ABSTRACT
If any consensus can be found among the many Western scholars who have analyzed Soviet elites and the underlying determinants of Soviet cadre policy, it has been the common recognition of diversity in the backgrounds, capabilities and even likely attitudes of those selected to full-time leadership roles in the party, state and mass bureaucracies. Underlying and patterned diversity rather than homogeneity among Soviet cadres has been a byproduct of the leadership recruitment process in the Soviet Union, even with all positions directly or indirectly controlled by central cadre organs under nomenklatura to ensure relatively similar background characteristics and criteria in cadre promotion. As Hough and Grey Hodnett, among other Western analysts, have pointed out, one of the most obvious differences can be found even at a superficial level in the widely varying career or task specializations associated with distinct subgroups of Soviet cadres.
