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under the banner of building socialism, the ruling bolshevik party
was transformed from the revolution抯 headquarters into a
bureaucratic machine, charged with mobilizing and channeling
energies of society into a massive modernization program.
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the
role of the party-state structures as an instrument of building a
modern society should also be assessed not from the point of view of
their compliance or noncompliance with standards of a 揷ivilized?
society of today, but in the context of russian civilization and on
the basis of the understanding of the historical foundations of
russian statehood. for centuries, the class of 搒ervice nobility?
constituted the spine of russian statehood. in pre-petrine russia,
this ruling group was represented by the military landowning class;
in imperial russia, by the state bureaucracy recruited from the
landowning nobility; and in communist russia, by the party-state
elite, known collectively as the
nomenklatura. |
the
nomenklatura
carried out its governing functions in ways and by means, most of
which had been foreshadowed by the actions of russia抯
administrative elites of the past. it used mobilization and
centralization, formulated public objectives, and fought for their
implementation with enthusiasm and self-sacrifice, by paternalism
and repression, and through coercion and terror. but its overarching
goal was further advance along the path of modernization. naturally,
as any other social group, it also had its own 揷lass?interests,
but the best of its representatives were capable of articulating
progressive aspirations of various sections of soviet society and of
working staunchly for their realization.
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