Political Commissar
정치위원
A party representative officer in the Soviet Red Army and later Soviet Armed Forces who held authority equal to the unit commander and ensured the Party's political control over the military. Created by Trotsky in 1918 to supervise former tsarist officers (voenspetsy), the commissar countersigned all operational orders and was responsible for political education and morale. During the Civil War the commissar could veto a commander's orders; the institution was later curtailed under edinonachalie (one-man command), revived during the Great Purge and the early Great Patriotic War, and finally replaced by the zampolit (deputy commander for political affairs) in 1942. The political officer system itself, however, endured until the dissolution of the USSR.
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Sources
- Wikipedia (EN) comprehensive institutional history of the political commissar in the Red Army and Soviet Armed Forces, including the cycles of abolition and reinstatement (1918–1924, 1937–1940, 1941–1942) and the eventual transition to zampolit in 1942
- Wikipedia (RU) Russian Wikipedia article detailing the political commissar institution from its origins, the 1918 decree establishing the All-Russian Bureau of Military Commissars, the 1919 creation of the PUR (Political Directorate of the RVSR), through the Great Patriotic War cycles and the October 1942 abolition
- soviethistory.msu.edu Trotsky's April 6, 1918 decree 'On Military Commissars and Members of Military Councils' (Izvestiia), the founding document of the institution: commissar as 'direct political agent of Soviet power,' countersigning authority, right to veto on counterrevolutionary grounds