Political Commissar

Origins and prehistory

The office did not begin with the Soviet Red Army. It is generally held that commissars first appeared in the 16th-century armies of the Italian republics, where mercenary forces were watched by commissars who monitored the loyalty of troops and commanders to their employers; the French Revolutionary Army's commissaire politique and représentant en mission followed. After the February Revolution of 1917 the Provisional Government sent commissars to the military to watch officers disloyal to the new power, the best known being Boris Savinkov. The repeated appearance of political supervision over armed forces in the revolutionary and civil-war period rested on a shared fear in both governments that the officer corps was the most likely counter-revolutionary threat.

Founding of the Red Army, 1918-1920

The commissar institution was legally fixed with the creation of the Red Army. An order of the Revolutionary Military Council (RVSR) of 5 December 1918 assigned leadership of all political work at the front and rear, and the distribution of all Party forces mobilised for work in the Red Army, to the All-Russian Bureau of Military Commissars, acting in close contact with and on the directives of the Party Central Committee. On 18 April 1919 Trotsky's order established the Political Department of the RVSR, which took over the functions of the dissolved Bureau; on 15 May it became the Political Directorate (PUR) acting with the rights of a military department of the Party Central Committee, and on 31 May the Central Committee member I. T. Smilga was appointed its head.

During the Civil War the commissar's powers were extensive. A unit commissar could and was obliged to take part in drafting, discussing and adopting combat plans, and his rights over personnel were no less than the commander's. No order was valid without the commissar's signature. By early 1920 the Red Army had more than three thousand commissars. These sweeping powers were needed because most command posts were held by former imperial officers (voenspetsy) and the leadership required guarantees that they would not turn their weapons against Soviet power; at the same time, commissars often lacking military education obstructed commanders' normal direction of units, producing a dual power with harmful effects.

The turn to one-man command and the 1930s

From 1925 the politico-military line moved toward edinonachalie (single command) and the commissar faded as an institution: either the commander joined the Party and became his own unit's political officer, or a pompolit subordinate to him was commissioned. In 1924 the RVSs were renamed Military Councils and a senior political officer became known as a ChVS, abolished in 1934. With the restoration of military ranks in 1935, political officers received special ranks: junior political instructor, politruk, and senior political instructor. Higher ranks including battalion, regimental and divisional commissar existed, but such officers usually held pompolit posts and were not commissars as such. The title politruk, applied to company-level political officers since 1919, also settled into this rank system.

1937-1940: the purges and after

On 10 May 1937 the commissar institution was fully restored, evidently to keep the army manageable during the political purges. In 1937, 1,469 political officers were dismissed, 1,045 of them on political grounds, mainly "for links with enemies of the people"; these included 18 members of military councils, chiefs of political directorates of military districts and their deputies, 16 corps commissars and 57 divisional commissars. The dismissals produced mass transfers and promotions, with more than 3,000 political officers appointed to higher posts within three to four months of 1937. By late 1937 the shortfall of political officers stood at 10,341, or 27 per cent of requirements, and the shortfall in senior political personnel reached 938.

In August 1940 the commissar office was abolished again, Military Councils continued, and edinonachalie was restored below army level. At a December 1940 conference of senior command staff, Defence Commissar Timoshenko criticised the poor military preparation of many senior political officers (73 per cent of the army's political staff lacked military training) and the formalism and bureaucratic routine in political work; the abolition came at his insistence. In the three pre-war years 14,000 mid-ranking political officers were trained.

1941-1942: the Great Patriotic War and abolition

On 16 July 1941 a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet restored the commissar institution, against the background of the Red Army's defeats at the war's start and the enormous loss of command cadres; the encirclement at Kiev alone cost about 60,000 command personnel in summer 1941. Commissars acted as influential "second commanders", their ranks and insignia generally paralleling officers'. The institution was nonetheless judged ineffective. In autumn 1942 Konev asked Stalin to subordinate political officers to commanders, arguing that command staff had proved their loyalty and needed no additional control and that the commissar institution contained an element of distrust of command cadres; most military leaders supported him. Marshal Zhukov similarly wanted political officers removed.

On 9 October 1942 a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet "On the establishment of full one-man command and the abolition of the institution of military commissars in the Red Army" replaced commissars with deputies for political affairs (zampolity). 120,000 political officers were transferred to command posts. Members of the military councils of fronts and armies were retained. Zampolity had no commissar powers and were fully subordinate to the commander as one of his deputies. For a time former commissars were unofficially still called "commissars", a habit that faded, and a 29 March 1943 order of the Defence Commissariat made a minimum of military knowledge obligatory for political workers. In April 1943 the Main Counter-Intelligence Directorate "SMERSH" was created by a secret decree of the Council of People's Commissars (No. 415-138ss) on the basis of the NKVD's Special Departments Directorate, and three thousand political officers were posted to it at that stage. About 150,000 political officers were transferred to command work during the war.

Wartime assessments of the commissars diverge. One current stresses their political and supervisory role as a destructive force that hindered commanders: no order was legally valid without the commissar's signature, undermining one-man command; commissars answered only to higher commissars and the Main Political Directorate; from 17 July 1941, by a State Defence Committee decision, representatives of special departments in regiments and divisions were simultaneously subordinate to the NKVD and to the regimental or divisional commissar; members of military councils oversaw the work of the military procuracy and tribunals; and commissars directed and supervised the activity of blocking detachments. Another current stresses their role in welding units together. In this war most political officers had specialised, including military, education; some set an example in battle or took over command when commanders were killed. Political officers' killed and wounded losses were no smaller than those of other officer categories, with about two thousand casualties among political officers of fronts, armies and formations in 1943 alone.

Political commissars outside the USSR

In the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939 the Republican Army and the International Brigades made heavy use of political commissars, an idea taken from the commissaire politique of the French Revolutionary Army. After the Second World War Eastern Bloc armies also used political officers on the Soviet model; East Germany's National People's Army used Politoffiziere as the commander's deputy for political education. The Chinese People's Liberation Army has had the political commissar position since the Sanwan Reorganization of 1927, and its dual-command structure of military and political commanders persists today. During the Korean War the Korean People's Army's commissars were known as "Cultural Sections" or "Political Sections".