nomenklatura

Definitions

1. A list of bureaucratic posts in government and industry in the former Soviet Union and other communist countries, filled by those appointed by the Party.
2. The people on such lists; (by extension), any privileged class, a social or political elite.
   collective

Equivalents

Examples

“[Gorbachev] did not champion perestroika and glasnost alone; much of the nomenklatura had decided that the Soviet economic and social model⟳ was dysfunctional, corrupt and endemically inefficient and had to change⟳.”

“Communism envisioned […] an Authority Ranking of political control⟳ (in theory, the dictatorship of the proletariat; in practice, a nomenklatura of commissars under a charismatic dictator).”

“During the long rule⟳ of Leonid Brezhnev (1964–1982), the nomenklatura had cemented their power in the system.”

CEFR level