Abstract
Aim of this article is to describe social mobility in USSR as a contradictory phenomenon. Although Soviet educational system was intended to control social composition of class of highly educated experts ("intelligentsia"), it was not able to prevent the latter from self-reproduction.
Summarizing key evolutional phases of Soviet intelligentsia, author tries to confront the aimed measures of social and educational policy with their real impact. As it is shown in published statistical materials and outputs of sociological research, even a great number of various mechanisms favoring the proletariat youngsters during their educational process was not able to compensate their educational and cultural handicap gained in their family.
Especially during the second half of USSR existence it was evident that children of highly educated people had much higher chance to repeat educational and professional carrier of their parents. That was not the case for descendants of working and farmer class.
The described problem is concerned here in the context of the Soviet experiment of establishing classless society as well as in the context of the Soviet sociological discussions.