The dynamics of class structure in Post-Soviet Ukraine

Abstract

After the declaration of independence, a new class structure has formed in Ukraine. The starting point at the beginning of the transition (1985–1991) was the structural composition of late Soviet society, where large groups of people were identified primarily in relation to the state or collective-farm/cooperative ownership and their place in the technical division of labour (manual/non-manual).The corresponding nominations were fixed legally in state and party documents and were described by the formula “the union of two classes (workers and peasants) and the strata of intelligentsia”. Ideas about levelling class differences and the gradual development of social homogeneity in socialist society, the absence of conflicting economic and political interests and any manifestations of class struggle lay at the heart of the widespread ideological cliché “rapprochement between workers, peasants and intelligentsia”. In the post-Soviet reinterpretation of class structure, one more component was added to this formula—the “nomenclature”, which included all of those who held high positions in the state and party hierarchy, with their non-publicized privileges and access to scarce goods.