Political commissar or Kommisar

[Comrade_Stalin]

Does anyone know what one has to do to become a Political commissar or Kommisar. Do you have to be high up in the party?

[A.R.Amistad]

Dear me, what has happened to the learning thread this past week:bored:

[Thirsty Crow]

Does anyone know what one has to do to become a Political commissar or Kommisar. Do you have to be high up in the party?
You have to become an utter asswipe.

But if you were looking for a historical anwer, yes, I believe that high raniking in the Party was a prerequisite for such an honourable position.

[ComradeOm]

But if you were looking for a historical anwer, yes, I believe that high raniking in the Party was a prerequisite for such an honourable position.Depends. 'People's Commissars' were effectively ministers during the early decades of the USSR (and as such represented the Party's top brass) and 'military commissars' tended to have the same rank as the general/officer they were watching, but the term could also be used for any mid-ranking Party official despatched on official business. Particularly in the early revolutionary or civil war days

[Raúl Duke]

During the Soviet Union, did you need a college degree to be a commissar?
Were there commissars at the workplaces, what was their role?
Does Cuba have commissars, and what would they be called (in Spanish)? Would they also need a college degree?

[Comrade_Stalin]

and 'military commissars' tended to have the same rank as the general/officer they were watching, but the term could also be used for any mid-ranking Party official despatched on official business. Particularly in the early revolutionary or civil war days

And what does it take to become any "mid-ranking Party official"?

[Lenina Rosenweg]

And what does it take to become any "mid-ranking Party official"?

I see you've been talking with those career counselors again.

Seriously though, there did seem to be a "career path" in the Stalinist countries. It probably consisted of Komosomal membership in a leading role, party work as an organizer out in the provinces,and gradually working one's way up the hierarchy, with some similarities to the western "corporate ladder".

In the fSU a degree from the prestigious Foreign Affairs Institute or other prestigious institutes could take you far. There was a system of party schools, not the kind with 3 or 4 kegs every night, which trained party workers.

[Comrade Marxist Bro]

What an interesting career question!

Historically, "commissar" could refer to two types of position.

The USSR had the People's Commissars, or cabinet ministers, under Lenin and Stalin. (Stalin eventually changed the title of People's Commissar to Minister -- the original Bolsheviks avoided this term since there had been ministers in the czarist cabinet, and the word just sounded far too bourgeois in 1917.)

The other type was the political commissars (or "politruks"). This was a type of army officer, originally used to help keep Red Army units loyal during the Civil War, and then reestablished for ensuring the army's loyalty during the Stalin era (in the 1930s). The commissar's principal responsibility was effectively to act as a link between the party and the army, as well as boosting the morale of the men as a counselor and organizing ideological activities and basic political education courses for the troops. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politruk) The USSR permanently retained this type of commissar, and still had thousands of poltical commissars in the 1980s, although the commissar's initial authority to act as an "alternative commander" and give his own seprate orders was eliminated in 1942; the political officers were formally renamed and no longer addressed as commissars (the new replacement term was "zampolit" -- an abbreviation standing for "deputy commander for political work"; the umbrella term "politruk" -- an abbreviation simply standing for "political leader" was also used before and after the 1942 changes).

From Stalin's time and onward, the Red Army's political commissars were assigned to their own type of hierarchy (later in the war they were actually given corresponding military ranks, from lieutenant to general). The highest-ranking political commissars were responsible for the political education of entire armies and essentially had a rank equal to that of the Red Army generals -- thus men like Khrushchev and Bulganin ended up with the rank of general, although the operational decisions were made by career army officers like Zhukov, etc. As a matter of course, the highest-ranked of the army's commissars were the high-ranking Party members -- some even members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party.

At the same time, a lot of the lower-level political officers ('commisars') who went off to war in 1941 were guys in their 20s. Naturally, many of them were recent party members. (Even though experienced people with solid party backgrounds were naturally preferable for this type of work, but the only real requirement for the job was being a highly dedicated and loyal communist.)

For instance, the legendary WWII partisan Nikolay Kiselyov (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolay_Yakovlevich_Kiselyov) was made a commissar straight out of college, and many of the junior-level commissars were just your regular rank-and-file Communists in good standing.

My great-grandfather, who'd worked as a Marxist political science instructor at a vocational school in eastern Poland / western Belarus for a bit, but hadn't been a Communist party official, volunteered for the Red Army in 1941 and was assigned as a political officer to a tank brigade.

It was a pretty dangerous job on the Eastern Front: Hitler gave the infamous Commissar Order (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commissar_Order), which stipulated that any commissar who fell into German captivity was to be shot on the spot. The casualties among them in battle were pretty high.

