Social Functions of the Engineering Intelligentsia in Socialist Society

I. F. Livshits

(Presented by the scientific seminar of the Department of Political Economy)

A “social function” characterizes the role and place of one or another social formation within the system of a broader whole¹. In analyzing the socio-class structure of socialist society, such a broader whole is the socialist mode of production and the entire system of socialist social relations. They determine the nature of the socio-class structure, its genesis, social ties, its place in the overall system as a part of the whole, and assign definite functions to each of its elements.

The study of the socio-class structure of socialist society may be carried out at the most varied levels. Analysis at the level of the working class, the collective-farm peasantry, and the intelligentsia—that is, of the principal formative elements of the socio-class structure—does not exclude, but presupposes, investigation of the role and place of socio-professional groups in the functioning and development of socialist society. Such an analysis has sufficient foundation if, as indicated above, it is conducted from holistic positions, considering the object under study within the system of the general structure of socialist society.

The study of socio-professional groups from the point of view of their place in the system of the social division of labor and of their role in all spheres of social life acquires great significance under contemporary conditions of the development of socialist society. This is explained by the fact that, under the influence of two leading determinants—the laws of the scientific and technological revolution and the laws governing the functioning and development of socialist

social relations, which do not contradict one another but are in dialectical unity; socio-professional groups, being part of the whole, substantially influence the whole.

We are interested in an analysis of the engineering intelligentsia from the standpoint of its place in the socialist mode of production and in the social-class structure, and of those ties that take shape between it and other social communities.

First of all, is it legitimate to single out the engineering intelligentsia within the intelligentsia, given that the established concept is that of engineering and technical workers (ETW), which includes engineers and technicians with and without specialized education? This is an amorphous, imprecise concept, one that does not reflect the specific character of the intelligentsia as “a social group or stratum consisting of persons professionally engaged in highly qualified mental labor requiring specialized secondary and higher education”²).

We proceed from the premise that the intelligentsia is a differentiated social community. The singling out of the engineering intelligentsia within the system of the professional division of labor is justified by a number of considerations: first, by its qualitative specificity; second, by the multitude of functions performed by engineers in all spheres of society’s life; and, third, by the transformation of the engineering intelligentsia into a mass socio-professional group. The number of certified engineers in the Soviet Union increased sixfold compared with 1941 and by the end of 1966 amounted to 1,789 thousand persons³).

Naturally, the singling out of the engineering intelligentsia as a socio-professional group is quite relative, since there exist objective factors that bring it increasingly closer to the classes of socialist society and to other groups of the intelligentsia. The relativity of singling out the engineering intelligentsia must also be emphasized because bourgeois sociologists and economists, in theories of convergence, insistently pursue the line that the “technostructure” plays the leading role in modern industrial society⁴), and that engineers constitute an independent class of society⁵). Bourgeois ideologues are especially active in trying to present the exceptional character of the intelligentsia when analyzing the social-class structure of socialist society. The methodological untenability and political class orientation of the technocratic conceptions of bourgeois ideologues have been thoroughly exposed in many works by Soviet and foreign authors. In this regard we would like to note P. P. Amelin’s book The Intelligentsia and Socialism⁶).

What, then, characterizes the functions of the engineering intelligentsia?

The engineering intelligentsia, as part of the collective worker of socialist production, contributes in many respects to the fundamental qualitative changes that occur in the objective aspect of the productive forces—in the implements, means, and objects

²) Classes, Social Strata and Groups in the USSR. Nauka Publishing House. Moscow, 1968, pp. 136–137.
³) Labor in the USSR, statistical collection. Moscow, 1968, pp. 268–269.
⁴) John Galbraith. The New Industrial State. Progress Publishers. Moscow, 1969.
⁵) Gerstl Hachton. Engineers: An Analysis of the Profession. London, 1966, p. 2 (in English).
⁶) P. P. Amelin. The Intelligentsia and Socialism. Leningrad University Press, 1970.

labor, and in technical and technological processes. These changes are connected above all with the automation of the instruments of labor, which creates, in tendency, the conditions for transforming all production into a single process. The role of various technologized natural processes in production—energy-related, chemical, biological—grows; they contribute to the creation of new instruments of labor with properties most favorable for production. A further deepening of the technical division of labor is taking place, which requires highly developed coordination.

The indicated changes in the objective aspect of the productive forces lead to an intensive transfer of labor functions from the human being to technology, while within labor functions themselves the ratio between physical and mental labor changes sharply. Creative mental labor, conditioned by the penetration of science into all elements of the productive forces and, above all, into the subject of labor, begins to predominate in resolving the contradictions of the development of the productive forces.

