Moscow, Mysl Publishing House. 1976. 343 pp. The print run is 4000 copies. Price 1 rub. 80 kopecks.
Soviet historiography has been supplemented with a substantial work that highlights the first stage of the formation of the class structure of our society .1. This topic has not yet received adequate coverage in the literature. As an independent problem, it is presented for the first time in this monograph. The authors consider the process of socialist transformation of the class structure of society as a manifestation of objective laws of its socio-economic development during the transition from capitalism to socialism and as a result of the purposeful activity of the victorious proletariat, led by the Marxist-Leninist party.
The XXV Congress of the CPSU pointed out the need to intensify the study of the social structure of Soviet society, to reflect more broadly the path taken by the Soviet people, and to create comprehensive works2 . A peer-reviewed work is just such a study, covering issues of history, sociology, and demography. It thoroughly elaborates on the specific methodology of historical research of the dynamics of the social structure of Soviet society. The authors ' team was sympathetic to what has been done in related social sciences in terms of studying this complex problem, while at the same time determining the specifics of the tasks of historical research itself. This approach is important not only for this book, but also for the subsequent study of the social processes of Soviet society. The periodization of the process of changes in the social structure of society, which is the basis of the monograph, is also of great interest (p. 17).
The book reveals the significance of Lenin's theoretical legacy in illuminating the process of socialist transformation of the class structure of society. It is written on the basis of a concrete study of the history of the working class, the peasantry, and the intelligentsia, their socio-economic relations, and the social policy of the party and the state. The authors give a scientifically based description of the main sources containing a large amount of social information (pp. 99-118). They draw attention to the need for a consistent study of the class structure of Soviet society during the transition period.
The monograph provides a detailed critique of various concepts of modern bourgeois historiography and sociology on the social history of Soviet society. The fact that these stories are an integral part of the overall comprehensive work significantly enhances their role in exposing bourgeois falsifications, and gives the entire study an even more acute political focus.
The socialist transformation of the social structure of society under the conditions of the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat was led by the working class. Characteristics of the Russian working class in the first years of Soviet power are given in the monograph both in terms of socio-economic (employment, financial situation, connection with the countryside, participation in land cultivation, etc.), and in terms of socio-political. The authors consider the process of formation of the working class as a leading force in the Soviet system from top to bottom, in the state apparatus, and in various public organizations. Based on factual and statistical data, the book presents the social composition of the Communist Party, through which the working class cements the political system of society and provides leadership to the working masses.
The book emphasizes the complexity and inconsistency of the natural process of transformation of the formerly oppressed and exploited proletariat into the ruling class of Soviet society, when, on the one hand, it concentrates political power and commanding heights of the economy, and on the other, it suffers losses in the civil war due to devastation, famine, disease, and the declassification of individual classes.
1 authors: A. M. Anfimov, V. I. Bessonov, E. I - Wittenberg, V. P. Dmitrenko, V. Z. Drobizhev, I. E. Zelenin, Yu. s. Kukushkin, A. E. Lutsky, M. E. Naydenov, N. V. Naumov, B. I. Notkin, L. A. Pinegina, Y. A. Polyakov, N. L. Rogalin, V. M. Celinska, V. S. Semenov, T. A. Sivokhina, A. K. Sokolov, I. M. Stishov, A. F. Chmyga. Editorial Board: V. M. Selunskaya (editor-in-chief), V. Z. Drobizhev, Yu. S.Kukushkin, S. F. Naida, M. E. Naidenov, [M. I. Kheifets].
2 See Materials of the XXV Congress of the CPSU, Moscow, 1976, pp. 72-73.
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parts and groups. In order to show the change in the socio-economic situation of the working class in the first year of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the data obtained as a result of secondary processing of the materials of the professional census of 1918 using mathematical methods are introduced into scientific circulation.
The authors also recreate the process of liquidating the exploiting classes-capitalists and landlords. The book reveals, albeit in a condensed form, the socio-political appearance of certain groups of the Russian bourgeoisie, and reveals the degree of their resistance to the proletarian dictatorship and its revolutionary legislation. The authors consider various forms and methods of struggle of the proletarian state for the socialization of private capital, for the establishment of socialist property as the economic primary basis for the transformation of the proletariat into the ruling class, whose main task is the creative function. The book also elaborates on the question of the landowner class, its liquidation, and the future fate of its former representatives. In sociological works, this element of the class structure of society in pre-October Russia has never been specifically considered. It is all the more important that the destruction of landlord land ownership and the landowner class is revealed by the authors as a historical process that resulted from the general peasant struggle that unfolded under the leadership of the working class and during which the second social war developed, and the class split deepened in the peasantry itself.
A large part of the book is devoted to the main trends in the social development of the Russian countryside in the first years of the dictatorship of the proletariat, changes in the social position of the peasantry and shifts in its intra-class structure, the characteristics of the farm labourers, the poor, the middle peasantry, and the new social stratum - collectivist peasants. The authors define a new type of social relations of the allied classes, the social orientation of the first agrarian laws of the Soviet government, which expressed both the interests of the working peasantry and the leading role of the working class in the process of agrarian transformation. This emphasizes the historical significance of the new period in the development of the working peasantry, when it turns from an oppressed, disenfranchised tax-paying class to an ally of the ruling class. The changes in the nature of social differentiation of the petty-bourgeois peasantry under the conditions of the proletarian dictatorship and the specifics of this process in the context of the civil war are described in detail and argumentatively.
The book raises an interesting question about the social appearance and evolution of the city's petty bourgeoisie in the first post-revolutionary years. In capitalist Russia, as is well known, the urban petty bourgeoisie made up a fairly significant proportion of the urban population. It also nourished the petty-bourgeois parties socially. The monograph reveals the program provisions and policy of the Communist Party in relation to the petty bourgeoisie of the city, describes the main forms of the union of workers and working artisans, artisans. At the same time, the article highlights the specifics of the civil war situation and the mobilization of all the country's resources to fight counter-revolution and intervention.
The authors pay much attention to the characteristics of structural shifts in the social composition of the Russian intelligentsia during the socialist revolution, the peculiarities of the formation of the workers 'and peasants' intelligentsia, its inclusion in the management of the state and production. For the first time, these two different social processes are presented against the background of general changes in the social structure of society at the first stage of the transition period.
Summing up the main features and trends of social development of society at the first stage of its revolutionary transformation, the authors emphasize the crucial role of the proletarian state, its political and legal institutions in the formation of a new, socialist structure of society, show the intensity of the class struggle in which the formation of a new social structure took place, its various forms. The results of the social dynamics of Soviet society during the years of the revolution and civil War are considered in connection with the main demographic shifts in the composition of the population. This relationship between history and demography is important for the scientific study of the social structure of society. For the first time in our literature, an attempt is made to compare the quantitative characteristics of changes in the social composition of the population of Soviet Russia during the civil war. Table 15 (page 332) provides data that allows you to track not only the general information but also the general information.
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the dynamics of this process in 1913-1919, but also the main directions in the development of social mobility of various classes and social groups.
Of course, not all questions of a large and complex topic are developed in the book with sufficient completeness. More attention should have been paid to issues of social psychology, socio-political attitudes of individual classes and social groups. The problems of the class struggle in the period under review could be supplemented by data on the counter-revolutionary underground and white emigration, and on the fate of the deposed exploiting classes.
In general, the book is a valuable scientific work that enriches Soviet historical science with a deep study of one of the most important problems.
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