Statistics on the social composition of the party might be useful in corroborating the declining role of the working class in the Soviet Union, but no such statistics have been published in the USSR since the Seventeenth Party Congress in 1934, when 60 percent of the membership were workers, or rather had come from the working class, because the percentage of members working in production was much smaller, 9.3 percent. According to party tradition, functionaries of the party apparatus were and still are assigned to the working class category. Peasants constituted 8 percent of the membership in 1934, and white collar workers 32 percent.99 Western researchers, using information about the educational level of delegates to party congresses and statistics derived from local party conferences and other sources, estimate that by the Nineteenth Party Congress in 1952 (the last under Stalin) workers constituted only 7.6 percent of the delegates and peasants 7.8 percent.100
Despite the increased influx of workers and peasants during the war, the CPSU was actually transformed into a party of functionaries, specialists in various fields, and intellectuals in the service of the organization.101 Membership for most of them was above all a means of advancing their careers. Politically the party's composition also changed radically. Most of the Old Bolsheviks had been killed in the terror of the 1930s, and the second generation of Communists suffered heavy losses during the war.
Similar changes affected the social composition of the soviets, from the local level up to the supreme soviets of the republics and the USSR. The higher the institution, the fewer the workers or peasants that were still "linked with production." And even those described in the statistics as active producers were in reality part of the new, power-corrupted labor or kolkhoz aristocracies. In 1937, of the deputies to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, 42 percent were listed as workers, 29.5 percent as peasants, and 28.5 percent as intelligentsia. In 1950 the corresponding figures were 31.8 percent, 20.4 percent, and 47.8 percent.102
With grim determination the party continued to increase its influence, neglecting neither the material, the spiritual, nor the moral aspect of life for the "new Soviet man." Local party organizations were required to monitor the moral behavior of members and their families more rigorously. Informing the authorities about "amoral" behavior became common practice. Party bureaus at enterprises and offices, local trade union committees, and even higher party and government agencies were swamped by denunciations and complaints of all sorts. In the late Stalin era hypocrisy and sycophancy became a central characteristic of Soviet society.
The war accelerated the crystallization of the present-day form of modern Soviet society. However, completion of the process was continually impeded by arbitrariness and terror, which constantly threatened all levels of society, including the most highly placed in the bureaucracy.
During the war major shifts occurred in the structure of the bureaucracy. Its military wing acquired more weight, its numbers grew, and its castelike tendencies became more evident. During the terror of the 1930s the corps of generals had been almost completely annihilated. Those who had been spared were reduced to automatons who faithfully followed the orders of the party leadership. But the conditions of war were such that in spite of all the restrictions imposed by the high command, generals in the field had to make their own decisions. This revived their sense of responsibility and self-esteem, not only in their own eyes but in the eyes of the population as well. For a short time the marshals and generals enjoyed popularity. It is true that they were subjected to constant surveillance by State Security. Their adjutants, drivers, and mistresses often served as informers for the security agencies and more than one paid dearly for a carelessly spoken word. Soon after the end of the war, the most popular marshals began to be sent off to the provinces. Zhukov, the most famous of all, was sent to Odessa to command the military district. Others were assigned to occupation duties in Germany and Eastern Europe, some retired or were transferred to the reserves, and a few were sent to prison.
In an attempt to keep the officers in a state of perfect obedience, the government at first showered those returning from the front with considerable privileges. Senior officers were given land to build homes on, generals were given larger lots. The top generals and marshals received government dachas fully equipped with the most modern conveniences on favorable terms. Exclusive stores and tailor's shops were established for all generals, where they and their families could purchase higher quality goods at very low prices.
During the war another wing of the bureaucracy acquired new size and strength: the managers of the big enterprises engaged in military production and construction.
The importance of the state security organs was also enhanced. The number of state security agents grew enormously. The officers of SMERSH (military counterintelligence) became the backbone of the security apparatus. The head of SMERSH became the head of state security for the entire country.
After the war the agencies of the judiciary, the procuracy, and the police were filled with demobilized officers. Often demobilized officers of peasant background were unable to find positions in the postwar army or in cities and became kolkhoz chairmen, but directing a kolkhoz could prove to be more difficult than commanding a battalion or even a company.
With the war over, people expected improvements in their situation. Instead, they were called upon for further sacrifices. The abstract idea of building socialism could no longer inspire enthusiasm in the exhausted population. The party then resorted to the proven method of frightening the population with the threat of imperialist aggression. Newspapers wrote that it was necessary to resist the offensive of the Western powers, who allegedly wished to steal the fruits of the victory over fascism from the Soviet people. This new enemy—Western imperialism—was very abstract, nebulous, elusive. It was a lot more practical to find an "enemy" inside. Then it could be identified. The "enemy" thus chosen was the intellectual, the "rootless cosmopolitan" whose name did not sound very Russian. This the population could understand easily. And for those who were not entirely sure, the press, lecturers, university professors, and experts in Marxism- Leninism (whose number grew constantly in the postwar years) explained the matter authoritatively and at great length.
The party's need to exploit patriotic sentiment was great. Stalin well understood that in the first postwar years patriotism was a very powerful ideological weapon. As was the case with all the formulas he used, Stalin's definition of patriotism was extremely simple: it was, he declared in his report on the twenty-seventh anniversary of the October revolution, "the deep devotion and the deep faith of the people toward its Soviet homeland and the fraternal friendship of the workers of all the nationalities in our country."103
This notion also included awareness of the total superiority of Soviet society over all others and pride in being a part of it. The "new Soviet man," Homo Sovieticus, was encouraged to develop a feeling of special importance of his mission and of a special destiny. Such a superiority complex is the most dangerous attitude any society can have. It fosters the conviction that anything is permissible in the name of a greater goal. How great this goal actually is, however, depends entirely on the leadership that interprets it.
Soviet patriotism was, for the government, a means of forcing the people again to accept a hard existence and the new "temporary difficulties."