What Russian term for a functionary of the Communist Party is now derogatorily used to describe people appointed to positions on the basis of political loyalty rather than competence?
"Central Committee for the Communist Party of the RSFSR. The Communist Party of the RSFSR emerged from an alliance between Leningrad-based apparatchiks and Russian national-patriotic tendencies. The United Workers Front was one of the key backers of the new party organization. Gorbachev faced difficulties in trying to block the formation of a Russian party organization. Many Russian members of the Communist Party who were not necessarily followers of Gorbahev's hard-line opponents were supportive of the effort to form a Russian party organization. On Gorbachev's initiative a RSFSR Bureau of the Communist Party was founded towards the end of 1989, in"
"Apparatchik An apparatchik (; ), in Russian colloquial terms also borrowed widely into other languages, was a full-time, professional functionary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union or the Soviet government ""apparat"" (, apparatus), someone who held any position of bureaucratic or political responsibility, with the exception of the higher ranks of management called nomenklatura. James Billington describes an apparatchik as ""a man not of grand plans, but of a hundred carefully executed details."" The term is often considered derogatory, with negative connotations in terms of the quality, competence, and attitude of a person thus described. Members of the"
"the term was also used in the meaning ""Communist agent or spy"", originating in the writings of Arthur Koestler, c. 1941. Apparatchik An apparatchik (; ), in Russian colloquial terms also borrowed widely into other languages, was a full-time, professional functionary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union or the Soviet government ""apparat"" (, apparatus), someone who held any position of bureaucratic or political responsibility, with the exception of the higher ranks of management called nomenklatura. James Billington describes an apparatchik as ""a man not of grand plans, but of a hundred carefully executed details."" The term is often"
"Commissar Commissar (or sometimes ""Kommissar"") is an English transliteration of the Russian , which means commissary. In English, the transliteration ""commissar"" is used to refer specifically to the political commissars of Soviet and Eastern Bloc armies, while administrative officers are called ""commissary"". The word комисса́р is used in Russian for both political and administrative officials. The title has been used in the Soviet Union and Russia since the time of Peter the Great. Commissaries were used during the Provisional Government (March–July 1917) for regional heads of administration, but the term commissar is associated with a number of Cheka and military"
"Silovik Silovik (; plural: ""siloviki"", ) is a Russian word for politicians from the security or military services, often the officers of the former KGB, GRU, FSB, SVR, the Federal Drug Control or other security services who came into power. It can also refer to security-service personnel from any country or nationality where the more general term ""securocrat"" is used. The term ""silovik"", literally translated as ""person of force"" (from Russian ""сила"", ""force""), originated with the phrase ""institutions of force"" (), which appeared in the earlier Boris Yeltsin era (early 1990s) to denote the military-style uniformed services, including the military"
"having made promises of political reform, nevertheless appointed several siloviki to prominent positions in the government: Sergei Ivanov to chief of staff of the presidential administration; Dmitry Rogozin to deputy prime minister; and Vyacheslav Volodin to deputy chief of staff. Silovik Silovik (; plural: ""siloviki"", ) is a Russian word for politicians from the security or military services, often the officers of the former KGB, GRU, FSB, SVR, the Federal Drug Control or other security services who came into power. It can also refer to security-service personnel from any country or nationality where the more general term ""securocrat"" is used."
