: His main conclusion is that this "new class" had, paradoxically, become the exploitative class against which it had originally fought.
: While private property was abolished, this "new class" effectively "uses, enjoys, and disposes" of nationalised property as if they owned it collectively. Exploitation Milovan Djilas Nova Klasa.pdf
While the state technically owns the property and industries on behalf of "the people," the bureaucracy exercises absolute control over it. Đilas noted that ownership is defined by the power to use, enjoy, and dispose of property. Because the party bureaucracy controls national wealth, they are the de facto owners. : His main conclusion is that this "new
The original manuscript was written in Serbo-Croatian, with the original title being Nova Klasa: Kritika Savremenog Komunizma (The New Class: A Critique of Contemporary Communism). It was first published in English in 1957 in the United States, and its impact was immediate and global. Đilas noted that ownership is defined by the
The work was translated into dozens of languages, with various editions appearing in Western Europe, the United States, and elsewhere. The German edition, titled Die neue Klasse: eine Analyse des kommunistischen Systems , was published as early as 1958 by Kindler in Munich. In China, it was translated and published internally in 1963 by the World Affairs Press. Each edition contributed to the spread of Djilas’s ideas, making The New Class one of the most widely discussed dissident texts of the era.