The Thinking Reed

It can do this, however, only because it is inseparable from the state: its structure is the structure of the state apparatus and it has no ‘class structure’ of its own. Marc Rakovski has written: ‘In Soviet type societies, none of the social classes is in a position to organize itself, not even the ruling class, although this does not mean to say that this does not have a greater cohesion than the class it rules over.’31 M. Cheshkov, a Soviet Marxist who has studied the economics of developing countries, the general problems of overcoming backwardness, the structure of state proprietorship and cognate problems, has defined this peculiarity of the statocracy by means of the concept ‘state-class’.32 In so far as the statocracy as a whole is markedly different from the ruling classes known to European history, Cheshkov rightly says that it would be more exact to speak not of a ‘new class’ but of ‘a community of the class type’.33 Important characteristics of a class are not visible here, and from the formal standpoint the Soviet nomenklatura-bureaucracy is an estate rather than a class. In this respect we observe a similarity between it and the old Russian nobility, which also replenished itself to a large extent — unlike its Western counterparts — not so much through heredity as by co-option (when he attained a certain position in the state apparatus, a man became a nobleman for life). One could call the statocracy ‘a class in itself’ but never ‘a class for itself’. Its interests cannot be directly expressed. Its position as heir of the revolution provides it with ideological advantages, making it more attractive to the masses inside and outside the country, but this position is not such that it can pursue its group and class interests to the end Consequently, the term ‘new class’ can be employed here only with serious reservations.

The statocracy exploits the working people in quite a different way from the bourgeois, being itself, outwardly, just another group of wageworkers. The outward appearance is, of course, deceptive. ‘The contradictions between its class nature and its immanent social functions constitute the fundamental contradiction of the statocracy’, writes Cheshkov.

By virtue of the indicated social function of the statocracy it seems that it, the collective ruler, is at the same time a particular variety of the collective worker. What is illusory is not the social functions performed by the statocracy, but the interpreting of these functions without regard to the class nature of the statocracy.34

As a result, it often seems to the statocracy itself that it is indeed the bearer of socialism and Communism, but that does not prevent it from using exclusive shops and living at the expense of the exploited workers. To the country’s leaders it seems that they act on behalf of society, but this is nothing but an illusion. Voslensky wrote:

In the Soviet system the members of the Politburo and the secretariat of the Central Committee of the CPSU are not independent rulers, but only representatives of the ruling class, the political bureaucracy known as the nomenklatura.… The USSR’s policy expresses the interests and ideas of this class, and that is what makes it consistent and transparent, despite all attempts to turn everything into a secret.35

The privileges of the statocracy have not risen out of nothing. They are engendered by the actual situation of the ‘class-state’ in the social division of labour, in the economic system as a whole.

What is characteristic of the statocratic upper circles is, to use G. Lisichkin’s expression, ‘payment in accordance with the office held’, and not in accordance with work done or with the value of labour-power.36 ‘The distribution and redistribution of the surplus product’, wrote Cheshkov,