"and institutions). The Russian term is derived from the Latin ""nomenclatura"", meaning a list of names. The term was popularized in the West by the Soviet dissident Michael Voslenski, who in 1970 wrote a book titled ""Nomenklatura: The Soviet Ruling Class"" (). The nomenklatura referred to the Communist Party's governance to make appointments to key positions throughout the governmental system, as well as throughout the party's own hierarchy. Specifically, the nomenklatura consisted of two separate lists: one was for key positions, appointments to which were made by authorities within the party; the other was for persons who were potential candidates"
"acute shortage of politically ""trustworthy"" persons for administration, police and other professions. Accordingly, ""politically unreliable"" non-communists initially filled such roles. Those not obedient to communist authorities were ousted, while Moscow cadres started a large-scale party programs to train personnel who would meet political requirements. In addition, throughout the Eastern Bloc, armies appeared in Soviet-style uniforms studying military manuals copied from the Red Army. The party dominated the armed forces, with party members comprising almost every rank above captain. Two lists were often kept by the party structure: the ""cadre"" and the ""nomenklatura"" lists. The latter contained every post in each"
"are gentlemen without a will of their own, subordinates of their party, lacking the expertise to solve with unhurried deliberation the toilsome and substantial affairs of the state. Those who are elected are not elected for being the most suitable to the country, but because they are the most accommodating to their superiors, and they have little concern for the laws which once enacted will take the nation down a particular path. ""On the Soviet Union"": ""Rightist,"" ""leftist,"" they are words with little relevancy. The Russian state is the most rightist of all in Europe and the Soviet populace is"
"Nomenklatura The nomenklatura (; ) 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. Virtually all members of the nomenklatura were members of the Communist Party. Critics of Stalin, such as Milovan Đilas, critically defined them as a ""new class"". Trotsky used the term ""caste"" rather than ""class"", because he saw the Soviet Union as a degenerated workers'"
"for more than a year ""and did not resign of their own accord"" between 25 February 2010 and 22 February 2014 and civil servants ""who were elected and worked in high positions in the Soviet Communist Party, were permanent workers or secret agents of the Soviet KGB, the Main Intelligence Department of the Soviet Defense Ministry, graduated from higher education establishments of the Soviet KGB (except for technical specializations), worked with the special services of foreign countries as secret informers or carried out events aimed at sabotaging the foundations of Ukraine's national security, defense or territorial integrity by their actions"
"serzhant""), sergeant (сержант, ""serzhant"") and senior sergeant (старший сержант, ""starshy serzhant""). There is also a rank called ""starshina"" (старшина), which is often translated as ""master sergeant"". These ranks are inherited from the army of the Soviet Union. In the Soviet army, most sergeants (with the exception of the aforementioned ""starshina"") were not career non-commissioned officers but specially trained conscripts; the rank of ""starshina"" was reserved for career non-commissioned officers. In the modern Russian army, there are attempts to change this system and make most or all sergeants career non-commissioned officers; they are met with limited success. Unlike most police forces"
"chief petty officers, the role that was previously reserved for senior drafted personnel. Contrary to Western practice of assigning the senior sergeant ranks to veteran soldiers, the Soviet ranks of ""starshina"" and sergeant were routinely assigned to 20-year-old soldiers at the end of their 2-year draft. The ""praporshchik""s were aged volunteers and were expected to have more authority over draftsmen than similarly aged sergeants; they are placed in a separate category of ""master non-commissioned officers"" (""praporshchik"" and ""michman""). The starshina as an enlisted rank is still used in the military ranks of the Russian Federation, Bulgaria and Ukraine. Starshy praporshchik"
"to the heirs of capitalist fortunes who become donors to left-wing causes"". In Russia before and during the Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks and other socialist revolutionary organizations used it to describe the Czarist Army and basically any working class citizen who directly opposed their notion of the ""dictatorship of the proletariat"". The term was later extended to include the Menshevik Russians and other supposedly counter-revolutionary socialist organizations under Joseph Stalin. The motives behind becoming a traitor to one's class can include the necessity of survival (taking up whatever wage is available), the belief that the person is of a higher"
"officers. On June 27, 1945 the rank of Generalissimus Sovietskogo Soyuza (Generalissimus of the Soviet Union) was created and granted to Joseph Stalin following the tradition of the Russian Imperial Army which granted to the Tsars the military rank in their capacity as Commanders-in-Chief. Formally it existed until 1993 but it was never used after Stalin's death. In the 1970s, the non-commissioned officers serving under contract and holding Starshina (Master Sergeant) rank were reassigned to newly created Praporshchik rank (not to be confused with similarly named Russian Empire rank of commissioned officers); ""starshina"" was reserved for conscripts only. In the"
"used by soldiers to describe the act of resigning from the army); soldiers also refer to ""dembel"" half-year of conscription, with the suffix ""-shchina"" which denotes a type of order, rule, or regime (compare Yezhovshchina, Zhdanovshchina). Thus it can literally be translated as ""rule of the grandfathers."" This is essentially a folk system of seniority based on stage of service, mostly not backed by code or law, which only grants seniority to conscripts promoted to various Sergeant and Efreitor ranks. The origin of this problem is often attributed to the change in conscription term brought about by the law of"
