Red Army Commissars - ?

[Krautman]

(A search for "Commissar" had far too many hits; the term is mentioned often, but rarely defined, and there's even a forum member of that name...)

What exactly were they? How were they trained? Was "Commissar" a rank class of its own, or did the Commissars have the military ranks like Lieutenant, Captain etc.? Did they have to answer to a higher central authority or were they part of the normal military chain of command?

Greetings & thanks in advance

Krautman

[BulletRat]

Thought the commissars were political guys inserted into the ranks to "motivate" the troops... at gunpoint when necessary.

[civdiv]

Originally posted by Krautman:

(A search for "Commissar" had far too many hits; the term is mentioned often, but rarely defined, and there's even a forum member of that name...)

What exactly were they? How were they trained? Was "Commissar" a rank class of its own, or did the Commissars have the military ranks like Lieutenant, Captain etc.? Did they have to answer to a higher central authority or were they part of the normal military chain of command?

Greetings & thanks in advance

Krautman

I'm certainly not an expert, but I'll try and answer. They were basically the Russian version of the Gestapo. Commissars were the ideological 'stiffeners' in the Red Army. They were there to oversee the local Russian commanders, and to serve to indoctrinate the soldiers. They made sure the Russian commanders obeyed their orders, and they made sure the soldiers pressed the attack.

They did possess ranks, though they were generally considered to be equivelent, if not superior to, the rank of the local commander. If a Russian regiment was led by a LtCol, the commissar might be a Maj. But in most cases, regardless of the seniority of the commander, the commissar was considered to be just as much in charge.

Between battles the commissars conducted classes in an attempt to indoctrinate the troops into the tenets of communism, and to instill a hatred of the enemy. From what I have read, most of this was pretty ineffective. The commissars also made sure either the unit, or the sub-units didn't withdraw w/o orders. They also made sure the soldiers pressed the attack. They did so at gun point. Very often the commissars were backed up by NKVD troops, who would literally machine gun anything who didn't advance, or if anyone tried to retreat.

Some commiissars were cowards, and stayed to the rear. Some were pretty brave and accompanied the leading edge of the attack. Most accounts I have read indicate the former were the most common.

In terms of authority within the units, the commissars were on par with the commanders.

[Bigduke6]

Guys,

Here's the Wikpedia definition:

A political commissar is an officer appointed by a communist party to oversee a unit of the military. They were first used in the Red Army by Leon Trotsky, who faced the task of integrating Czarist officers and troops into the new Red Army, while ensuring their loyalty. The 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 almost always that wasn't 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.

After 1942, the political officials in the army were no longer called commissars, their title becoming politruk (политру́к), an abbreviation for "political leader" and later zampolit, an abbreviation for "заместитель командира по политработе", "deputy of the commander in political works", the change reflecting the level of the authority: zampolit had no rights to interfere with operative orders of a commander. The position was abolished after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

During the Russian Civil War, Joseph Stalin was the political commissar of the Western Front against the White Army forces of Baron Wrangel.

Thus, for the bulk of the German-Soviet war, commissars were a number two in units down to company, subordinate to the commander but not necessarily his immediate replacement. Commissars were expected to be "True Communists", which usually meant propagandizing the troops, often making sure party policy got followed by combat troops (these civilians you have to leave along, those you may abuse. However, a commissar as a "True Communist" also was expected to set an example: in moronic attacks the commissar went first, and in die-hard defenses the first job of the Communist was never to give up.

German and later NATO propaganda has left us with the impression that commissars stood by with pistols and if some one deviated from the party line, they shot them in their tracks. That did happen in extreme cases in the first year of the war or so,but for most of the war, that wasn't the case.

If the commissar and the CO were on the same wavelength, the commissar would support the CO and cover up his minor mistakes, and try to play the system for more support, for example, Khrushchev standing up for Chuikov at Stalingrad. On the other hand if the commissar had it in for the commander you could have real problems; Solzhenystin is a good example.

One thing to remember was that military success generally made the commander more or less immune to commissars, again especially after the 1942 shift to single command. (i.e., the commissar is officially subordinate to the commander). Katiukov of 1st Guards Tank army was saddled with a real jerk, Popel', but Katiukov kept his command the entire war and when it was all over Katiukov went on to bigger and better things, and Popel' they retired.

The Soviet version of the Gestapo was the KGB. Commissars were different; it was a left-over from the Civil War originally designed to just get the message out about Communism to illiterate soldiers. A commissar might well provide information to the KGB to do in a commander, but the arrests and executions were performed by the KGB (or more exactly, the Cheka.)

[Sergei]

IIRC, in the aftermath of Winter War the commissars were deemed to have been a burden for the Red Army, and the system was disbanded. But again after the German attack the necessity of upkeeping combat morale was seen to be extremely important, with armies surrendering, and it was re-established.

As mentioned in Bigduke's quote, a major part of their work was just to support morale within troops with entertainment, propaganda and such. In this sense they didn't differ from the field chaplains and 'enlightenment officers' (directly translated from Finnish) of other armies.

[Sergei]

One Russian study of the battle of the Mjasnyi Les (in support of the surrounded 2nd Shock Army) in Spring 1942 described how Soviet field officers were having problems with how, when their units were broken by enemy fire, the NKVD and politruks were waiting behind the lines for stragglers and sentencing them to death for cowardice. They had to negotiate for getting their men back so they could continue the attack.

[JasonC]

Most of it is already covered, but the essential is easily stated. A commissar was the party's spy in the commander's HQ. Openly so. His primary mission was simply to issue reports to party higher ups on whether the commander was doing his job. His secondary missions included all the ones already mentioned by others, but his main job was simply to snoop and tattle.

[Krautman]

Thanks, all. Very interesting posts.

[SpitfireXI]

Also it should be mentioned that in mid to late war one of their added functions was to check on the welfare of their troops. Such as making sure they were getting good food and baths and such. Others took it upon themselves to educate some of the soldiers in basic subjects such as reading and even the Russian language for non-Russian troops.