- published: 14 Apr 2012
- views: 27151
The nomenklatura (Russian: номенклату́ра; IPA: [nəmʲɪnklɐˈturə]; Latin: nomenclatura) were a category of people within the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries who held various key administrative positions in all spheres of those countries' activity: government, industry, agriculture, education, etc., whose positions were granted only with approval by the communist party of each country or region.
Virtually all were members of the Communist Party. Critics of Stalin, such as Milovan Đilas, critically defined them as a new class.Trotskyism uses the term caste rather than class, because it sees the Soviet Union as a degenerated workers' state, not a new class society. Later developments of Trotsky's theories, notably Tony Cliff's theory of State Capitalism, did refer to the nomenklatura as a new class.
The nomenklatura forming a de facto elite of public powers in the previous eastern block, may be compared to the western establishment holding or controlling both private and public powers (media, finance, trade, industry, state and institutions…)
Just think of the lives you could swap with your own
While you're selling your coats, you're sewing your own
You know it's not the easy way
Sometimes we've got to pay to play
With finger paints and macramé
It's time we asked the sea and say
Could you bring a different nomenclature?
Now the colors have bled to gray
To ones that don't exist in nature
A nomenclature is washing away, washing away
A nomenclature is washing away, washing away
But did it carry you away, carry you all the way?
Did it carry you away, carry you all the way?
Nomenclature's washing away, oh it's washing us all away
Nomenclature's washing away, oh it's washing us all away