Nomenklatura – the ruling class of authoritarian regimes

Today, there are two main myths associated with the term “nomenklatura”. The first of these myths is statist, imperial. It asserts that the class of the nomenklatura existed only in the USSR or only in the countries of the so-called “socialist camp” (this myth is spread with the aim of proving that in present-day Russia the class of the nomenklatura does not exist, consequently — this is a problem only of the USSR). The second myth is libertarian, spread by individuals like Mikhail Svetov, who apply this term to the governments of even democratic countries (this myth is spread with the aim of shifting part of the criticism regarding the nomenklatura from authoritarian regimes to democratic ones, which benefits authoritarian regimes). Both of these myths completely contradict the position generally accepted among researchers.

First of all, it should be noted that the most authoritative researcher of the term “nomenklatura” in its political sense, its main popularizer, and primary theorist was Mikhail Voslensky, who in 1970 through samizdat, and in 1980 in Austria, released his main study “Nomenklatura”, which became the first major and primary study, as well as the most authoritative source on this topic. Before the release of this study, the use of the term was quite fragmentary and incomplete, about which Voslensky wrote in the book:

Traces of the concept of “nomenklatura” unrelated to natural science are discovered in the “Short Political Dictionary” (editions of 1964, 1968, and 1971). Nomenklatura is defined here as a list of positions, appointment to which is confirmed by higher bodies. An unintelligible definition: after all, any appointment is made by decision of higher, not lower bodies. However, apparently, even such a definition seemed excessively candid, so in subsequent editions of the dictionary the term “nomenklatura” disappeared altogether. In the Soviet press, mentions of the nomenklatura occur rarely, but they are invariably devoid of substance.

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Already after the publication of the first edition of this book, in the early 1980s, Soviet reference books began to include the term “nomenklatura” in its political meaning more frequently.

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The only articulate definition of the nomenklatura was published in the Soviet Union not in publicly accessible reference books, but in a textbook for party schools “Party Construction”. Here it is: “Nomenklatura is a list of the most important positions, candidates for which are preliminarily reviewed, recommended, and approved by the given party committee (district party committee, city party committee, regional party committee, etc.). Persons included in the party committee’s nomenklatura are also relieved of work only with its consent. The nomenklatura includes workers occupying key posts”¹².

In connection with this, Voslensky studied this phenomenon and introduced the term into wide circulation:

In the USSR, everything pertaining to the nomenklatura is carefully concealed — both from its own people and from abroad. The world must not know about the nomenklatura. In order for people to learn about it, I wrote this book³.

Before him, similar studies revealing the content of the term in detail did not exist. What is the nomenklatura from the point of view of Mikhail Voslensky? We have already cited above the most suitable of the official Soviet definitions (from the textbook “Party Construction”), and Voslensky also writes:

In full accordance with Lenin’s definition of class, this is a large group of people differing from other groups by its — ruling — place in a historically determined system of social production, thereby by its relationship to the means of production, by its — organizing — role in the social organization of labor, and consequently, by the mode of obtaining and the size of that — disproportionate — share of social wealth of which it disposes⁴.

Voslensky’s definition is not specific enough; however, even from this definition, we can see that there is no mention of the USSR in it; besides, he highlights the relationship to the means of production as an important criterion (which among officials of democratic countries and the nomenklatura of socialist camp countries differs drastically). Some sources erroneously tie this term to the USSR (as, for example, the Great Russian Encyclopedia does⁵), but some do not. For example, Dictionary.com writes that the nomenklatura is “a select list or class of people from which appointees to top government positions are chosen, especially from a Communist party”⁶. There is a mention of a Communist party here, but it is indicated that this is not universal. By such a definition, the nomenklatura refers to appointees especially from a Communist party, but not exclusively from it. Which of these two definitions is correct? The one that is closer to the opinion of authoritative researchers of the topic.

Many were misled by the full title of Mikhail Voslensky’s book — “Nomenklatura. The Ruling Class of the Soviet Union”. Despite the fact that this title in no way excludes that this class exists in other authoritarian states, people who had not read the book made a superficial conclusion that this was the ruling class exclusively of the USSR (or socialist camp countries). Such superficiality, apparently, carried over into some authoritative sources whose compilers did not bother to read Voslensky’s work in full. Meanwhile, in the book “Nomenklatura” we read, among other things, the following:

National Socialism in Germany and Austria, Fascism in Italy, Francoism in Spain, vassal totalitarian regimes in the small countries of Western Europe — all of them were replaced by democracies. After the defeat of totalitarianism, democracy was born in Grenada. Even Soviet occupation did not keep the small countries of Eastern Europe from the same development: the power of the nomenklatura there has either fallen or been sharply weakened… The archaic class of the politbureaucracy is reborn as a “new class” — the nomenklatura; it establishes its dictatorship, an unconscious prototype of which is formed by the theocratic Asian despotisms. Thus in our time an ancient reaction has extended, disguised under pseudo-progressive “socialist” slogans: a fusion of feudalism with ancient state despotism. Whatever this fusion may be named — National Socialism, real socialism, fascism — we are talking about one and the same phenomenon: totalitarianism…

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Replacing totalitarianism, the dictatorship of the nomenklatura naturally comes not to some society invented by ideologues, but to parliamentary democracy⁷.

