THE POLITICAL REGROUPING OF THE ROMANIAN NOMENKLATURA DURING THE 1989 REVOLUTION RALUCA GROSESCU INTRODUCTION The present study is an analysis of the political regrouping of the former Romanian communist elite during the 1989 Revolution. The purpose of the research is to show that, although the revolutionary events appeared to be a break-up of the old social and political hierarchies, the former communist elite preserved an important degree of political power and succeeded in dominating the decision-making process within the provisional political institutions created in the very moment of the revolution. The analysis focuses on the modality and scale of the political survival of the former members of Nomenklatura during the Romanian Revolution. The first objective of this research is to identify the communist actors who in December 1989 participated in the establishment of the new structures of political power and to measure the extent of their reproduction in the provisional institutions: the Committee of the National Salvation Front (CFSN), the Provisional Council for National Unity (CPUN) and the Provisional Government led by Petre Roman. The second objective of the analysis is to evaluate from what categories of the Nomenklatura these elites came from in order to understand if, and how, the former Communist Party’s networks functioned in the elite recruitment process. This study has two main sections. The first one will provide a theoretical framework concerning the concepts of Nomenklatura and the hypothesis on the post-communist destination of the Nomenklatura. The second one will present and interpret data on the reproduction of the communist elites during the 1989 revolution and will illustrate, through the example of the Romanian governments, the dynamic of this phenomenon during the first ten years of transition. 1. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND The approach of this subject requires the clarification of two theoretical concepts that will be used in the present study. First, I shall focus on a tight definition of the concept of Nomenklatura, in order to ascertain an inferior boundary of this political group in relationship to the real political power held by its members. Second, considering that, in contrast with what happened in other European Socialist countries, the ambiguous and contradictory character of the December 1989 revolution generated a particular destiny of the Romanian Nomenklatura immediately after the communism breakdown, I shall focus on the analysis of certain hypothesises concerning the mobility and the conversion of the communist elites in Eastern Europe. 1.1. Towards a definition of the Nomenklatura The set of lists containing the decision-making positions of the communist society, such as they were established by the high authorities of the Party, as well as the persons who occupied these positions at various moments constitutes the Nomenklatura 1 . The Party, through its cadres department within the Central Committee, used to manage these positions at the national level. It used to update regularly the positions contained by the lists as well as their holders. The same phenomenon occurred at regional and local level. According to the 1 Mihail Vozlenski, « Nomenklatura », Doubleday & Company Inc., Garden City, New York, 1984, p. 75