Đilas argues that this new class:
on Djilas's life and dissent at UEA ePrints. The New Class: An Analysis of the Communist System milovan dilas nova klasa pdf
In "Nova Klasa", Đilas contends that a new class of people, distinct from the working class and the intelligentsia, had emerged in socialist societies. This new class, comprising high-ranking officials, managers, and bureaucrats, had consolidated power and privilege for themselves, often at the expense of the broader population. Đilas argues that this new class: on Djilas's
Their wealth is not in stocks but in nomenklatura (access). They have special stores, cars, health care, schools, and hunting grounds that are invisible to the ordinary worker. Their wealth is not in stocks but in nomenklatura (access)
However, during the 1950s, Đilas began to notice a disturbing pattern. He saw that the revolution had not led to a "withering away of the state" (as Marx predicted) but rather to the emergence of a privileged, parasitic bureaucracy. He began publishing critical articles. By 1954, Tito had him expelled from the party. By 1956, Đilas was in prison, where he secretly wrote The New Class on scraps of paper, eventually smuggled out to be published in the West.
He was the ultimate insider.
Published in 1957 in the West, The New Class was a bombshell. The Western left dismissed it as a bitter betrayal by a disgruntled ex-communist. The Soviet bloc banned it completely. Yet, the theory proved prophetic.