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Conclusion "In my opinion this is all a fraud!" I maintain that the party nomenklatura in the Soviet Union existed as a separate ruling class, its privileged position stemming from its control over the production and allocation of resources. In many cases corrupt officials profited from the distribution of goods in the illegal market or from bribes in this alleged period of "high" Stalinism. It is undeniable that an element of repression and fear backed up the Stalinist system, but the image presented here does not mesh with the idea of a society living in fear of a "totalitarian" state. These sources reveal a dialogue-both in words and in deeds-between the ruling elite and the working class. The party dutifully noted popular demands for better material conditions in report after report, and at times leaders responded to those demands, but ideological blinders kept them from acknowledging the systemic flaws at the root of the problem. Party texts conceptualized society in paternalistic "us" and "them" terms, a conscious expression of the elite's economic and cultural hegemony over the population. Languages of power also defined social sexual difference-implicitly in public texts, explicitly in internal documents and party policies-in ways that assured continued male domination of society, rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding . Gauging by several sources, including svodki compiled at the local level, popular views varied widely, from genuine support for the regime and its supreme leader-the ruling ideology acting as a mediating factor to "manufacture consent" -to apathy and outright hostility. Common sentiments were recorded several times, such as complaints about exporting grain during the famine and tirades about "bosses" who do not have to stand in line for bread. Workers also resisted party policies by abandoning factory jobs and exercised considerable power within the "politics of productivity," occasionally protesting unpopular policies with work slowdowns or walkouts. The clear expression of worker dissatisfaction exposed in these documents shows the different ways people perceived Soviet reality on a daily basis. Some workers conformed with the regime's ruling ideology, but many expressed discontent with party policies and defined their own interests vis-avis the Communist Party and local authorities-an amorphous, omnipresent "they" in these documents-the representatives of the elite with whom workers interacted in the realm of production and through the bureaucracy. 280 EVERYDAY LIFE AN D THE "RECONSTRUCTION" OF SOVIET RUSSIA In any stratified society an elite sits atop the social order in a position of privilege due to its control over economic and cultural production, the two being closely intertwined, and this includes the Soviet Union. People's perception of themselves in terms of their position in society, moreover, is imbedded deeply in a complex cultural context and a network of hierarchical power relations. Of course, one's station in life is closely linked to one's function within the realm of productive relations-defined broadly to include mental as well as physical labor-to what one does on a daily basis, be it as a factory director, an artisan, a peasant, a church scribe, professor, or factory worker. Often people do not explicitly see themselves in "class" terms; one of the most important aims of a dominant ideology is to diffuse or "explain away" the economic disparities rooted in the realm of production. It does this by focusing on flawed individuals rather than on the deficiencies of the system itself (i.e., the top-down, repressive nature of a fundamentally undemocratic political system); by constructing internal "others" - collaborators, speculators, "bad communists," etc. - to blame for all economic, social, and political ills; and by constructing myths of selfless heroism and sacrifice to gloss over material difficulties. The basic function of any ruling ideology is to manufacture consent while marginalizing dissent, goals achieved through a combination of propaganda and force (or the perceived threat of force, which makes its use unnecessary). One's position was not set in the Soviet social order, as there was movement up and down with concomitant changes in perception. Workers became party bureaucrats, who could be demoted or even jailed for inadequate work or corruption (although, as we saw, those in power tolerated corruption to a significant degree). Peasants became workers, as demobilized troops from the countryside remained in the cities and rural youth were recruited through training schools, during this period of tremendous demographic change. The line dividing workers and the party nomenklatura was not always entirely clear, but people crossed it in both directions all the time...

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