No concept has occupied a more central place than that of the bureaucratic class in studies of social stratification under state socialism. Since Djilas's (1957) early critique of the emerging “new class” in state socialist societies in Eastern Europe, the notion of a powerful and privileged bureaucratic class has been a widely accepted imagery among students of state socialism and it became the starting point for most research on social stratification in these societies. This intellectual consensus is not without justification, for bureaucrats and bureaucratic organizations have been the cornerstone of the political order in state socialist societies. They serve as the “organizational weapons” of the communist state (Bauman 1974; Schurmann 1968; Selznick 1952) and as the ruling class with the monopoly of power and privileges (Szelényi 1978). They provide the institutional basis for accomplishing economic goals in the command economy and are major channels through which the state redistributes manifest and latent economic benefits. Ultimately, it is through bureaucrats and bureaucratic organizations that the socialist state exercises its dominance over the society. As a result, many studies of social stratification under state socialism started from and were centered on a critique of the bureaucratic class.