Apparatchik

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Slobodan Milošević is often characterized as "apparatchik".

Apparatschik ( Russian аппаратчик , in as "person of the apparatus") is a from the Russian derived Lehnwort for a particular type of a functionary or bureaucracy . According to Pierre Bourdieu , apparatchik is primarily characterized by the fact that its central or even only social reference system is the organizational apparatus to which it owes its social position.

Originally the term , which was mostly used disparagingly , referred to the real socialist states and their party apparatuses, especially that of the CPSU , but later the concept was also transferred to other forms of state and organization. Apparachik became a loan word in numerous languages; English, for example, has been used since 1941. The concept of the "functionary" is similar, but it is often used neutrally in the sense of fulfilling a function for a social group. Another related, but still more negative term is the " bonze " - an apparatchik becomes a bonzen through unjustified privileges and willful abuse of power.

history

The term was coined in the context of the Soviet Union , where apparatchiki increasingly occupied the new positions of power in the years after the Russian Revolution . As early as 1922 one could assume about 15,000 apparatchiki, which corresponded to about 4% of the party members. In the 1960s, an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 people could be assigned to the apparatchiki of the party bureaucracy of the CPSU and its affiliated organizations. Apparatchik systems were not limited to the Warsaw Pact states , but also diffused into other authoritarian systems, so that for the People's Republic of China, for example, the complete development of an apparatchik system was noted as early as the early 1960s.

Although apparatchiks in the real socialist states consistently represented various varieties of Marxist ideologies, after the transformation of these states they quickly turned the organizational elites into nationalist parties.

Theoretical approaches

Because of the negative valence of the apparatchik term, theoretical treatises on its meaning are rather rare. Treatises on the ontogeny of apparatchiki are also rare . A first attempt was made in 1963 by Zbigniew Brzeziński and Samuel P. Huntington , who contrasted the professional functionary of the Soviet apparatchik with the American "Cincinnatus". It is characteristic of the rapidly growing number of apparatchiks after the Russian Revolution of 1917 that they - like the Cincinnatus - may have special knowledge in a political area, but are primarily generalists who also have to be geographically mobile in order to follow instructions to be able to follow the party elite. Apparachiks are also often used in various subject areas without specialist training. The habitus of the apparatchik, which - unlike that of the rule-oriented technocrat - is primarily command-oriented, accommodates the constant change of subject areas .

In contrast to party functionaries in western democracies, who mostly have secondary careers in one or more professions, the apparatchik lacks any second professional pillar: he can only advance his career within the party bureaucracy. In addition, in the Soviet Union and its vassal states, qualifications for party careers were professionally formalized and given in special curricula in party schools .

Apparachiki usually form a tightly knit, clearly dogmatically indoctrinated, professional community in which there are strict hierarchies and whose aim is to control state affairs. In the Soviet Union there were indications that technical training would be advantageous in order to gain access to the circles of apparatchiki. The strongest incentive for an apparatchik career is the increase in power. In order to ensure this, it is advisable to follow the requirements of hierarchically standing apparatchiks and to urge subordinates. The success of the apparatchik is hardly assessed economically, but is primarily measured by the technical implementation of the tasks assigned to it, the meaningfulness of which it does not have to question. The apparatchik's career depends only on the evaluation by his superiors; as a rule he does not receive any support from the general public, which again distinguishes him from Cincinnatus, whose greatest asset is his votes. Along with this, apparatchiki rise more through political loyalty than professional competence. In the course of this they are also integrated into the party ideology, but in contrast to professional revolutionaries like Leon Trotsky, for example, they do not themselves pursue a stringent ideology independent of the one prevailing in the apparatus.

These properties have enabled apparatchiki to often rise to the top of bureaucratic systems; archetypically again in the Soviet Union. Prominent examples of such careers are Stalin , Khrushchev , Walter Ulbricht , Leonid Brezhnev and Konstantin Tschernenko .

Further use

The term apparatchik has penetrated into common parlance through its use in mass media to denote a person from a bureaucratically oriented system who (at least apparently) adheres to all the specifications of his superiors, is guided by the current line of leadership and it understands how to make himself popular with his superiors and as indispensable as possible through submission and anticipatory obedience.

