August 1931 (see Tsentral'nyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv narodnogo khoziaistva SSSR [TsGANKh], f. 3429, op. 1, d. 5233, p. 150; and f. 3429, op. 1, d. 5251, p. 31; f. 3429, op. 1, d. 5259, p. 227, orders [prikazy] of Vesenkha USSR).

59. Order no. 6 (January 4, 1931), signed by Ordzhonikidze, expelling from Vesenkha A. M. Ginzburg, Kafengauz, Ramzin, Sokolovskii, Shein, and Khrennikov (TsGANKh, f. 3421, op. 1, d. 5251, p. 12).

60. Ordzhonikidze, making a late appearance at the conference at which Molotov had reported (see note 45 above), said that he considered the Gosplan “wrecker” Groman “a man who could not be bought,” although his ideology made him dangerous (Pcri'aia moskovskaia oblastnaia konjerentsiia, p. 181).

61. At a mid-1927 meeting of the Central Control Commission, for example, the Oppositionist Muralov had difficulty getting a hearing in an extremely tense atmosphere. Muralov nevertheless made a friendly reference to Ordzhonikidze, who responded later with a bantering and distinctly nonhostile interjection (see VI Plenum TsKK sostava XIV s “ezda VKP[b] 26-27 iiulia 1927 g. [stenographic report for limited circulation] [Moscow, 1927], pp. 99 and 102).

62. Speech to Conference of Industrialists, in Za industrializatsiiu, February 2, 1931, P. 2.

63. Memoir by Peskin, I. S., in B\li industrial''live: Ochcrki i vospominaniia (Moscow, 1970), p. 183.Google Scholar

64. In May 1931, Ordzhonikidze gave warm approval to Bukharin's proposal for a conference on scientific planning, which turned out to be a big step forward on Bukharin's road to political rehabilitation. In October, he entrusted the reorganization of Vesenkha's planning sector—an important task, which might well have been assigned to one of the trusted colleagues Ordzhonikidze had brought with him from TsKK—to Piatakov (see TsGANKh, f. 3429, op. 1, d. 5244, p. 243, file of the Ukrainian Vesenkha containing central instructions for 1931; and f. 3429, op. 1, d. 5262, p. 26, order of Vesenkha USSR, no. 705).

65. Stalin, “Novaia obstanovka—novye zadachi,” pp. 51-80.

66. This is argued in Bailes, Kendall E., Technology and Society under Lenin and Stalin (Princeton, 1978), chapter 7.Google Scholar A somewhat different view is presented in Fitzpatrick, Education and Social Mobility, chapter 10.

67. Virtually all orders on appointments and personnel matters in Vesenkha and later in the Commissariat of Heavy Industry were signed personally by Ordzhonikidze as well as by the head of his cadres sector, I. M. Moskvin (the majority of orders on other types of questions were signed by one of the deputy commissars). Breaking with the practice of his predecessor, Kuibyshev, on December 3, 1930 Ordzhonikidze ordered that the cadres sector be directly subordinated to the Vesenkha chairman (TsGANKh, f. 3429, op. 1, d. 5233, p. 250, order no. 2, 373).

68. See Chuianov, Na strcmninc vcka, p. 41. Soon after his appointment to the industrial section of the Central Committee department of leading party organs, Chuianov unintentionally caused confusion by flouting this unwritten rule.

69. On the various generations of khoziaistvenniki, see A. F. Khavin's firsthand account in Khavin, A. F., “Kapitany sovetskoi industrii 1926-1940 gody,” Voprosy istorii, 1966, no. 5, pp. 3–14.Google Scholar

70. TsGANKh, f. 3429, op. 1, d. 5251, p. 15. Not all the industrialists named with Bruno in the document circulated at the Sixteenth Party Congress were demoted by Ordzhonikidze. Of those mentioned earlier in this article, Lomov was transferred to Gosplan in 1931, but I. P. Zhukov and Mirzakhanov prospered in their respective fields, and Ordzhonikidze restored Mezhlauk and I. V. Kosior to the status of deputy commissar shortly after his arrival at Vesenkha.

71. In his speech to the Central Committee plenum of January 1933, Ordzhonikidze warned against overly rapid promotion for the more than twenty thousand engineers who had graduated from higher schools between 1929 and 1932: “At all costs, we must make sure that the engineer graduating from higher technical school does not immediately become a big boss [bol'shim nachal'stvom] at the plant. Let him go and work for the time being as an assistant foreman and he can begin to rise upwards from there …” (Materialy ob “'edinennogo plenum a TsK i TsKK VKP(b), 7-12 ianvaria 1933 goda [Doklady, rcchi, resoliutsii] [Moscow, 1933], p. 127).

