apparatchik

noun

Etymology: From Russian аппара́тчик (apparátčik, “operator, apparatchik”), from аппара́т (apparát, “apparat, apparatus (of state)”) + suffix -чик (-čik).

1. A member of the Soviet apparat; a Communist bureaucrat or agent.

   “Whether conservatively toeing their Marx or boldly advocating such heretical Western-style reforms as the primacy of profits, every important planner, apparatchik and economist in Russia is caught up in Communism's greatest debate since Stalin set backward Russia on its cruel-but successful-forced march into the 20th century industrial world.”

   “In these dire conditions the ambitious Serbo-Croatian Communist Party apparatchik Slobodan Milošević played the national card in Kosovo.”

2. A blindly loyal bureaucrat.

   “Mr. Gonzales came across as a dull-witted apparatchik incapable of running one of the most important departments in the executive branch. […] He delegated responsibility for purging their ranks to an inexperienced and incompetent assistant who, if that’s possible, was even more of a plodding apparatchik.”

   “He's so outspoken, so little the Labour apparatchik, that Prime Minister Brown decides he can't send this voluble critic of Iraq invasion to sit at a UN occasion alongside George W Bush.”