ABSTRACT
Clientelism, corruption and disillusionment with ideology undercut the official image of the socialist state. Corruption was, in part at least, an adaptive response to the shortcomings of a highly centralized and over-regulated organizational system, as often one's 'insurance policy' involved paying a bribe. The Soviet nomenklatura was an immense structure whose influence spread across roughly one sixth of the entire globe. The nomenklatura tended to perceive itself as some kind of privileged elite. The organizational culture of the Soviet nomenklatura was characterized by rule-breaking, dissimulation, corruption, clientelism, indifference towards the affairs of ordinary citizens, and an extreme degree of dependency on superiors. As in a totalitarian regime, the relationship of subordinates to their superiors was marked by the former's subservience and obedience to the latter. In the Soviet Union, the regime's monopoly on public discourse meant that to define oneself in terms of class was impossible while this discourse was devoted to the building of a united and classless society.
