Nomenklatura and Perestroika

Abstract

WHILE GORBACHEV'S REFORMS HAVE HAD A BROAD IMPACT ON Soviet society, one key element in the communist system of rule has been particularly affected: the nomenklatura. The word refers to lists of positions for which party committees traditionally held responsibility in recruitment, and lists of persons deemed suitable to fill them. In general, appointments to such posts could not be made without the sanction of the relevant party committee. In some cases, it directly selected the appointee; in others it simply endorsed nominations made elsewhere. The crucial point, however, is that appointments could not be made without the party committee's permission, and that committee's Department of Organizational and Party Work supervised this procedure for staffing the various bureaucratic apparatuses. It has been the essential element in the staffing procedures, and the term covered party involvement in staffing non-party positions, both elective and appointive, the staffing by the party apparatus of positions at lower levels in its own apparatus, and the filling by non-party institutions (such as ministries) of lower-level appointments in their own structures.