The nomenklatura were a small, elite subset of the general population in the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries who held various key administrative positions in all spheres of those countries' activity: government, industry, agriculture, education, etc. The nomenklatura was analogous to the ruling class, which Communist doctrine denounced in the capitalist West. Without exception, they were members of the Communist Party. Some authors defined them as a new class. Orthodox Trotskyism u… (More on Nomenklatura)