In recent years, the number of studies on the history of the Soviet working class has increased dramatically. This is due both to the general increase in attention to the social aspect of the development of Soviet society and to the practice of communist construction, in which the leading role of the working class is increasingly revealed. The monograph of Candidate of Historical Sciences A. I. Vdovin and Doctor of Historical Sciences V. Z. Drobizhev (MSU) - a multi-faceted study of the Soviet working class in transition - will take its rightful place among the works on the history of the working class of the USSR. The authors set themselves the following tasks: "to analyze the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of new additions to the working class, to find out the place of new additions in the structure of the working class, their impact on the class as a whole, and to reveal the process of turning new workers into cadres" (p.4).

A. I. Vdovin and V. Z. Drobizhev pay great attention to the theoretical and methodological aspects of the topic. The book describes the most important Leninist propositions about the sources and ways of growth of the working class, analyzes the Soviet historiography of the problem, and thoroughly criticizes the works of bourgeois historians. We have only one remark concerning the authors ' treatment of the problem of the inner strata of the working class. Of course, it has long been necessary to abandon the very outdated concept put forward by B. L. Markus in his article "On the question of methods for studying the social composition of the proletariat of the USSR"1, which simplified and confused the main and secondary dominant features. A. I. Vdovin and V. Z. Drobizhev did not limit themselves to criticizing this concept and proposed their own division of the working class. However, it is illegal to combine the "working aristocracy" and recent rural immigrants, who have not yet had time to assimilate proletarian psychology, into one (lower) stratum (pp. 13-15). The former tends towards the right, while the latter tends towards petty - bourgeois opportunism. V. I. Lenin, describing the "best-paid workers", wrote: "It has been observed all over the world that such workers cling most strongly to liberal and opportunist ideas." 2
The monograph clearly identifies three main areas of research on the problem : the activities of the Communist Party and the Soviet State in regulating the social composition of the working class; the number of new recruits and the working class as a whole at certain stages of socialist construction; and the analysis of ways and methods of converting new workers into cadres. It is interesting to raise the question of determining the number of new recruits, taking into account the natural decline from the ranks of the working class. The authors made complex calculations that made it possible to determine with a sufficient degree of reliability the amount of replenishment of the working class during the transition period. A. I. Vdovin and V. Z. Drobizhev rightly note that in historical works the problem is mainly reduced to establishing the sources and forms of replenishment of the working class, while the process of transformation of newcomers into cadre workers is not reflected in a systematic form (p. 47). A large part of the book is devoted to the study of the peculiarities of this process at various stages of the history of Soviet society: during the civil war and the restoration of the national economy, during the socialist reconstruction of the national economy, on the eve of the Great Patriotic War.

The book comprehensively shows the objective conditions that contributed to the acceleration of the process of creating qualified cadres of workers from new additions: the transformation of the socialist form of ownership not only into the dominant one, but also into the only one in industry; the increase in the concentration of production; the elimination of unemployment; a significant increase in the general culture and education of the broad working masses; the implementation of socialist transformations in agriculture; special measures Of the Communist Party and the Soviet Government, aimed at strengthening the social unity of the Soviet working class. A significant role was played by technical re-equipment-

1 Istoriya proletariata SSSR, No. 2, 1930.

2 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 25, p. 230.

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the transformation of industry, which radically changed the nature of labor, and with it the worker himself.

The authors tried to determine the criteria that can be used to judge the transformation of new recruits into personnel workers. They analyze such important factors as the strengthening of industrial discipline, the development of socialist competition, and the growth of the party stratum. The conclusion that with the success of socialist construction, the time frame for converting new workers into cadres was constantly reduced is justified by a large amount of factual material. The monograph describes in detail the purposeful ideological and political activity of the Communist Party in the working class. But it would be necessary to highlight the ideological and educational work of the trade unions, the Komsomol and other public organizations, on which the Communist Party always relies in its activities.

Based on the study of literature and sources, the authors were able to show quite fully the convergence of the levels of development of the republican detachments of the working class. At the same time, much attention is paid in the book to the role of the Communist Party in the creation of large-scale industrial production in all the Union republics. The authors correctly note (p. 147) that data on the growth of the number of indigenous workers helps clarify the question of convergence in the levels of social development of the Union republics. The book provides convincing quantitative characteristics of the republican detachments of the working class, examines the ways they overcome the economic and cultural backwardness of the national regions of the country. At the same time, these digital data should be associated with the display of labor and socio-political activities of the workers of the Soviet republics, and above all active followers of M. E. Putin, A. G. Stakhanov, A. Kh.Busygin, I. I. Gudov and many other innovators.

The authors ' attempt to reveal the characteristic features of the social psychology of new additions to the working class is of great interest. A similar attempt was made earlier by E. G. Gimpelson3, but his research was limited only to the first years of Soviet power. In the reviewed monograph, a new type of worker, an active participant in the reconstruction of the national economy, has already been formed. The authors formulate the defining features of this type as follows:" Selflessness and determination in the struggle to overcome the difficulties that stand in the way of building socialism in our country, hard work for the sake of approaching the communist tomorrow, boundless faith in the Communist Party " (p.243). The book shows the patriotic aspirations of the working class and their heroic work for the benefit of the Motherland.

Unfortunately, A. I. Vdovin and V. Z. Drobizhev could not overcome the traditional lack of research on the history of the Soviet working class: the monograph is mainly limited to the analysis of the industrial working class. If the general quantitative characteristics relate to workers in all branches of the national economy, then where qualitative changes in the working class are analyzed, the authors mainly use industrial materials. Much less attention is paid to transport, construction, and agricultural workers. Not all periods of the history of Soviet society are covered evenly in the book. Little material is provided, for example, for the pre-war years.

A. I. Vdovin and V. Z. Drobizhev not only summarize the experience accumulated by their predecessors, but also put forward new research tasks. The paper examines the social policy of the Soviet state, but mainly in the field of regulating the social composition of the working class. Meanwhile, all directions of the social policy of the party and the state, including concern for increasing the level of material well - being, improving the cultural and technical level of workers, improving the health and social security system, etc., contributed to the growth of the working class, accelerating the process of educating new additions to it. The social policy of the CPSU and the Soviet state is a topic of great political and scientific interest.

Much attention is paid to the development of the national detachments of the working class and the convergence of the Union republics in terms of the share of workers in the population. However, a comprehensive study of the ways of the formation of the Soviet people as a new historical community of people requires a more in-depth study.

3 E. G. Gimpelson. Soviet working Class, 1918-1920 Socio-political changes, Moscow, 1974.

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analysis of the professional and qualification structure of workers, their level of literacy, culture, social activity, etc.

Historians are just beginning to develop such an important question as the social psychology of workers. The source base for the study of this problem is still quite narrow (mostly it is the memories of workers). Obviously, further progress in its coverage is associated with the development of a methodology for analyzing such sources as letters, materials from newspapers and magazines, minutes of meetings and rallies.

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