apparatchik

American  

[ah-puh-rah-chik, uh-puh-raht-chyik] / ˌɑ pəˈrɑ tʃɪk, ʌ pʌˈrɑt tʃjɪk /

noun

• apparatchiks,
  plural
• apparatchiki
  plural

1. a member of an apparat, especially in a Communist country.

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apparatchik British  

/ ˌæpəˈrɑːtʃɪk /

noun

1. a member of a Communist apparat

2. an official or bureaucrat in any organization

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• apparatchiki
  plural
• apparatchiks
  plural

Etymology

Origin of apparatchik

1940–45; < Russian apparátchik, equivalent to apparát apparat + -chik agent suffix

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

apparatchik apparatchiki apparatchiks

As a KGB operative and then an assiduous apparatchik, he avoided attention.

From BBC ● May 30, 2026

Cuba’s government is still dominated by Raúl Castro, 94 years old, the younger brother of Fidel, while President Miguel Díaz-Canel, 65, an unpopular apparatchik, runs day-to-day affairs.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 22, 2026

It was spearheaded by the agency’s Office of the Chief Counsel, which is currently led by an apparatchik named John Miles.

From Slate ● Jul. 30, 2025

Foreign minister since 2004, he is not considered part of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, and is sometimes dismissed by Kremlin scholars as more an apparatchik and mouthpiece than a policymaker.

From Washington Post ● May 19, 2022

Park said he lost his position as head of taekwondo training in Pyongyang in 2002, after squabbling with a midlevel apparatchik who apparently snitched on him to higher-ups in the government.

From "Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West" by Blaine Harden

In 2009, he sent an email to industry colleagues, attacking "the executive apparatchiki" who "feed off" the creativity of others "because they have none".

From The Guardian ● Apr. 11, 2013

Even the Komsomol hierarchy, a professional bureaucracy of some 100,000 apparatchiki, has been affected by Moscow's tightening of control.

From Time Magazine Archive

This time it was to involve not only mid- level apparatchiki but higher cadre as well.

From Time Magazine Archive

Either man could move to the top in the months ahead, but both will have to keep an eye on a handful of ambitious apparatchiki who were elevated to positions of new authority.

From Time Magazine Archive

Other apparatchiki, like Prague Party Boss Martin Vaculik, reduced themselves to apologetic jelly, went on TV to profess support of Dub?ek and to deny past errors.

From Time Magazine Archive

They need assistants — high-level apparatchiks and other agents for the day-to-day work of running the regime.

From Salon ● Mar. 24, 2026

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has fired a senior official tasked with economic policy and condemned "incompetent" apparatchiks for delays in the opening of an important factory, state media said Tuesday.

From Barron's ● Jan. 20, 2026

But in practice almost nobody aside from police and party apparatchiks had been able to get one.

From Washington Post ● Nov. 25, 2022

“Xi Jinping prefers to appoint party apparatchiks, cadres who are loyal to himself, rather than technocrats,” said Willy Lam, who researches elite Chinese politics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

From Seattle Times ● Oct. 12, 2022

The USSR’s politburo, the apex of political power in which decisions of real consequence were made, was staffed by aging apparatchiks who had spent their entire lives working within this system.

From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2020