nomenklatura

nomenklatuura puhekieltä A list of bureaucratic posts in government and industry in the former Soviet Union (or other communist countries), filled by those appointed by the Party. (defdate)
The people on such lists; by extension, any privileged class, a social or political elite. (defdate)
2011, (w), The Better Angels of Our Nature, Penguin 2012, p. 764:

Communism envisioned … an Authority Ranking of political control (in theory, the dictatorship of the proletariat; in practice, a nomenklatura of commissars under a charismatic dictator).