Voslensky clearly contrasts the power of dictatorship with parliamentary democracy. Therefore, when Mikhail Svetov calls parliamentary democracies states governed by the nomenklatura — this not only has no connection to reality, but is also politically illiterate. This is an attempt to equate authoritarian regimes and full-fledged democracies.

Voslensky indicates that all “totalitarian” regimes are a dictatorship of the nomenklatura (true, he uses the term “totalitarianism”, since at that time the current division of political regimes into democratic and authoritarian, which we described here, was not yet universally accepted, so by “totalitarianism” he designates what today is customary to consider authoritarian regimes). Voslensky directly writes: “Accordingly, the Fascist and Nazi nomenklaturas did not kill the hen that laid the golden eggs for the military-industrial complex: they did not take away enterprises from the owners, but contented themselves with their complete control over the economy”⁸. Here he directly indicates that under the Fascist and Nazi regimes, the ruling class was the nomenklatura. In his study, there is an explanation:

One can call the societies and politbureaucratic dictatorships of the 20th century totalitarianism, socialism, ordinary fascism — whatever you like. What matters is that all these societies constitute a single group opposed to the modern society of parliamentary democracy.

The main features of totalitarianism, by which a totalitarian society can be unmistakably identified, crystallized clearly.

The main feature is the emergence in society of a new ruling class — the nomenklatura, that is, a politbureaucracy possessing a monopoly of power in all spheres of social life. This class tries to keep secret not only its structure and privileges, but its very existence.

An external sign of the emergence of the nomenklatura is the creation of a party of a new type; the core of the nomenklatura acts in the form of the political apparatus of this party.

Accordingly, a one-party system is established, under which there is simply only one party, or the formally existing other parties are merely puppets of the apparatus of the ruling party⁹.

In essence, from this (and from Voslensky’s numerous comparisons of Soviet regimes with the German one) it follows that Voslensky unites National Socialism, fascism, real socialism into one group, calling them one and the same phenomenon. Accordingly, the class of the nomenklatura dominates in all authoritarian regimes. Thus, the assertion that the nomenklatura was only the ruling class of the USSR or the countries of the socialist camp is false. It is the ruling class of any authoritarian regime. Voslensky also writes:

We have stated: socialism is not a formation, but a method. But it is important to understand something else: this method is connected not with the existence of any specific formation, but with the existence of the state. This explains the mysterious, at first glance, phenomenon of the emergence of bureaucratic despotisms with a ruling class of politbureaucracy in various countries in completely different eras. Since the state exists now, just as it existed in the Ancient East, this method is applicable today just as it was then, thousands of years ago. Only one boundary is set to the use of the state for the total enslavement of society: replacing the despotic state with a democratic one, that is, one whose governing bodies are freely elected by the population and consequently depend on it¹⁰.

This assertion refutes the theses spread by individuals like Mikhail Svetov. Voslensky from the past anticipates their logic: yes, states exist, and in many cases they carry out the enslavement of society. But this does not mean that all states are engaged in this (which Svetov and his sympathizers want to convince us of): states whose governing bodies are freely elected by the population differ radically from them. In Svetov’s case, we are dealing with an attempt to convince us as if states with unelected and irreplaceable governments, whose members and their families have established control over the economy, and states with elected and replaceable governments, whose members collectively control only a small portion of the national economy, are one and the same. That is, with a manipulation that benefits authoritarian regimes.

Is the opinion that the nomenklatura is the ruling class not only of the Soviet Union the viewpoint of Voslensky alone? No. It is a viewpoint generally accepted among researchers of the issue. Another leading researcher of the nomenklatura — Doctor of Sociological Sciences Olga Kryshtanovskaya — wrote:

It is precisely in our time that people have begun talking again about the revival of the nomenklatura. It survived the horrors of the reforms of the 90s, reorganized itself, changed its image. But it remained in power… After many blows, the nomenklatura came to its senses – and the “table of ranks” was restored, and the “gentry nests” of elite neighborhoods were rebuilt grander than before, and the custom tailors with special transport are in place. People talked and talked about democratization, and that will be that… And the ideology was turned inside out, restyled: previously they lived by the principle “socialism for the people, capitalism for the elite”, and now vice versa – “capitalism for the people, socialism for the elite” (in the sense that “now you go trade your junk out there in the ‘free bazaar’, while we live as before, the Soviet way”)… Alive, alive, the old lady nomenklatura! So read Voslensky, you will find many instructive analogies!¹¹

One of the leading researchers of the nomenklatura is Doctor of Political Sciences Yuliy Nisnevich, who in his publications repeatedly writes that the ruling social layer in modern (non-Soviet) Russia is the nomenklatura¹²¹³. Similarly, researchers do not link the concept of democracy and the concept of the nomenklatura. The nomenklatura does not exist in democracies. Kryshtanovskaya clearly separates these concepts:

Comparing the structure of the political class with a pyramid is justified only in bureaucratic states where hierarchy permeates all spheres of political organization. Such a type of state can be called monocentric. A typical example of this is the Soviet state, in which the political class was institutionalized in the form of the nomenklatura… The matter is more complex with the vertical structure of the political class in polycentric states, to which Western democracies should be numbered¹⁴.

