Several old apparatchiks lost their seats to more open-minded officials during the Gorbachev era.

We were snookered" by the old Communist apparatchiks, she said.

So far, the main beneficiaries of "privatization," one critic says, are the old Communist apparatchiks.

The problem, he concludes, is that there is no real competition, since old apparatchiks still have a monopoly on the power structure.

What's sad," he said, "is that the people who will benefit most are the old apparatchiks.

Most analysts believe that the Communist, who can claim a hard core of dissatisfied pensioners and old apparatchiks, will be one.

He was misled; reformers were double-crossed and the power shifted to the old apparatchiks.

It's enough to drive an old apparatchik crazy.

It was the enemy created by the old soviet apparatchiks to justify their abuse of freedom.

"Of course, I heard one of the old apparatchiks call me an 'enemy of the people,' " he added, charmed by the notion.