Further negative properties are ascribed to the term, which play no role in the research discourse. This is what Christopher Hitchens , for example, double moral standards as central to the ethics of apparatchiks.

literature

Web links

Wiktionary: Apparachik  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bourdieu, Pierre (1997): The dead packs the living , Hamburg: VSA, p. 44 f.
  2. ↑ https://www.macmillanihe.com/resources/CW%20resources%20(by%20Author)/F/freeborn/pdfs/loan%20words/11_Russian%20.pdf http://www.merriam-webster.com / dictionary / apparatchik
  3. ↑ Brzezinski, Zbigniew & Samuel P. Huntington (1963): "Cincinnatus and the Apparatchik", World Politics 16 (1): 52-78, p. 66.
  4. ^ Fainsod, Merle (1963): How Russia Is Ruled , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, p. 181.
  5. ↑ Alex Simirenko: Professionalization of Politics and Tension Management: the Case of the Soviet Union . In: Sociological Quarterly . 15, No. 1, 1974, ISSN  1533-8525 , pp. 20-31, p. 21. doi : 10.1111 / j.1533-8525.1974.tb02123.x .
  6. ↑ Kirby, Stuart (1960): "Russia's Largest Satellite", The China Quarterly 1 (1): 12-14, p. 13.
  7. ↑ Verdery, Katherine (1996): What was Socialism, and What Comes Next? , Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, p. 90.
  8. ↑ Brzezinski, Zbigniew & Samuel P. Huntington (1963): "Cincinnatus and the Apparatchik", World Politics 16 (1): 52-78, pp. 55 f.
  9. ^ Pearson, Raymond (1998): The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire , Basingstoke: Macmillan, p. 20.
  10. ↑ Jowitt, Kenneth (1975): "Inclusion and Mobilization in European Leninist Regimes", World Politics 28 (1): 69-96, p. 78.
  11. ^ Mills, C. Wright (1956): The Power Elite , New York, NY: Oxford University Press, p. 404.
  12. ^ Brzezinski, Zbigniew & Samuel P. Huntington (1963): "Cincinnatus and the Apparatchik", World Politics 16 (1): 52-78, p. 56.
  13. ↑ Brzezinski, Zbigniew & Samuel P. Huntington (1963): "Cincinnatus and the Apparatchik", World Politics 16 (1): 52-78, pp. 57-59.
  14. ↑ Alex Simirenko: Professionalization of Politics and Tension Management: the Case of the Soviet Union . In: Sociological Quarterly . 15, No. 1, 1974, ISSN  1533-8525 , pp. 20-31, pp. 21f. doi : 10.1111 / j.1533-8525.1974.tb02123.x .
  15. ↑ Brzezinski, Zbigniew & Samuel P. Huntington (1963): "Cincinnatus and the Apparatchik", World Politics 16 (1): 52-78, p. 61.
  16. ↑ Alex Simirenko: Professionalization of Politics and Tension Management: the Case of the Soviet Union . In: Sociological Quarterly . 15, No. 1, 1974, ISSN  1533-8525 , pp. 20-31, p. 22. doi : 10.1111 / j.1533-8525.1974.tb02123.x .
  17. ↑ Michael P. Gehlen: The Soviet Apparatchiki , in: R. Barry Farrell (Ed.) Political Leadership in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union , 1970, pp. 140–156.
  18. ↑ a b Alex Simirenko: professionalization of Politics and Tension Management: the Case of the Soviet Union . In: Sociological Quarterly . 15, No. 1, 1974, ISSN  1533-8525 , pp. 20-31, p. 23. doi : 10.1111 / j.1533-8525.1974.tb02123.x .
  19. ^ Gregory, Paul R. (1990): Restructuring The Soviet Economic Bureaucracy , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 71-73.
    Gregory, Paul R. (1989): "Soviet Bureaucratic Behavior: Khozyaistvenniki and Apparatchiki", Soviet Studies 41 (4): pp. 511-525.
  20. ^ Yoram Perim (2004): Telepopulism: Media and Politics in Israel , Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, p. 128.
  21. ^ Lane, David S. & Cameron Ross (1999): The transition from communism to capitalism: Ruling elites from Gorbachev to Yeltsin , New York, NY: St. Martin's Press, pp. 25f.
  22. ^ A b Brzezinski, Zbigniew & Samuel P. Huntington (1963): "Cincinnatus and the Apparatchik", World Politics 16 (1): 52-78, p. 61.
  23. ↑ Kleßmann, Christoph (1994): “Socialism under reservation? The communist takeover of power in the Soviet occupation zone / GDR 1945–1952 in the picture of West German publications ”, pp. 135–150, in: Eva Schmidt-Hartmann (Hrsg.): Communism and Eastern Europe: Concepts, Perspectives and Interpretations in Change , Munich: Oldenbourg , P. 145.
  24. ↑ Hitchens, Christopher (2003): “Thinking Like an Apparatchik”, The Atlantic Monthly 291: 129–142 ( online , last accessed December 16, 2011).