Russia - Class
The lower class is forming primarily in small towns and villages, the middle class is concentrated in large cities, and the working class is distributed equally in all types of communities.
Social stratification is a central theme in sociology. It describes social inequality in society, the division of social strata by income level and lifestyle, by the presence or absence of privileges. In primitive society, inequality was insignificant, so stratification was almost absent there. In complex societies, inequality is very strong, it divided people by income, level of education, power, prestige. Castes arose, then estates, and later classes. In some societies, the transition from one social stratum (stratum) to another is prohibited; there are societies where such a transition is limited, and there are societies where it is completely allowed. Freedom of social movement (mobility) determines whether a society is closed or open.
The term "stratification" comes from geology, where it refers to the vertical arrangement of the Earth's layers. Sociology has likened the structure of society to the structure of the Earth and placed the social strata (strata) also vertically. The basis is the income ladder: the poor are at the bottom, the wealthy are in the middle, and the rich are at the top. Each stratum includes only those people who have approximately the same income, power, education and prestige. The inequality of distances between statuses is the main property of stratification.
Three scales of stratification - income, education and power - have completely objective units of measurement: Dollars, years, people. Prestige is outside this range, as it is a subjective indicator. Prestige is the respect that a particular profession, position, occupation enjoys in public opinion. The profession of a lawyer is more prestigious than the profession of a steelworker or a plumber. The position of president of a commercial bank is more prestigious than that of a cashier. All professions, occupations and positions that exist in a given society can be graphically arranged from top to bottom on the ladder of professional prestige. As a rule, professional prestige is determined intuitively, approximately.
Society has traditionally been divided into an upper class and a lower class. In Russia, from the second half of the 18th century, a class division into the nobility, clergy, merchants, peasantry and philistinism (middle urban strata) was established. Estates were based on land ownership. Social barriers between the estates were quite rigid, so social mobility existed not so much between as within the estates. Each estate included many layers, ranks, levels, professions, ranks. So, only nobles could engage in public service. The aristocracy was considered a military estate (chivalry).
Before Peter I, the concept of "rank" meant any position, honorary title, social status of a person. In 1722, Peter I established a new system of ranks, known as the "Table of Ranks". Each type of public service - military, civilian and court - was divided into 14 ranks. The class denoted the rank of the position, which was called the class rank. The name "official" was assigned to its owner. Only the nobility, local and service, was allowed to public service. Both were hereditary: the title of nobility was passed on to the wife, children and distant descendants through the male line.
In pre-revolutionary Russia, every person knew what class he was in. People, as they say, were assigned to one or another social stratum. In a class society, things are different. No one is assigned anywhere. The middle class in modern society include doctors, lawyers, teachers, qualified employees, the middle and petty bourgeoisie. To the lower strata - unskilled workers, the unemployed, the poor. The working class, according to modern ideas, is an independent group, which occupies an intermediate position between the middle and lower classes.
The middle class is a unique phenomenon in world history. It has not been throughout the history of mankind. It only appeared in the 20th century. It performs a specific function in society. The middle class is the stabilizer of society: the larger it is, the less likely it is that society will be shaken by revolutions, ethnic conflicts, social cataclysms. The middle class separates two opposite poles, rich and poor, and does not allow them to collide.
In the scientific literature, it is customary to distinguish between the “traditional” or “old” middle strata, which unite small private owners (small and medium-sized businesses, farmers, etc.), and the “new” middle strata, which include people who own intellectual property, developed skills of complex labor activity: managers, intelligentsia, freelancers, employees, highly skilled workers, etc.
The middle class was never very developed in Russia or the Soviet Union. In the czarist era there was an aristocracy and serfs. During the 1890s, Russia's industrial development led to a significant increase in the size of the urban bourgeoisie and the working class, setting the stage for a more dynamic political atmosphere and the development of radical parties. Because much of Russia's industry was owned by the state or by foreigners, the working class was comparatively stronger and the bourgeoisie comparatively weaker than in the West. Because the nobility and the wealthy bourgeoisie were politically timid, the establishment of working-class and peasant parties preceded that of bourgeois parties.
