THE DISSIDENT MOVEMENT IN U.S.S.R. cialists (5). And these institutions and techniques ore not merely politically neutral instruments but cleave the social order into two, separating it hierarchically and fonctionally into dominant and subordinate political roles. Political decisions are executed with these techniques and by these institutions, and this makes their specialists into not only a distinct social stratum but also one interested in the maintenance of this distinctness, and hence of the system. Since even the most radical dissidence only represents tendencies interested either in logically defending the interna! logic of the system's techniques and institutions, or in suppressing certain techniques and institutions whilst preserving the ensemble of others from which they are inseparable, those who promote it do not envisage change in the system. On the contrary: by not refosing to carry out one of the most important political fonctions of the social stratum to which they belong (or aspire to belong) - the institutional and technical division of society into hierarchically structured fonctional strata - even the most radical dissidents contribute to the preservation of the system, even though their activities may threaten its stability. But even if they do not transcend the political fonctions of their social stratum, their aspirations and activities make obvious the need to increase their political weight and grant them a much more important political role than the one they play. And yet, in spite of this more and more obvious necessity, the real possibilities of granting them such a role are extremely limited because of the threat which the conflicts of their particular professional and institutional interests would be likely to constitute to the system. That is, despite the grave problem raised by excluding them from the political decisionmaking process, they must be kept out of the institutions where the most important decisions are taken, and continue to suffer all the disadvantages of the ruling class's arbitrariness and patronage. And although many members of the middle class do not seem ta recognise this, the limitation of their political activities paradoxically serves one of their most important objective interests: by assuring the stability of the system they (5) Besides the advanced specialisation of the functions discharged by the middle layers, the guarantee of this exclusivity is the limited access to the establishments which train the majority of specialists. 39
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