The Social Structure of the Soviet Union

The concept of ‘social structure’, as it is currently understood by Soviet sociologists, includes more than class structure. It is normally said to include at least four sets of social relationships: those between social classes, intra-class and status relationships, relations between urban and rural populations and cultures, and relationships between mental and manual labour. ¹ Writers such as Yu.V. Arutyunyan go beyond this and include nationality and religious differences. ² But despite these recent extensions to the concept ‘social structure’, class and class relations remain at the basis of Soviet analysis. At the same time the concept ‘class’ is applied less rigidly than it was in the Stalin era.