"functions in Bolshevik and Soviet government military forces during the Russian Civil War (the White Army widely used the collective term ""bolsheviks and commissars"" for their opponents) and with the later terms ""People's Commissar"" (or ""narkom"") for government ministers and ""political commissar"" in the military. A People's Commissar (informally abbreviated ""narkom"") was a government official serving in a Council of People's Commissars. This title was first used by the Russian SFSR (out of dislike for the tsarist and bourgeois term ""minister"") and then copied among the many Soviet and Bolshevik-controlled states in the Russian Civil War. The government departments headed"
"the CPC, and their leaders are mostly handpicked by the Communists. In the Republics of the Soviet Union, between around 1988 and 1992 (by which time the USSR had dissolved and all were independent), the term ""Popular Front"" had quite a different meaning. It referred to movements led by members of the liberal-minded intelligentsia (usually themselves members of the local Communist party), in some republics small and peripheral, in others broad-based and influential. Officially their aim was to defend ""perestroika"" against reactionary elements within the state bureaucracy, but over time they began to question the legitimacy of their republics' membership"
"""traditionally used to signify political inconstancy, unreliability, fickleness, a lack of firm values and integrity, and venality, has long been a staple of Russian political rhetoric."" One of the famous insults of Leon Trotsky made by Vladimir Lenin was calling him a ""political prostitute"". Leon Trotsky used this epithet himself, calling German Social Democracy, at that time ""corrupted by Kautskianism"", a ""political prostitution disguised by theories"". In 1938, he used the same description for the Comintern, saying that the chief aim of the Bonapartist clique of Stalin during the preceding several years ""has consisted in proving to the imperialist 'democracies'"
"authority because of their knowledge, or ""a member of a powerful technical elite"", or ""someone who advocates the supremacy of technical experts"". McDonnell and Valbruzzi define a prime minister or minister as a technocrat if “at the time of his/her appointment to government, he/she: has never held public office under the banner of a political party; is not a formal member of any party; and is said to possess recognized non-party political expertise which is directly relevant to the role occupied in government”. In Russia, the President of Russia has often nominated ministers based on technical expertise from outside political"
"organizer in some other parties. Partorg Partorg (, from партийный организатор, ""partiyny organizator"", or ""party organizer"") was a person appointed by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to work at important places: larger plants, construction sites, kolkhozes, institutions, etc. The position was introduced in 1933. The duties of a partorg were political work and supervision of the execution of plans in production, procurement, etc. Usually they were recommended to be elected secretaries of the bureaus of local ""partkoms"". Informally, the terms ""partorg"" and ""partkom secretary"" were used interchangeably. Notice the difference of the position of"
"to the employment of ""bourgeois specialists"" in the economy, but did oppose giving such individuals strong administrative powers, unchecked from below. The Tenth Congress of the Russian Communist Party, in 1921, condemned the Workers' Opposition for factionalism, but adopted some of its proposals, including conducting a purge of the Party and organizing better supply of workers, to improve workers' living conditions. Several leaders of the Workers' Opposition, including Shlyapnikov, were elected to the Party Central Committee. Nevertheless, Party leaders subsequently undertook a campaign to subordinate trade unions to the Party and to harass and intimidate those who opposed this campaign."
"norms. See also Voyevoda#Siberia, Podyachy. See ""Deacon#Cognates"" for other historical terms derived from the Greek ""diakonos"". In particular, the term """"dyachok"""" is constructed in Russian language as a diminutive from """"dyak"""", however it has a completely different meaning. See also ""pevchy dyak"" (tsar's or church singer). Dyak (clerk) Dyak (, ) is a historical Russian bureaucratic occupation whose meaning varied over time and approximately corresponded to the notions of ""chief clerk"" or ""chief of office department"". A dyak was a title of the chief of a structural division of a ""prikaz"". For example, ""посольский дьяк"" (""posolsky dyak"") is a ""dyak"""
"does not have the majority and fails to form a coalition, the President may need to appoint a loyalist to the position of Prime Minister. For example this occurred in 1998 when the state Duma (which had most of the opposition to the President of the party) twice refused to appoint Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and Boris Yeltsin appointed Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, who supported the left opposition. In the mid-90s in Russia there was a term ""Technical Prime Minister"". This term refers to the Prime Minister, who is not an independent political figure, is only the nominal head of"
"seen trying to recruit peasants and uneducated workers by promising them how glorious life would be after the revolution while granting them temporary concessions. In 1918, the party renamed itself the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) at Lenin's suggestion. In 1925, this was changed to All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). At the 19th Party Congress in 1952 the Bolshevik Party was renamed the Communist Party of the Soviet Union according to Stalin's suggestion. ""Bolo"" was a derogatory expression for Bolsheviks used by British service personnel in the North Russian Expeditionary Force which intervened against the Red Army during the Russian Civil War."
