THE DISSIDENT MOVEMENT IN U.S.S.R. But although they often advocate very important changes, these factions of the ruling class only accord an instrumental, auxiliary role to new techniques and institutions and to those who specialise in their application, improvement and popularisation. They make use only of such aspects of these institutions and techniques and of such elements of the activity of specialists in them as are necessary for the realisation of their own objectives, and do not allow them to develop in accordance with their internai logic (2). Such a development would set up disproportions and disequilibria. But since the advancement of members of the middle layers within their hierarchies as well as their eventual promotion to directional posts reserved for the ruling class depend above all on their professional performances, specialists often feel tempted or even obliged to make a stand for changes and innovations which promote only the defence or competitiveness of their particular professional and institutional interests and threaten the stability of the en tire system (3). This is why relations between even loyal members of the middle layers and the ruling class are continually strained. As experts and administrators and holders of special knowledge and often exceptional know-how are indispensable to the functioning of the State apparatus, members of the middle laers are inclined to overestimate the value of their attainments and the political importance of their professional activities. They tend to suppose that their knowledge and know-how as well as most of the techniques and institutions operated by them have a determining effect on the political decisions which lay down the strategies for their use and development. The majority of specialists are convinced that the internai logic alone of techniques and institutions can determine possible uses and development, and that this logic is behind fundamen- (2) It seems that this phenomenon may explain the difficulties and sometimes the impossibility of adopting techniques and institutions « imported » from social and political systems in which their application and development are influenced by different factors. (3) By making use of different aspects of the activities of the middle layers the competing factions of the ruling class can encourage such excessive and very often grave repercussions. In this way, for instance, the disequilibria in the development of the military-industrial complex or the police can be explained. 33
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