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their loyalty to the socialist state with luxurious gifts. In
the Soviet Union, high-ranking officials received gifts
of automobiles and single-family apartments that had
all but vanished after the revolution. 19 Members of this
class were vastly wealthier than their unfortunate fellow
comrades, and their children were much more likely to
attend an elite university than the children of collective
farmers were. 20 Competition for admission to universities
was fierce in the Soviet Union, with less than 20 percent
of a high school graduating class accepted each year. In
Cuba, recent budget pressures have prompted the state to
slash public education for all schools but those attended
by the children of the party elite, such as the Lenin School
in Havana. 21 The extreme educational privilege granted
to the children of the elite effectively creates a solid class
system in which upward mobility is severely restricted.
Politicians in socialist China gave urban state employees
priority access to education, health care, and public housing,
while rural collective farmers lived in abject poverty. 22
During food shortages in the Soviet Union, the authorities
placed state employees and political elites at the top of the
list for food rations; peasants and collective farmers had to
fend for themselves for sustenance. 23 In the 1970s, public
officials in the country of Georgia participated in an “active
competition” that Pravda, the official newspaper of the
Central Committee of the Communisit Party of the Soviet
Union, could only describe as “truly Tsarist” to see which
official could embezzle the most state resources to build a
personal mansion on public land. 24 Rather than eradicating
social classes, socialism institutionalizes and protects the
state court while siphoning resources from its subjects and
charging them for the privilege of access.
28 LIBERALISM AND CRONYISM