Changing Views of Social Differentiation in Soviet Ideology

Abstract

Students of comparative politics have tended to agree that in the twentieth century, a distinctive type of single-party regime has derived its character from the utopian objective of planned and complete social transformation. Soviet ideology under Nikita Khrushchev reaffirmed the dream of building a homogeneous social community, and for the first time placed the realization of that goal on the agenda for the immediate future of the Soviet system. Soviet doctrine postulated that with the development of socialism and its movement toward communism, rapid economic growth would make a decisive contribution toward the reduction of remaining social differences. Soviet ideology under Mikhail Gorbachev emphasizes that multiple sources of group differentiation give rise to varied social interests. From 1982 to 1984 Soviet social scientists had openly argued about the nature of the “non-antagonistic contradictions” of socialist society, and about the possibility that such conflicts might assume dangerous proportions.