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The Russian term nomenklatura
(номенклату́ра), derived from the Latin
nomenclatura meaning a list of names, was originally the list of higher responsibility positions or jobs whose occupants
needed to be approved by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. By extension or metonymy, the term started to be used figuratively, to designate people who effectively occupied these
positions.
The nomenklatura were only a small, élite subset of the general population of Party members, which was essentially composed of
blue-collar workers.
The nomenklatura did not always need to be Communist Party members, notably in satellite countries which sometimes had additional puppet parties, but the Party had to be
convinced that they were reliable and trustworthy.
Nomenklatura should not be confused with apparatchiks or the party
concrete of the Communist regimes, or Party officials in general. For example, in a state-owned factory, top managers would
obviously be nomenklatura and would have to be approved by the Party, but Party officials working at the factory were a separate
and independent hierarchy, and they could all be just simple workers. The Party secretary would report to the director
as an employee, but the director would report to the secretary as an ordinary Party member.
Milovan Djilas wrote of the nomenklatura as the "New class", and it was widely seen (and resented) by ordinary citizens as a bureaucratic
élite that had simply supplanted the earlier wealthy capitalist élites. Members of the nomenklatura would enjoy special
privileges such as shopping at well-stocked stores and being allowed to travel abroad.
Evolution
After the fall of the Communist regimes in central and eastern Europe, most of the nomenklatura were able to use their
influence to secure lucrative positions in formerly state-owned industries or buy state property at ridiculously low prices. In
Russia especially, this led to the creation of a new class of super-rich "oligarchs", many of whom were effectively the old nomenklatura wearing considerably better
suits.
This evolution can be explained by noticing that the nomenklatura were basically the executives of communist regimes, people
having:
- stronger than average managerial abilities
- ambition to pursue a professional career, which at some point required being part of the nomenklatura
- a lot of respect versus hierachies
- advanced networking skills, as goods and supplies had to be fought
for, be it toilet paper or industrial supplies for a factory. This required lots of interpersonal communication.
Outside of the nomenklatura were only basic jobs or non-technical jobs and people lacking the above abilities. Therefore, it
was quite natural for the nomenklatura to adapt to post-communist regimes, because it consisted in pursuing the same objectives
without the need to defend a specific ideology (which most of them did not believe anyway).
In countries other than the Soviet Union where creating small private businesses was allowed, the oligarchy
phenomenon is weaker.
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