Political leadership

The nomenklatura (Russian: номенклату́ра, IPA: [nəmʲɪnklɐˈturə] ; from Latin: nomenclatura, system of names) were a category of people within the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries who held various key administrative positions in the bureaucracy, running all spheres of those countries' activity: government, industry, agriculture, education, etc., whose positions were granted only with approval by the communist party of each country or region. While in Russian language the term номенклатура has the same generic meaning as "nomenclature", in the context of the politics of the Soviet Union it refers to the "party and state nomenklatura", lists of persons vetted for key management, or "nomenklatura lists".