72. “O tekhnicheskom obuchenii khoziaistvennikov, professional'nykh i partiinykh kadrov” (January 17, 1932), in Reshcniia partii i prai'itel'stva po khosiaistvennym voprosam, vol. 2 (Moscow, 1967), pp. 371-73.

73. Resolution of the Seventeenth Party Congress on organizational questions (February 1934) and resolution of TsK and Sovnarkom USSR, “Ob organizatsionnykh meropriiatiiakh v oblasti sovetskogo i khoziaistvennogo stroitel'stva” (March 15, 1934), in ibid., pp. 466-67, 468.

74. Andelman, S. la., ed., God ucheby khoziaistvennikov (Moscow-Leningrad, 1935), pp. 9 and 14.Google Scholar

75. Ibid., pp. 40-42.

76. Stalin, “Rech’ na vypuske akademikov Krasnoi Armii,” p. 61.

77. Ivan, Gudov, Sud'ba rabochego, 2nd ed. (Moscow, 1974), p. 60.Google Scholar

78. Stalin, , “Rech’ na pervom vsesoiuznom soveshchanii stakhanovtsev” (November 17, 1935), Sochineniia, ed. Robert H. McNeal, 1(14): 84–85.Google Scholar

79. Sovet pri Narodnom komissare tiasheloi promyshlennosti SSSR 25-29 iitmia 1936 g.: Stenograficheskii otchet (Moscow, 1936), pp. 38, 92-93, 390.

80. On the arrest and the reaction of industrialists, including Ordzhonikidze, see Gudov, Sud'ba rabochego, pp. 102-4.

81. Stalin, , “O nedostatkakh partiinoi raboty i merakh likvidatsii trotskistskikh i inykh dvurushnikov” (speech to Central Committee plenum, March 3, 1937), Sochineniia, ed. McNeal, Robert H., 1(14): 203.Google Scholar

82. V. M. Molotov, “Uroki vreditel'stva, diversii i shpionazha iapono-nemetskotrotskistskikh agentov” (edited version of speech to Central Committee plenum), Bol'shevik, 1937, no. 8 (April 15, 1937), pp. 24-26.

83. Stalin, “O nedostatkakh partiinoi raboty,” p. 203.

84. See, for example, Za industrializatsiiu, March 9, 1937, p. 3, March 14, 1937, p. 3, and March 22, 1937, p. 2; and editorial in Pravda, February 14, 1937, p. 1.

85. Za industrialisatsiiu, July 5, 1937, p. 4. Included in the group were Radin, director of the Il'ich plant at Mariupol, and Gugel, director of the Ordzhonikidze metallurgical combine (Azovstal1).

86. Memoir by N. E. Nosovskii (Mirzakhanov's replacement) in Byli industrial'nye, p. 124.

87. S. Koff, “O tekhnicheskom progresse i chesti inzhenerskogo mundira,” Za industrializatsim, March 9, 1937, p. 3. Koff, an experienced industrial journalist with considerable technical expertise, may well have been flying his own trial balloon with this article. It would not have been read as an authoritative political statement, although it almost certainly led to trouble for the Moscow transformer plant, which was the butt of the article's criticism.

88. See Khrushchev's secret speech to the Twentieth Party Congress, in Khrushchev, N. S., Khrushchev Remembers, trans. Talbott, Strobe (Boston and Toronto, 1970), p. Toronto.Google Scholar

89. See Central Committee resolution, “Podgotovka partiinykh organizatsii k vyboram v Verkhovnyi Sovet SSSR po novoi izbiratel'noi sisteme i sootvetstvuiushchaia perestroika partiino-politicheskoi raboty,” in KPSS v resoHutsiiakh i resheniiakh s “esdov, konferentsii i plenumov TsK, vol. S (Moscow, 1977), pp. 286-89.

90. Stalin, , “Rech’ na prieme rukovodiashchikh rabotnikov i stakhanovtsev metallurgicheskoi i ugol'noi promyshlennosti rukovoditeliam partii i pravitel'stva” (October 29, 1937), Sochineniia, ed. McNeal, Robert H., 1(14): 254.Google Scholar

91. See, for example, editorial in Pravda, June 9, 1937, p. 1.

92. Resolution of Sovnarkom USSR and the party Central Committee, “O raspredelenii okonchivshikh vysshie uchebnye zavedeniia v IV kvartale 1937 g.,” published in Pravda, March 6, 1938, p. 1; also in Industriia, March 6, 1938, p. 1, and elsewhere.