The October Revolution led to the rise of the Bolsheviks, who previously did not have a recognized high position. In the Communist era, there were the Communist Party elite and everybody else. During the years of Soviet power, that is, in the period from 1917 to 1991, small and medium-sized entrepreneurs were destroyed, the phase of industrial development of society could not be completed, although the share of the new middle class ( albeit of a non-market type), namely scientists, doctors, teachers, engineers and managers, was very significant.
During the 1930s, the social system adapted to the industrializing economy. Stalin ended the official leveling of incomes in 1931 when he announced that needed increases in production could be effected only by paying more to skilled workers and the intelligentsia. The new system provided incentives for workers and partly ended legal discrimination against some of the former privileged classes. Official discrimination against the former "exploiting classes" (nobles, priests, and capitalists) was abolished by the 1936 constitution. Stratification in the Soviet Union, according to Soviet officials, was based only on merit and not on the ownership of private property. Privilege proceeded from one's position in society and not the reverse. Soviet ideology held that this stratification would disappear in the future as Soviet society progressed from socialism to communism.
Soviet society, although officially classless according to Marxism-Leninism, was divided into four socio-occupational groups by Western sociologists: peasants and agricultural specialists; bluecollar workers; white-collar workers; and the party and government elite and cultural and scientific intelligentsia. The category of blue-collar workers included those who performed manual labor in industrial enterprises as well as those on collective farms and state farms engaged in transport, construction, and other nonfarming activities. In the late 1980s, blue-collar workers and their families made up about two-thirds of the country's population. The CPSU always loudly proclaimed blue-collar workers to be the backbone of the state and the most honored segment of society.
Those who worked full time for the party received political power, special privileges, and financial benefits. Social status increased the higher one was promoted in the party. Social status was also affected by the level and field of education, place of residence, nationality, and party membership and party rank. High socio-occupational status was generally accompanied by aboveaverage pay, but more important for the individual, it offered increased access to scarce consumer goods, and even foreign goods, as well as social prestige and other perquisites for the individual and his or her family.
The transition from the Soviet to the post-Soviet type of the middle class takes place at a time when the construction of an industrial society has not been completed in Russia. In 1992, when "shock therapy" began, more than 80% of Russians found themselves at or below the poverty line. The middle class made up a small stratum of about 13-15%. In Russian society, which is considered transitional and therefore unstable, the share of the middle class is not very high.
By 2019, 14% of Russia’s population was able to afford a mortgage and a car lease and have some cash left over afterward. Russia’s oil- and gas-rich Yamal-Nenets autonomous district had the highest share of the country’s middle-class population at 45.2%. The gold-mining Magadan region ranked second with 34.5%, while the resource-rich Chukotka autonomous district ranked third with 33.8%. The Khanty-Mansiisk autonomous district (32.1%) and the Nenets autonomous district (28.9%) closed out the top five. Moscow and St. Petersburg placed in seventh and eighth, with 26.8% and 25.7% of its populations considered middle class. Russian regions in and around the North Caucasus comprised the last six spots on the ranking with an average of 3.45% of their populations able to save a little after their expenses. Overall, Russia’s republic of Ingushetia ranked last in the country, with 1.9% of its population considered middle class. Authorities set the minimum subsistence level for January-March 2019 at 10,753 rubles ($169) per month, up from 10,038 rubles ($158) the previous year.
An underclass is nearing complete formation in the composition of the lower class. The professional portrait of the lower class in Russia is very close to its traditional portrait in societies with a developed market economy: basically, it consists of medium-qualified and nonqualified blue-collar workers, as well as rank-and-file workers in trade and consumer services (salesclerks, counter clerks in drycleaning establishments, and so on). Changes have taken place in the sphere of employment in Russia, which have brought about on a mass scale the emergence of structural positions that are characteristic of the lower class. At the same time, the social differentiation of society has drastically deepened, and mass strata of the poor have come into being.
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