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By Patrick van Schie
In the Soviet Union, according to official communist doctrine, the dictatorship of the proletariat reigned. However, this dictatorship never actually existed, wrote the dissident Moscow professor Michael Voslensky, who was well-acquainted with the ruling circles of the Soviet Union. The rule of communism certainly meant a dictatorship, but it was the dictatorship of the nomenklatura, the ruling party elite. This elite had nothing to do with workers, peasants, or any ordinary people, but lived separately from them in a luxury systematically denied to the general population.
Voslensky first published his book in 1970 as samizdat—illegal pamphlets that circulated in the Soviet Union. After he managed to flee to the West, he turned it into a full book, updated for the 1970s under Brezhnev, which was published in 1980 in multiple languages in the West.
Lenin as the Founder of the Nomenklatura
The emergence of a nomenklatura was not merely an excess of the Stalin era, Voslensky demonstrated in his book, but a direct result of Lenin’s modifications to Marxism. Lenin did not trust the revolutionary will of the working class, nor that of the peasants. Instead, he believed that a “vanguard” of Bolshevik party leaders had to lead the way and initiate the revolution. He deliberately did not want to wait until Russia, according to Marxist theory, had reached the stage where a socialist revolution would be timely, as this would mean he would never witness it in his lifetime. He wanted to become a dictator himself, which is why he seized power in October/November 1917, far ahead of the course foreseen by Marx.
Even the luxurious lifestyle of the party elite was not a later deviation. Lenin himself had a noble family’s palace confiscated and ordered that its lavish furnishings remain untouched. He wanted to enjoy them himself, and he did so extensively. The fact that a nomenklatura arose immediately after the Russian Revolution of 1917 was not an original discovery of Voslensky, as he acknowledged. He referred to the 1950s book The New Class by Yugoslav dissident Milovan Djilas, although Voslensky argued that Djilas did not fully grasp the phenomenon. Voslensky also provided even earlier examples. The earliest he cited was from the leftist Socialist-Revolutionary Isaac Steinberg, who had served as People’s Commissar for Justice in Lenin’s first government. In 1923, Steinberg described the gap between the (new) “rulers” and the “ruled.” He characterized it as follows:
On one side, there was:
- “Contempt for people and petty malice, narrow-minded vindictiveness and sectarian distrust, an ever-growing disdain for subordinates.”
On the other side, there was:
- “Depression, fear, anxiety about punishment, powerless rage, silent hatred, servility.”
According to Steinberg, these two new classes were separated by “a deep social and psychological abyss.”
Who Were the Nomenklatura?
According to Voslensky, in its strictest sense, the nomenklatura consisted of about 250,000 top party officials who, in one way or another, made political decisions. However, in the extremely hierarchical communist party structure, many of these “decision-makers” merely carried out decisions made at the highest levels—the Politburo and Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). At the same time, many decisions were prepared in lower ranks before being formally approved by the top leadership.
In a broader sense, the nomenklatura also included economic leaders (such as directors of large factories or collective farm managers), KGB officers, and similar figures. Including their families, this elite numbered no more than three million people—less than 1.5% of the population. This was not even all Communist Party members; in the 1970s, there were 17 million party members. While membership in the Communist Party (CPSU) was a prerequisite for entry into the nomenklatura, it was by no means sufficient.
According to Marxist theory, the ruling class in a capitalist society consists of large manufacturers and merchants driven by greed and a desire for profit. Voslensky argued that these capitalists could only gain economic advantages over other citizens. In political, cultural, and legal terms, they remained equal to less wealthy citizens. In a capitalist society, everyone is equal before the law.
In a socialist (communist) society, the ruling class’s ultimate goal is not wealth but power. Each member of the nomenklatura seeks power and career advancement in the party—that is, to gain more power. Once in power, they enjoy privileges not only economically but also socially, psychologically (through the pleasure of wielding power), and legally. In a communist society, different rules apply to nomenklatura members than to the rest of the population.
The Nomenklatura as an Exploiting Class
“We are asked: under capitalism, man is exploited by other people. How does this work under socialism? We answer: under socialism, it is the other way around.”
With this quote, Voslensky opens the chapter describing how the nomenklatura became the new exploiting class in the Soviet Union. Soviet citizens regularly read in their newspapers or heard on state television that in capitalist countries, a certain percentage of the population lived at the subsistence level. Unless they had access to Western media, they had no idea how the average Western citizen lived. In reality, most of the Soviet population lived at subsistence level and would have envied the standard of living of Western workers.
Yes, Soviet citizens were guaranteed employment (or were sent to the Gulag…), and yes, they had a legal right to affordable housing. However, those outside the nomenklatura were only allowed a maximum of 9 square meters per person. If someone had more, the excess was confiscated. In reality, the average Soviet citizen had only 7 square meters of living space per person.
Many consumer goods common in the West were scarce or completely unavailable to ordinary Soviet citizens. For the goods that were available, people often had to wait in long queues, and the quality was significantly inferior to Western products. Western goods could only be purchased in special stores requiring foreign currency. But how could the average Soviet worker obtain foreign currency? Communist countries were among the few places where having foreign currency allowed someone to buy more than with their own currency.
The Nomenklatura as a Privileged Class
Officially, nomenklatura salaries were not much higher than those of workers and peasants. Did this mean more equality had been achieved in the Soviet Union? Not at all. Nomenklatura members enjoyed privileges they often did not even have to pay for. They received lavish meals delivered to their homes free of charge—meals filled with delicacies ordinary citizens could only dream of. They had access to exclusive restaurants, luxurious homes, special vacation resorts, and chauffeur-driven cars.
The ultimate status symbol for a nomenklatura member was the telephone, or rather, multiple telephones on their desk. Some connected to higher-ups and could not be tapped—by ordinary citizens, at least. The KGB, of course, always listened in. These phones were also used to issue orders to subordinates, which gave nomenklatura members a sense of satisfaction: the pleasure of commanding others.
The Nomenklatura as a Parasitic Class
The communist planned economy stifled economic growth and resulted in enormous lost prosperity, aside from the human suffering and loss of freedom. Most of the “surplus value” extracted from ordinary workers was funneled into the oppressive system—military, secret police, prison camps, and a party bureaucracy that contributed nothing of real value to society. Thus, ordinary Soviet citizens toiled to sustain a system that repressed them, deprived them of freedom, and denied them the opportunity for a better life.
In the end, the nomenklatura became a parasitic class, living in comfort while fearing their peers, who were not comrades but rivals in an endless power struggle.
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