Dictionary

nomenklatura en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /nɒˌmɛnkləˈtjʊəɹə/ (UK)
• (US) audio
• /nɒˌmɛnkləˈtʃʊəɹə/ (UK)

Etymology

Borrowed from Russian номенклату́ра (nomenklatúra), from Latin nōmenclātūra (“a calling by name, list of names”), from nomen (“name”) + calare (“call”). Doublet of nomenclature.

Meanings

1. A list of bureaucratic posts in government and industry in the former Soviet Union and other communist countries, filled by those appointed by the Party.
2. (collective) The people on such lists; (by extension), any privileged class, a social or political elite.
   • [Gorbachev] did not champion perestroika and glasnost alone; much of the nomenklatura had decided that the Soviet economic and social model was dysfunctional, corrupt and endemically inefficient and had to change. 2007 October 13, Will Hutton, “Will China's next leader be its Gorbachev?”, in The Observer, →ISSN, archived from the original on 09 Jan 2025:
   • Communism envisioned […] an Authority Ranking of political control (in theory, the dictatorship of the proletariat; in practice, a nomenklatura of commissars under a charismatic dictator). 2011, Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature, Penguin, published 2012, page 764:
   • During the long rule of Leonid Brezhnev (1964–1982), the nomenklatura had cemented their power in the system. 2023, Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution, Public Affairs, →ISBN:

Forms

Deriveds

nomenklaturist

Translations (14)

pl nomenklatura (list of posts in Soviet Union) · fr nomenklature (a social or political elite class) · ru номенклату́ра (list of posts in Soviet Union) · it nomenklatura (list of posts in Soviet Union) · uk номенклату́ра (list of posts in Soviet Union) · el νομενκλατούρα (list of posts in Soviet Union) · fi nomenklatuura (list of posts in Soviet Union) · pt nomenclatura (list of posts in Soviet Union) · fr nomenklatura (list of posts in Soviet Union) · mr नोमेनक्लातुरा (a social or political elite class) · sh nomenklatúra (list of posts in Soviet Union) · sv nomenklatura (list of posts in Soviet Union) · sh номенклату́ра (list of posts in Soviet Union) · mr नोमेनक्लातुरा (list of posts in Soviet Union)