93. Of the total, 482 graduates were to be appointed directors, chief engineers, and their deputies in industrial enterprises; 507 were to go to the central government commissariats as heads and deputy heads of departments and as inspectors; 116 were to become directors and deputy directors of educational institutions; and 131 were to be sent to leading work (that is, as chairmen, secretaries, or department heads) in the regional and republican Soviets and party committees.

94. See, for example, Industriia, April 8, 1938, p. 3, and April 21, 1938, p. 3 (about G. I. Khabarov's experience in a Stalingrad raikom), and Pravda, May 10, 1938, p. 3 (regarding A. Aksenov's work in the Stalinsk gorkom).

95. Biographical data from Levytsky, The Soviet Political Elite; Eshegodnik Bol'shoi sovetskoi entsiklopedii, 1971; Leonid I. Brezhnev: Pages From His Life; Chuianov, Na stremnine veka; Patolichev, Ispytanie na zrelost'.

96. The survey was first published (in abbreviated form) from the material in Soviet archives in Industrializatsiia SSSR 1938-1941 gg.: Dokumenty i materialy (Moscow, 1973), pp. 269-76 ( “Iz dokladnoi zapiski TsSU SSSR v Prezidium Gosplana SSSR ob itogakh ucheta rukovodiashchikh kadrov i spetsialistov na 1 ianvaria 1941 g.,” March 29, 1941). Conceivably it was inaccurate or incomplete, but there seems to be no other reason to question a document produced not for publication but for internal government use.

97. Data taken from the statistical handbook Kul'turnoe stroitel'stvo SSSR (Moscow, 1940), p. 112. This is among the most professional of the compilations of educational statistics published in the prewar period: in some areas, the statisticians have checked and lowered exaggerated figures published in earlier handbooks, and they are unusually scrupulous in defining categories. Because the educational authorities had some interest in overstating them, it is still possible, however, that the graduation figures are too high. This would mean that a lower proportion of 1928-37 graduates were missing from the 1941 cadres survey.

98. XVIII s “esd Vsesoiusnoi Komnmnisticheskoi partii (b): Stenograficheskii otchet (Moscow, 1939), pp. 519-24.

99. Stalin, , “Otchetnyi doklad na XVIII s “ezde partii” (March 10, 1939), Sochineniia, ed. McNeal, Robert H., 1(14): 398.Google Scholar

100. Zhdanov first used the phrase in a speech to a Komsomol audience on October 29, 1938 (see Partiinoe stroitel'stvo, 1938, no. 21 [November 1, 1938], p. 18). It was subsequently incorporated into the resolution of the Eighteenth Party Congress, “Izmeneniia v ustave VKP(b)” (March 20, 1939), based on Zhdanov's report (see XVIII s “ezd, p. 667).

101. Zhdanov, XVIII s “ezd, p. 515.

102. Stalin, “Otchetnyi doklad,” p. 399.

103. Data from speeches of Andreev, Zhdanov, and Malenkov in XVIII s “esd, pp. 106, 529, 148.

104. The twenty were full members Andrianov, Zverev, Khrushchev, Kosygin, Malyshev, Sedin, and Ponomarenko, and candidate members Samokhvalov, Gorkin, Zhavoronkov, Patolichev, Chuianov, Popkov, Popov, Pronin, Kaftanov, Khokhlov, Makarov, Maslennikov, and Sosnin. This list is based on biographical data on Central Committee members and candidates collected from a variety of biographical sources, memoirs, and contemporary press accounts, and supplemented by information provided by Professor Jerry F. Hough (Duke University) and Professor Seweryn Bialer (Columbia University). I have included those who were sent to industrial academies as well as regular higher educational institutions in the years 1928-32, but excluded those who were sent to trade-union higher school (Serdiuk) or Marxism-Leninism courses under the Central Committee (Korotchenko). Also excluded are those like Pegov and F. A. Merkulov who entered higher education during the Second Five-Year Plan.

105. I am indebted to Jerry F. Hough for the biographical card files on the party and government leadership of 1952 on which this analysis is based.

106. See note 105 above.

107. Biographical data from Levytsky, , The Soviet Political Elite; Ezhegodnik Bol'shoi sovetskoi entsiklopedii, 1971; and Deputaty Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR (Moscow, 1966).Google Scholar