The social composition of the Communist nomenklatura: A comparison of Russia,Poland, and Hungary

Conclusion Reflecting, in conclusion, upon the significance of our inquiry into the social origins of the nomenklatura, we suggest that the main reason the term nomenklatura remains a loaded one in East European political discourse is that it raises the question of what the Communist period in East Europe meant, and what it might mean now. Was Communism an artificial break in the organic history of these societies, a history that now resumes? Or, were Communist institutions deeply embedded in the social logic of East European development in ways that mean the Communist legacy will endure into postcommunism? Our usage of the term upper class was calculated precisely to capture this notion of embeddedness. We argue that in some East European countries, most notably Russia, and probably Hungary as well, where the Communist elite became an organic component of the emerging social order as an upper class, it is not enough to ask if the Communistelites have reproduced or circulated. Whether an upper class existed, and to what degree, forms the class context of personnel changes: a lot of circulation at the individual level, for example, may mean nothing but the reproduction of privileges and advantages institutionalized during the Communist period via the upper class. Reproduction on the individual level, on the other hand, may indicate precisely the opposite; that an upper class did not form and therefore nomenklatura members were unable to enjoy such institutionalized mechanisms during the transition to postcommunism. To put it in the language of our introduction: to answer the question of whether the Communists are still in power, one has first to determine what kind of a social order Communism was in each country. It was these different social orders, comprising concrete groups and group identities, as distinct from the mechanisms of surplus allocation or the individuals who staffed them, which may have been left intact through the post-Communist transition.