The journal Soviet Studies also noted that the nomenklatura system is distinguished by the suppression of opposition¹⁵, which is characteristic of authoritarian regimes. In short, researchers agree that there can be no nomenklatura under a democratic system. It is precisely with authoritative research that the definition of the nomenklatura fully corresponds, which we derived in the articles of “Logika Progressa” based on them and on the basis of other definitions:

The nomenklatura is a social class consisting of individuals holding the most important state and managerial positions, who obtained these positions non-democratically, and who control the political and economic system of a particular state.

It has happened that we were offered to replace this term with another — for example, the term “establishment”. However, its use would be illiterate. The establishment, according to the Britannica dictionary, is “the people in business, government, etc., who have power over the other people in a society”¹⁶. That is, it exists in virtually all societies that delegate political authority to other individuals (in a separate article we explained why this is more effective), including under representative democracy, and in all societies where entrepreneurship is not prohibited. To oppose the “establishment”, thus — means to oppose the delegation of political functions to other people, and to stand for crude “egalitarianism” (which social democrats cannot do for reasons indicated by us in this article). What is the point of doing this if it is not our position, if we stand precisely against authoritarianism and the nomenklatura, and not against the most effective systems?

Claims were also made against us on the basis that libertarians like Mikhail Svetov also use the term “nomenklatura”, which means that we, as their political opponents, should not use it. We categorically rejected this ad hitlerum, since if Svetov considers the Earth to be round, this is not a sufficient basis for us to consider it flat or of another shape. Yes, the fact that Svetov previously called for the lustration of the nomenklatura could confuse some people and make them believe in his oppositionism. However, everything fell into place when it turned out that Svetov considers European politicians to be nomenklaturists. Furthermore, it should be noted that Mikhail Voslensky is a historian of left-democratic views. So it is the libertarians who use our definition, not we theirs.

Representing European politicians as “nomenklaturists” would be quite convenient for the Russian nomenklatura, since it is directed not only against it and, thus, diffuses resistance. Those oppositionists who would fight against the Russian nomenklatura, thanks to the popularization of such a position, would begin to fight against European politicians as well, expressing solidarity in this with the Russian authorities, rendering them assistance in their struggle against the West and paying less attention to the struggle against the nomenklaturists. Roughly speaking, if someone who has 10 hours of free time per week for politics and spends them fighting the Russian nomenklatura spends at least 4 of those hours on anti-European activity — there is a colossal benefit in this for the Russian regime. And the larger the share of these hours, the greater this benefit is. We oppose this destructive activity, and, consequently, stand for the classical understanding of the term “nomenklatura”.

1. Party Construction. Textbook, 6th ed. M., 1981, p. 300.
2. M. Voslensky. Nomenklatura. The Ruling Class of the Soviet Union (Second edition, revised and expanded), 671 p. — Overseas Publications Interchange Ltd London, 1990. — p. 15.
3. Ibid., p. 16.
4. Ibid., pp. 36-37.
5. Party-state Nomenklatura // Great Russian Encyclopedia (old.bigenc.ru). [Electronic resource]. URL: https://old.bigenc.ru/domestic_history/text/2669868 (Accessed: 03.07.2024).
6. Nomenklatura // Dictionary.com (www.dictionary.com). [Electronic resource]. URL: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/nomenklatura (Accessed: 03.07.2024).
7. M. Voslensky. Nomenklatura. The Ruling Class of the Soviet Union (Second edition, revised and expanded), 671 p. — Overseas Publications Interchange Ltd London, 1990. — pp. 657-658.
8. Ibid., p. 641.
9. Ibid., p. 640.
10. Ibid., pp. 651-652.
11. Voslensky M. Nomenklatura. — M.: Zakharov, 2005. — 640 p.
12. Yu.A. Nisnevich. Regeneration of the Nomenklatura as a Ruling Social Stratum in Post-Soviet Russia // Sociological Studies – 2018. – Number 8, pp. 143-152
13. Yu.A. Nisnevich. The Ruling Nomenklatura Today: “State Capture” – Social Sciences and Contemporary World, 2014, No. 5. – pp. 88-97.
14. Kryshtanovskaya O. Anatomy of the Russian Elite. — M.: Zakharov, 2005. – 384 p.
15. Rigby, T. H. “Staffing USSR Incorporated: The Origins of the Nomenklatura System”. Soviet Studies 40, no. 4 (1988): 523–37. http://www.jstor.org/stable/151806.
16. Establishment // The Britannica Dictionary (www.britannica.com). [Electronic resource]. URL: https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/establishment (Accessed: 03.07.2024).