On Jun 17, 2009, at 7:40 PM, James Heartfield wrote:
>
>> True and not true -- well it may be completely true in Iran, but
>> not so in the EE countries. Bureaucrats actually did not live all
>> that well (unless we are talking about the upper echelons). The ire
>> of the Soviet middle class (a term that actually refers to the
>> intelligentsia and educated professionals) was more directed at the
>> system that 1) kept them at a fixed salary ceiling and 2) paid them
>> less than miners and factory workers.
>
>
> "upper echelons"=nomenklatura=the "post"-Stalinist ruling class
> "the intelligentsia and educated professionals"=the most super-
> exploited group of workers (paid the least proportion of their
> product) under Stalinism.
> Their "ire" was "more directed at the system" that denied them the
> most elementary personal and political freedoms. And constantly
> insulted their intelligence.
>
> Exploited? Oh please. The soviet intelligentsia were full of
> complaints, but the essence of them was that they were not accorded
> their proper place in the nomenklatura. In fact, that is all the
> intelligentsia was, those educated for positions in the
> nomenklatura, who, for whatever reason, did not find a position
> there. Never were there such a mean-spirited, superior, disdainful
> gang of snobs as the Soviet intelligentsia. They hated the workers,
> who they blamed for being over-paid and greedy, taking their
> rightful due from them (which of course was not true).
You misunderstand. The contextual definition of "intelligentsia" was it's link to "educated professionals"--precisely those who have nothing to do with the nomenklatura (like the hero of Dudintsev's *not by bread alone*). Doctors, teachers, engineers, accountants, etc. Of course the official "intelligentsia" were mainly trash.
Shane Mage
> This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it
> always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire,
> kindling in measures and going out in measures."
>
> Herakleitos of Ephesos