Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Depending on the specific print edition or scanned PDF (often from Praeger or Harcourt, Brace), page 86 typically lands in the heart of Djilas’s core thesis, titled The New Class. While pagination varies, the essence of page 86 is unmistakable. Here, Djilas moves away from historical analysis to deliver his verdict: milovan djilas nova klasa pdf 86
“The new class... obtains its power, privileges, ideology, and its psychology from the monopoly of the administration of public property.”
This is the engine of his argument. Unlike Marx, who predicted a revolt of the proletariat against capitalist owners, Djilas observed that after the revolution, the party bureaucracy becomes the new owning class. They do not own the factories legally, but they control them administratively. Strengths:
On page 86, Djilas often contrasts the "political" versus "economic" nature of this class. He argues that the new class’s power is total because it controls both the state apparatus and the ideological narrative. The page typically concludes with a bleak prediction: “The new class is not a temporary phenomenon... It is the inevitable result of a system where one party monopolizes power.”
Djilas’ argument was heretical: The Soviet Union and its satellite states (including Yugoslavia) had not abolished class. Instead, they had created a new form of class—the political bureaucracy. Weaknesses: Depending on the specific print edition or
According to Djilas, this New Class differs from the capitalist bourgeoisie in the mechanism of control, not the outcome. Capitalists own the means of production via capital; the New Class owns the means of production via political party control. Djilas wrote that this class:
Thus, the communist revolution had simply replaced one ruling class with another. Exploitation remained; only the label changed.