Political commissar

A political commissar is an officer appointed by a communist party to oversee a unit of the military. They were first used in the Soviet Union's Red Army by Leon Trotsky, who faced the task of integrating Tsarist officers and troops into the new Red Army, while ensuring their loyalty. The

Related Topics:
Communist party - Red Army - Leon Trotsky

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

political commissars were appointed by the Communist Party to military units for the purpose of direct political propaganda, and to ensure that Party decisions were implemented. In this system, each unit had a political officer who was not responsible to the normal military chain of command, but instead answered to a separate chain of command within the Communist Party. The purpose of such a system is to ensure the loyalty of army commanders, and to prevent a possible coup d'etat. The political commissar had the authority to override any decision of the military officers, and to remove them from command if necessary. Therefore, sometimes the commissar usurped the functions of a regular military commander, but that was almost never necessary — the mere presence of a commissar usually meant that military commanders would follow their directives, and the day-to-day duties of the political commissar generally involved only propaganda work and boosting the morale of the troops.

Related Topics:
Communist Party - Communist Party - Coup d'etat

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

After 1942, the political officials in the army were no longer called commissars, their title becoming politruk (?????????), an abbreviation for "political leader" and later zampolit, an abbreviation for "??????????? ????????? ?? ???????????", "deputy of the commander for political work", the change reflecting the level of the authority: zampolit had no rights to interfere with operative orders of a commander. The position was reformed after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Now it is called "??????????? ????????? ?? ?????????????? ??????", "deputy of the commander for educational work", but is still referred to as zampolit quite often.

Related Topics:
1942 - Soviet Union - 1991

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

During the Russian Civil War, Joseph Stalin was the political commissar of the Western Front against the White Army forces of Baron Wrangel. Nikita Khrushchev was a political commissar at the Battle of Stalingrad and was the senior political officer in the south of the Soviet Union throughout the Great Patriotic War.

Related Topics:
Russian Civil War - Joseph Stalin - White Army - Wrangel - Nikita Khrushchev - Battle of Stalingrad - Great Patriotic War

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~