setting remained largely unchanged. Neither purges in the ruling party nor massive
recruitment campaigns occurred during that period. Therefore, equilibrium promotion
contracts should dominate throughout this period.
The primary goal is to show that the changes in the number of communist party
candidates - activists in terms of the model - can be explained by changes in the variables
that can be associated with certain parameters of the model. In the overview that follows I
describe the institutional features of the Soviet political labor market and the available data
that can be used in the empirical analysis.
3.1. Institutional setting
Hierarchy. The Soviet communist party hierarchy was almost an exact match to the
hierarchy of administrative (territorial) units. The latter include (top down): union, republic,
oblast, district/independent city/urban district, primary party organization (PPO). The Russian
Federation, the largest Soviet republic, had no separate party structure, its oblasts
administrations reported directly to the union (national) government and oblast party
committees directly to the party Central Committee. “Independent city” is a relatively large
city subordinated directly to oblast and is not affiliated with any district. Urban districts
existed only in large cities and were comparable in population to rural districts and most
ordinary independent cities. PPOs were typically associated with industrial enterprises. Most
primary party organizations had no paid officials on top. Secretaries of PPOs were paid only
in the largest enterprises.
26 No reliable data is available for the remaining six republics.
26