"officer. The employment of NCBs in the Pakistan Air Force and the Pakistan Navy is not officially recognized. However both these services pay their officers an extra allowance comparable to the average pay of a household servant. The Imperial Russian Army used the term ""denshchik"" () for a batman. In the Russian Empire higher-ranking cavalry officers often chose Cossacks for these roles as they could be reasonably depended on to survive combat, and were also known for resourcefulness on campaign. However, they were hired help, and had to be provided with a horse also. The lower-ranking officers from serf-owning families"
"Lieutenant Colonel in the Cossack cavalry. The word Starshina gained its modern meaning in the Red Army, and is a hangover from the functional titles (like ""brigade commander"" or ""assistant platoon leader"") that were initially used by that force - the word literally means ""senior"". Most functional titles in the Red Army were abolished in 1942, but Starshina remained. Starshina was the highest non-commissioned rank in the Soviet Army until the reintroduction of the imperial rank of praporshchik in 1972. In the Soviet Navy, the term ""Starshina"" was introduced between 1940 and 1943 as term equivalent to petty officer rank"
"""soviets"" (councils or committees) by beginning to refer to executive figureheads as ""Chairman of the X Committee"". Vladimir Lenin, for example, officially functioned as the head of Soviet Russia not as tsar or as president but in roles such as ""Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Russian SFSR"". Note in particular the popular standard method for referring to Mao Zedong: ""Chairman Mao"" (officially: Chairman of the Communist Party of China and Chairman of the Central Military Commission). In addition to the administrative or executive duties in organizations, the chairman has the duties of presiding over meetings. Such"
"apparat (apparatchiks or apparatchiki) were frequently transferred between different areas of responsibility, usually with little or no actual training for their new areas of responsibility. Thus, the term apparatchik, or ""agent of the apparatus"" was usually the best possible description of the person's profession and occupation. Not all apparatchiks held lifelong positions. Many only entered such positions in middle age. Today ""apparatchik"" is also used in contexts other than that of the Soviet Union or communist countries. According to Collins English Dictionary the word can mean ""an official or bureaucrat in any organization"". According to Douglas Harper's ""Online Etymology Dictionary"","
"the people."" The Communist Party was officially a Marxist-Leninist communist party, which determined the general development of Soviet society both in domestic and foreign policy. Also, it directed the ""great work"" of building communism through central planning of the economy and the struggle for the victory of communism. All Communist Party organisations had to follow the framework laid down by the 1977 Soviet Constitution. After mounting pressure against him by the reformers, Mikhail Gorbachev removed the phrase ""the leading and guiding force"" and replaced it with ""the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and other political parties"". The Nomenklatura was"
"promoting his clients' careers, the patron could advance his own power. The nomenklatura system arose early in Soviet history. Vladimir Lenin wrote that appointments were to take the following criteria into account: reliability, political attitude, qualifications, and administrative ability. Joseph Stalin, who was the first general secretary of the party, also was known as ""Comrade File Cabinet"" (Tovarishch Kartotekov) for his assiduous attention to the details of the party's appointments. Seeking to make appointments in a more systematic fashion, Stalin built the party's patronage system and used it to distribute his clients throughout the party bureaucracy. Under Stalin's direction in"
"a hostile act or, in Stalinist times, even as an accusation of being ""Anti-Soviet"". The term is not used often in contemporary Russian society, but it is still the standard form of address in the armed forces and police, where officers and soldiers are normally addressed as ""Comrade Colonel"", ""Comrade General"", ""Comrade Sergeant"", or the like. The term is also used as part of idioms e.g., ""tovarishch po neschast'yu"" (""fellow-sufferer"", from German ""Leidensgenosse"") or ""boyevoy tovarishch"" ([war] buddy), or as a part of such words as ""tovarishchestvo"" (partnership) that do not associate with communism. In Chinese, the translation of ""comrade"""
"an appointment or a seat at the tsar's table lower than what he is entitled to."" Because of the ""mestnichestvo"", otherwise qualified people who could not boast of sufficiently extended ancestry had no hope of getting an important state post. Additionally, a ""boyar"" from an old and respected family could get an important promotion even if personally unqualified. With the developing autocracy, where the core principle was the creation of a central bureaucracy reporting directly to the tsar, the role of the ""mestnichestvo"" was progressively reduced. Moreover, increasing defense needs required that the top military posts be occupied by capable"