Although sometimes used in other contexts (e.g., an authoritative Soviet writer on drama or literature could be labelled a "cultural commissar" by anti-Communist western sources), the term "commissar" isn't applicable to other areas. There were no "commissars" in workplaces or offices or anywhere else outside the Cabinet positions and the army structure.

[Comrade_Stalin]

I see you've been talking with those career counselors again.

Seriously though, there did seem to be a "career path" in the Stalinist countries. It probably consisted of Komosomal membership in a leading role, party work as an organizer out in the provinces,and gradually working one's way up the hierarchy, with some similarities to the western "corporate ladder".

In the fSU a degree from the prestigious Foreign Affairs Institute or other prestigious institutes could take you far. There was a system of party schools, not the kind with 3 or 4 kegs every night, which trained party workers.

I would like to know form you were I can become a Political commissar or Kommisar as there are no real Political commissar or Kommisar anymore.

Your now the third bass less attack on a simple question on how one becomes a Political commissar or Kommisar. There not a lot of good information out their on what it takes to be one. Are you skilled, are you elected with in the party, are you assigned form someone above? What does it take?

[ComradeOm]

And what does it take to become any "mid-ranking Party official"?Join the CPSU and then do all you can to combat deviationists, wreckers, tailists, and all others fighting for workers' rights

[Fietsketting]

I would like to know form you were I can become a Political commissar or Kommisar as there are no real Political commissar or Kommisar anymore.

Your now the third bass less attack on a simple question on how one becomes a Political commissar or Kommisar. There not a lot of good information out their on what it takes to be one. Are you skilled, are you elected with in the party, are you assigned form someone above? What does it take?

You are awere of the fact that Stalin is dead?

[Dimentio]

You are awere of the fact that Stalin is dead?

I thought it was general knowledge that he's living on the German moonbase together with the Vril and Vishnu?

[Comrade_Stalin]

You are awere of the fact that Stalin is dead?

ever one knows that Stalin is dead. The question is more of a history question then anything else that I would like to be answered with out right wing bias.

[Blackscare]

Your question is a little confusing because you're almost sounding like you want to become one today. Putting things in the past tense if you're talking about historical matters is a good idea.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

I would like to know form you were I can become a Political commissar or Kommisar as there are no real Political commissar or Kommisar anymore.

Your now the third bass less attack on a simple question on how one becomes a Political commissar or Kommisar. There not a lot of good information out their on what it takes to be one. Are you skilled, are you elected with in the party, are you assigned form someone above? What does it take?

I did not mean a baseless attack on your question. As Comrade Marxist Bro said, commissars were officials attached to the Soviet Red army. Political commissars were "political officers" assigned to units to ensure soldiers and officers were politically loyal. Their function was political education and ensuring loyalty.During Operation Barbarossa Hitler issued the notorious "commissar order", all commissars caught by the Nazis would be killed.

The Soviets scrapped the commissar system in 1942. The Chinese People's Liberation Army has political commissars. As I understand they have more of an administrative function than political.

Probably the Cuban Army has a similar system. Perhaps the Venezuelan and Bolivian armies as well.FARC or the Naxalites may have a similar system.

As for how someone became a political commissar, I don't know. Someone who is more knowledgeable in Soviet history may know. The former Soviet Union did have a system of political education. My guess someone distinguishing themselves in the Komsomal would go on to further education at a Party school, such as the University of Virginia.(Sorry, couldn't resist this one)

You placed your question in the present tense, so I'm a bit unclear on your meaning. Do you want to be a Political commissar yourself? You would have to be immersed in an armed struggle somewhere or move to Cuba

[Blackscare]

Probably the Cuban Army has a similar system. Perhaps the Venezuelan and Bolivian armies as well.FARC or the Naxalites may have a similar system.


I doubt the highlighted bit, if only because FARC etc are armed political organization, where every member who carries a gun is by default also a radical. Political commisars were used to keep a regular army of conscripts or volunteers in line, many of which wouldn't necessarily be leftist radicals themselves. Regular armies are often inherited from the previous regime or pieced together from the remnants of the old.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

The Russian language uses the cyrillic alphabet which was derived from a Greek alphabet by Bryzantine missionaries sometime around the 10th century.

This is how the word is spelled in Russian
комисса́р

The word is kommissar in German.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Is it spelled kommisar in Russian? Is the k supposed to be backwards or something?

Kleber did not thank this post.

[Red Commissar]

In the mean time you can go to name changes and declare yourself to the world to be a commissar.

I am a quack commissar.