If one speaks only of the growth of creative mental labor, this means approaching the analysis of the problem one-sidedly. The specificity consists in the fact that, under conditions of the differentiation and integration of production, mental labor, which needs a profound general scientific foundation, cannot fail to be mental professional labor.

Thus, the transfer of labor functions into mental activity means an expansion, within the aggregate worker of industrial production, of persons engaged in professional mental labor and, above all, engineers, as the most dynamic professional group. Statistical data show that from 1928 to 1967 the growth rates of engineering and technical personnel were almost 3.5 times higher than the growth rates of industrial-production personnel, which led to an increase in the share of engineers and technicians from 3 to 11% of all enterprise employees^7). The number of graduate engineers at industrial enterprises increased 5.2 times from 1941 to 1966^8).

The tendency toward an increase in engineering labor is also observed in agricultural production. However, the share of graduate engineers in state farms, collective farms, and similar agricultural enterprises amounted, by the end of 1966, to only slightly more than one percent of the total number of graduate engineers employed in the national economy.

The increase in the share of engineering labor is taking place intensively in science, which will gradually become not only a direct but also the predominant productive force of society. If, as was emphasized above, the total number of graduate engineers increased sixfold from 1941 to 1966, then in the sphere of science it increased almost fourteenfold and by the end of 1968 amounted to more than one quarter of all graduate engineers^9). This is explained by the fact that, within the structure of science, the technical sciences have grown most intensively and constitute the largest share.

As the study conducted by A. A. Zvorykin and A. M. Gelyuta shows, the share of scientific personnel in the overall structure of personnel employed in science is greatest in the technical sciences.

^7) E. F. Borisov. Political-Economic Problems of the Contemporary Scientific-Technological Revolution. Publishing House “Vysshaya shkola,” Moscow, 1970, p. 231.
^8) Calculated from the collection Labor in the USSR, pp. 268–269.
^9) Ibid.

In 1954 it amounted to 26.7% of the total number, and in 1964—to 44%. According to their calculations, by 1970 and 1980 the share of personnel in the technical sciences should amount, respectively, to 47.7 and 49.8%². Engineers perform various functions in the scientific sphere in research and in the technical preparation of experiments in the fundamental, technical, and technological sciences.

Thus, the engineering intelligentsia, by taking multifaceted part in the development of the objective elements of the productive forces, including science, contributes in every way to the formation of the material and technical basis of communism—the decisive condition for the formation of communist social relations. This is its first, initial function.

The engineering intelligentsia as a socio-professional group occupies a definite place in the functioning and development of production relations. It is known that production relations are the social form of motion of the productive forces. Their object is labor, relations concerning labor. In the process of labor there occurs, according to K. Marx’s definition, “the exchange of activities and abilities which takes place within production itself, relates directly to it, and constitutes its essential aspect”³.

Consequently, what is at issue is that, alongside forms of ownership and distribution, an important place in the system of production relations is occupied by the position of various social groups in production and the exchange of their activity. One may agree with the opinion of A. A. Godunov that researchers devote undeservedly little attention to this element of production relations⁴.

It seems to us that, under conditions in which socialist forms of ownership and the socialist principle of distribution have been consolidated, the analysis of the professional division of labor—an analysis that has enduring significance for increasing the productivity of social labor and for changing the social-class structure of society—is acquiring ever greater importance. It is precisely here that the coincidence of scientific-technical and social progress is seen most clearly.

Scientific and technical progress, changing the character of labor in the direction of its intellectualization, creates, under conditions of social ownership of the means of production, an objective basis for overcoming social fixation in the sphere of labor and for transforming labor into the primary vital need. This is vividly confirmed by the changes that have occurred in the structure of engineering labor. Under contemporary conditions the specialization of engineering labor predominates, which provides grounds for a new approach to assessing the place and role of the engineering intelligentsia in contemporary production.

Whereas earlier the engineer’s principal function was the management of production, and specifically management through people, at the present time graduate engineers are engaged primarily in design, the technical preparation of production, and scientific

research institutions at production sites themselves. At large enterprises, an even greater specialization of engineering labor can be observed. B. Z. Milner and V. M. Demchenko point out that three types of specialization are possible for designers and technologists: subject-matter, element-by-element, and functional⁵.

The participation of a significant part of engineers in the scientific and technical preparation and servicing of production provides sufficient grounds for important social conclusions. First, the place of the engineer in production is changing. His labor becomes not only managerial labor, but also executive labor. This means that the engineering intelligentsia is drawing closer to the working class not only in the character of ownership and the mode of distribution, but also in its role in the social organization of labor. Second, in the engineer’s executive labor, qualified mental labor predominates, combined with intellectualized physical labor. Therefore, it is improper to assign all the labor of specialists to the managerial sphere. Such an approach is found, in particular, in the methodological recommendations of the Scientific Research Institute of Labor of the USSR Council of Ministers’ State Committee on Labor and Wages⁶.

