the return of inequality and privilege

stalin betrays ideology?

• stalin the egalitarian communist presides over the emergence of a privileged bureacratic class + increase in inequality

principle of material incentives

• state officals, military and police officers etc + stakhanovite

  • pay increased, consumer goods other govt benefits (private apartments, dachas, holidays in sanatoria, access to closed shops)

echoes of tsarist system → ranks and property for nobility in exchange for civil/military service

piecework + differentiation in worker’s wages

1932

• average salary of engineers and technicians = higher in relation to average workers than at any time (before the soviet period or after)

magnitogorsk:

• different menus for different workers groups

• no longer appropriate for workers to usethe familiar form of address to the plant manager

party maximum abolished

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