Molotov in power on the eve of Barbarossa

According to Chuev, Molotov had notes to write 3 books:



(2) is particularly interesting. I suspect that some of the cynicism that grew during the 70s was due to the Party becoming more and more the Party of bureaucratic interests.

There's also this quote:



It puts me in mind of those who argue that Stalin caused the system to ossify with terror...

fasquardon

Returning to this thread after a while:

2) is probably in response to Khruschev's slogan that the Soviet Union was now "the state of the whole people" and that the dictatorship of the proletariat was no longer necessary. According to T.H. Rigby's book "Communist Party Membership In The USSR" in 1932 manual workers composed 65.2 percent of party members, but by 1956 50 percent or more were white collar workers. Some believe that the emphasis on having the party be worker-dominated was relaxed during WWII, and this caused the party to become elitist and disconnected from the people. If Molotov comes to power on the eve of WWII and wanted to avoid this, he'd have a very delicate balancing act between keeping the party membership dominated by "proletarians" and giving the rest of the population a stake in defending the party during time of war. Very tricky, but doable- I believe that in North Korea for example industrial workers comprised at least a plurality of the WPK's membership into the early 90s.
 
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