THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET WORKING-CLASS

The policy of forced industrialization of the Bolshevik leaders in the ninteen thirties provoked a sudden change of the social structures: during the First Five Year Plan (1928-1932), the number of factory workers grew from three to six millions people. This article presents the results of a study about this transformation of unprecedented amplitude and tempo. The author describes the available sources and the problems faced in using them. He tries to approach in a new way the major themes debated by the historians and discusses some theses about the social origins of workers, the genesis of Stalinism..., that have become conventional wisdom among specialists. He stresses particularly the fact that the composition of the Soviet working class was very heterogeneous and analyses its status in the Stalinist society, including the question of forced labour.