JAMES W. HEINZEN

PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY AND THE VISION OF THE MODERN SOVIET COUNTRYSIDE

Local agricultural specialists at the end of the NEP, 1928-1929

A major obstacle for scholars seeking to understand the role, world view and fate of specialists in the early Soviet period is the preponderance of studies of urban professionals at the expense of rural professionals. Generalizations about specialists — that is, people with technical skills or experience — are almost always grounded in our understanding of industrial experts, especially engineers employed in heavy industry. This focus on urban specialists in an agrarian country, where over 80% of the population lived far outside of the cities, has created a blind spot. On the basis of these studies, historians of Soviet professions and of Soviet officialdom have largely reached a consensus that during the 1920's and 1930's, the privileges granted the Soviet functionary and specialist created expectations of a certain level of status and comfort among them. In the only collection of scholarly articles on Russian officialdom that crosses the 1917 divide, Stephen Sternheimer summarizes the conventional wisdom. He argues that over the course of the 1920's these expectations were met: "Seldom in Russian history had the lives and fortunes of those occupying lower-level posts in the outer reaches of the state's far-flung bureaucratic network so visibly improved."1 "Technicians and managers once again occupied comfortable and remunerative posts," he goes on.2 While it is the case that, overall, later in the decade most categories of specialists seem to have earned more than before the Revolution, I propose that we move beyond simply comparing salaries to examining other cultural and professional issues that affected professional self esteem, outlook and sense of mission during the years of the New Economic Policy. Sternheimer 's generalization, which for the most part has been accepted by the field, becomes a much more complex issue when one looks beyond the usual areas of inquiry. To be sure, certain strata in the bureaucracy, especially those employed in industry, the military and the Communist Party, did enjoy relatively high salaries and expanded prestige in Soviet society.3 This paper will argue, however, that for employees of agricultural and land reform agencies — only a small fraction of whom were members of the Communist Party — status, working conditions and living standards remained quite poor in comparison with their urban-based colleagues. 1 go further,

Cahiers du Monde russe, 39 (1-2), janvier-juin 1998, pp. 9-26.