nomenklatura

American  

[noh-muhn-klah-toor-uh] / ˌnoʊ mən klɑˈtʊər ə /

noun

nomenklaturas plural

1. a select list or class of people from which appointees for top-level government positions are drawn, especially from a Communist Party.

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nomenklatura British  

/ ˌnəʊmɛnkləˈtʃuːrə /

noun

1. (formerly, in the USSR and E Europe) a list of individuals drawn up by the Communist Party from which were selected candidates for vacant senior positions in the state, party, and other important organizations

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Etymology

Origin of nomenklatura

First recorded in 1980–85, nomenklatura is from the Russian word nomenklatúra literally, nomenclature

Example Sentences

Then their lives get consumed by their university love affair and, finally, by Gorbachev’s rise to the top through the ranks of party nomenklatura.

From New York Times • Aug. 30, 2021

There are many versions of nomenklatura chic, but their common purpose is to telegraph “positivity”—rapt support for a man, a brand, a party, or a message.

From The New Yorker • Mar. 21, 2016

The nomenklatura capitalists, whose Vuitton bags and Rolex watches were suspiciously incommensurate with their official salaries, began to patronize native-born designers.

From The New Yorker • Mar. 21, 2016

“In the murky corridors of Communist power, an impressive number of party gentry progeny, or the offspring of the Mao-era nomenklatura, have been implicated in corrupt practices,” he wrote in an article last October.

From New York Times • Jan. 15, 2015

Subsistence was implicitly guaranteed by the kleptocracy that ruled them and, in principle, it was always possible to ignore the moral stench and join the nomenklatura, thereby developing instant upward mobility.

From After the Rain : how the West lost the East by Vaknin, Samuel