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Soviet Union [USSR] White-Collar Workers
Soviet sociologists have grouped many of those who perform
nonmanual labor into a category comparable to Western "white-collar
workers." The approximately 25 million members of this group ranged
from specialists who possessed high educational qualifications to
administrators and clerks. The group included the majority of party
and government bureaucrats, teachers, scientists, scholars,
physicians, military and police officers, artists, writers, actors,
and business managers. In the late 1980s, about 30 percent of
white-collar workers belonged to the CPSU; the more prestigious
occupations within this group had the highest percentage of CPSU
members. White-collar workers on the average received higher wages
and more privileges than the average Soviet worker, although
physicians and schoolteachers who were just starting out earned
less than the national average for all employees.
Data as of May 1989
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