Naturally, the engineer’s functions in managing production are becoming more complex and more diverse, since as the specialization of production and the technical and professional division of labor deepen, the significance of coordination increases, and all coordination calls forth the need for management both of complex technology and of labor cooperation. The engineer, managing complex technology, in essence occupies a working position, and here his social position becomes even closer to the social position of the worker. In carrying out highly important functions in the management of joint labor, the engineering intelligentsia finds and uses various channels of connection with workers and employees, involving them in participation in the manifold forms of managing the organizational-technical and socio-economic aspects of production. In this the social unity of all social groups of socialist society finds expression.

Thus, in the process of labor of the engineering intelligentsia, the second, socio-economic function is carried out.

The third function is socio-political. It is largely derivative of the first two and extends to all superstructural elements. It may be represented as follows:

1. The engineering intelligentsia, by contributing to the overcoming of old forms of the social division of labor, participates in the realization of the objective goal of the working class, which has become the most important socio-political regularity—in the movement of socialist society toward social homogeneity. One may suppose that, as a social stratum tied to mental labor, the engineering intelligentsia will share the fate of the entire intelligentsia; that is, it will leave the stage of history under the conditions of a developed communist society. The profession of engineer will apparently play an ever greater role under conditions of full equality as the most widespread profession of qualified mental

of labor, alongside the profession of scholar, teacher, physician, and many other intellectual professions that will be characteristic of full communism. Of course, the criteria defining the profession of engineer will be modified in connection with the requirements of the scientific and technological revolution.

1. The engineering intelligentsia is noticeably represented throughout the entire system of governing bodies of the political organization of society. This is objectively conditioned by the fact that the principal link in the structure of the strategic tasks determining the growing over of socialism into communism is the formation of the material and technical base of the new society.

2. The engineering intelligentsia occupies a large place in the party apparatus, contributing to the development and implementation of the strategy and tactics of the Communist Party, in which the ideals of the working class and of all working people are concentrated. The share of the engineering intelligentsia is significant in the apparatus of the bodies of state and economic administration, which carry out the diverse internal and external functions of the socialist state. It occupies a definite place in the apparatus of public organizations, which play an ever greater role in the development of socialist democracy. Although the number of graduate engineers in the organs of administration of the political organization of society grew considerably more slowly than in other spheres, since 1941 it has more than doubled and by the end of 1966 amounted to 123.6 thousand engineers⁷. This does not include the number of engineers who are part of the officer corps of the Soviet Army. The strengthening of the officer corps with highly qualified engineers is dictated by the influence of the scientific and technological revolution on military science and technology and by the security interests of Soviet socialist society and the entire system of socialism.

The active participation of the engineering intelligentsia in the system of governing bodies of the political organization of society is evidence of its close connection with all social strata of socialist society and, above all, with the working class—the leading social force of socialist society. At the same time, this is an indicator of the broad popular masses’ confidence in the intelligentsia, which is close to them in class aim, in the functions it performs, and in social origin.

1. The engineering intelligentsia is expanding in every way its influence on the spiritual life of society through the development of science, participation in the education system, and in the upbringing of production collectives.

Thus, the social functions of the engineering intelligentsia in socialist society are multifaceted and reflect the laws of its functioning and development. They may be formulated as material-technical, socio-economic, socio-political, and spiritual. In the development and deepening of the functions of the engineering intelligentsia there is a general national interest, which can be achieved on the basis of strengthening the unity of all social strata of society while comprehensively increasing the leading role of the working class in the social-class structure of socialist society.

1. Sociology in the USSR, vol. 2, Mysl, Moscow, 1966, p. 508. ↩

2. A. A. Zvorykin, A. M. Gelyuta. “Social Problems of Engineering and Technical Labor.” In: Social Problems of Labor and Production. Moscow, 1969, p. 169. ↩

3. K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, 2nd ed., vol. 12, p. 725. ↩

4. A. A. Godunov. Introduction to the Theory of Management. Ekonomika Publishing House, Moscow, 1967, pp. 113, 114. ↩

5. B. Z. Milner, V. M. Demchenko. Specialization of Engineering Labor. Izd. “Ekonomika,” Moscow, 1969, p. 6. ↩

6. “Scientific Organization of Labor of Engineering and Technical Workers and Employees,” Methodological Recommendations. Moscow, 1968, p. 7. ↩

7. Labor in the USSR, pp. 268, 269. ↩