commissars

commissars. ‘Political commissar’ is a term that was widely used both in Germany and elsewhere to designate officers of the political departments established within the Soviet Army and in other communist-led forces. It is an inexact translation of the Russian ‘politicheskii rukovoditel’ or ‘politruk’ (political director).

Political departments of the Soviet type were created not merely to indoctrinate the troops but above all to ensure that all military command structures were directly controlled by the Communist Party. They operated a separate hierarchical organization which existed alongside and within the army's own cadres, supervising and directing the work of all military personnel.

Political officers received separate, intensive training at the party's own academies. When assigned to a military unit, they received a military rank and wore military uniform; but they continued to report to their political superiors. From the army's point of view, they were parasites who could not be subjected to the normal procedures of military discipline. Their approval had to be sought before any military order could be issued. Their displeasure could summon up the representatives of the security organs (see NKVD) and the instant arrest of any soldier. They served at every level from the General Staff to the lowliest platoon; and in every unit where they served, they ran party cells whose activist members acted as guardians over the rest of the soldiers.

All senior Soviet generals were required to work in the presence of a political officer who shared the same quarters, slept in the same room, and countersigned all orders. It is fair to say, therefore, that no Soviet military commander could exercise effective command over the formations which he nominally led. The political officers, not the soldiers, were the Red Army's true commanders.

Leading political officers were given high military rank, and wielded immense power. Men such as Nikita Krushchev (1894–1971) or Leonid Brezhnev (1906–82) emerged from their wartime service at the very top of the Soviet system.

The Political departments gave the Soviet Communist Party a degree of control over the army to which the Nazi Party in Germany could never aspire. Unlike the Wehrmacht, which retained a modicum of control over its own affairs, the Red Army was comprehensively deprived of any form of independent identity.

Hitler's notorious ‘Commissar Order’ of 1941, which authorized the immediate killing of all captured Soviet political officers, contravened all the conventions regarding the proper treatment of prisoners-of-war. But it was aimed realistically at the element which ran the Soviet war-machine. There is some controversy over the extent to which it was carried out. See also USSR, 2 and 6(a).

Norman Davies