Djilas identified several key characteristics of the New Class:
If you are a student or researcher looking for a legitimate digital copy, you have several options. Nova Klasa is still under copyright in many jurisdictions (Harcourt Brace holds rights, and the Djilas estate is managed by his family). You should always respect copyright law.
Political science courses on "Totalitarianism," "Comparative Politics," and "The History of Communism" frequently assign excerpts. Searching for the PDF allows students to bypass expensive anthologies that often only reprint two chapters.
However, the book's legacy is complex. The publication and distribution of the manuscript were reportedly aided by the CIA as part of Cold War cultural warfare, a fact that adds a layer of geopolitical intrigue to its history. Furthermore, Djilas himself later renounced the core thesis of "The New Class" in his 1969 work, "The Unperfect Society," acknowledging that his earlier analysis had been oversimplified. He was not an anti-communist in a Western liberal sense but rather a disillusioned utopian who continued to seek a "democratic socialism". This evolution of his thought adds a profound philosophical dimension to his work, moving from a simple critique of Stalinism to a deeper, more personal reflection on the failure of revolution itself. Milovan Djilas Nova Klasa.pdf
To understand the magnitude of this book, one must understand the author. Milovan Đilas was not a Western critic looking in; he was a true insider. He was a Vice-President of Yugoslavia under Tito, a dedicated communist revolutionary who fought against the Nazis, and a man who helped orchestrate the Yugoslav revolution.
Following the war, Đilas rose to become one of the four main leaders of socialist Yugoslavia, serving as Vice President and head of the Federal Assembly. He was widely considered Tito’s heir apparent. However, Đilas became increasingly disillusioned with the corruption, lack of freedom, and bureaucratic rigidity of the regime he helped create. By 1954, his critical essays led to his expulsion from the Central Committee, and he was later imprisoned. It was during his time as a dissident that he smuggled the manuscript of The New Class to the West. 2. Core Thesis: What is "The New Class"?
The new class legitimizes its total power by claiming a monopoly on truth. Because the Communist Party views itself as the vanguard of history operating on "scientific" Marxist principles, any opposition is labeled not just as a political disagreement, but as a crime against historical progress. The Tyranny of the Party Djilas identified several key characteristics of the New
: Đilas suggests the party uses this system to force rapid industrialization, which in turn reinforces the bureaucracy's total control over society. Key Themes and Insights Totalitarian Control
This work remains a crucial text for understanding the internal dynamics of 20th-century communist regimes and the nature of totalitarian power structures.
This argument had a profound influence on later critiques of Soviet-style systems. It resonates in the modern concept of the the Soviet term for the elite list of key administrative positions filled by party appointees, which Djilas's work helped to illuminate for a Western audience. Furthermore, Djilas's analysis remained rooted in a Marxist framework ; his was an internal critique, aiming to salvage what he saw as the genuine ideals of socialism from what he perceived as a bureaucratic degeneration. The publication and distribution of the manuscript were
Milovan Djilas's 1957 work, The New Class: An Analysis of the Communist System , argues that communist revolutions created a new ruling elite—a bureaucratic "new class"—rather than a classless society, transforming revolutionary leaders into owners of the means of administration. The book highlights how this elite exploits the working class to maintain power and material privileges, arguing that this phenomenon is an inevitable consequence of the structural setup of communist governance. Digital copies of this influential work can be found via repositories like Internet Archive . AI responses may include mistakes. Learn more
Titled The New Class: An Analysis of the Communist System , the 170-page treatise became an instant political atom bomb. For the first time, a top-tier Communist revolutionary publicly argued that the Soviet Union and its satellites had not abolished class oppression. Instead, they had merely replaced the old capitalist exploiters with a new, more ruthless master: the Party bureaucracy.
Ironically, the book made Yugoslavia a pariah in both East and West: