Political workers (also collectively but inaccurately known as ‘commissars’) were an integral part of the RKKA, intended to fulfill one of the army’s raisons d’être—to turn non-politically active and ‘backwards’ peasants and urban workers into ‘new Soviet citizens’ by giving them a basic education of Soviet communism.
In general, all political workers were vaguely charged with the ‘political and moral well-being’ of their unit. So, their major day-to-day tasks were based around ‘party-political work’ (IE dissemination of propaganda), typically meaning to provide lectures and disseminate reading material on socialist theory, much of which soldiers did not understand, nor care about because it took time away from regular military training. They were also in charge of handling applications to join the Communist Party, and Komsomol from their units. However, these responsibilities were often delegated to the unit Party members acting as assistants, especially if there was too much for the political worker to do. However, political workers did so much more than just overt political work, such as starting literacy programmes, organizing entertainment (dances, chess tournaments, film viewings, etc.), and military journalism photography.
At all times, political workers were expected to be able to engage and motivate soldiers with moving speeches. However, the methods used and effectiveness of them were almost totally contingent upon the individual political worker’s disposition, talent, and resources, thus leading to a vast range of views given on them by regular soldiers in their memoirs—almost always on a case by case basis. Some soldiers found their political workers boring and lethargic, repeating speeches from Stalin that they either did not understand on account of the complex political topics and terminology used, or did not believe in.
Others, however, heralded their political workers on account of their oratory skills, with praise by soldiers commonly stemming from how sincere, frank, and to the point some political workers were. Soldiers especially enjoyed hearing retellings of exemplary combat stories that some political workers obtained on their own initiative from soldiers recovering in field hospitals.
All this daily interaction, especially at the lower levels (battalion and below), meant that political workers often knew their unit’s men better than regular commanders and this could lead to discipline issues, especially in battle, if the men did not know the regular commander well. That said, a political worker could be a useful combatant and frontline de facto military commander. There was an expectation of all political workers to rally men to heroic feats in combat, and countless accounts recall how they would lead a charge despite huge suppressing fire, and give impromptu rallying speeches under fire.
The same was true of Party members who were not political workers. Party membership created a social stratification which young people bought into. Many soldiers sought to join the Party before battles and expressed a wish to ‘die as communists’, but not because they necessarily believed in ideology,but because it put them on a special pedestal on which other men, and their families, could look up to them on.
Political workers were not necessarily well-educated communists who could take part in high debates of political science, philosophy, and Marxism like the highest echelons of the Communist Party could. Most were in their late teens and early twenties meaning that they were born into the Soviet system and due to their lack of connection with the Imperial past (and ousted party factions of the 1910s and 1920s), politically reliable, and literate enough, to take up the role.
Whilst many were specially mobilized by the Party to serve as political workers (especially in the mid-1930s, due to a lack of recruits), some others were graduates from regular military commander schools who were cherry-picked to fill gaps in political worker numbers. However, most went to special political worker academies that gave relatively rudimentary training in: fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism, Soviet history & international history, tactical training, topography, military geography, drill, basic firearms handling, RKKA charters, physical fitness, party-political work in the RKKA, and Russian language, with options for extra-curricular activities and classes.
Considering day-to-day roles, some political workers served as a ‘military commissar’, making them joint decision makers with regimental commanders or higher under the doctrine of ‘dual command’. In theory, this gave Party control over high level military decision makers and would prevent Bonapartism because there was a layer of over- sight. However, depending on the disposition of the political worker (IE, whether or not they wanted direct involve- ment in specifically military affairs), and their relationship with commanders, they often rubber stamped military orders. Moreover, especially in the context of the Great Purge, political workers and commanders realized they had to work together to prevent their unit falling apart, thus their loyalty was placed mutually at their command level rather than to their respective military hierarchy.
Whilst military-political academies gave political workers basic military training, they typically did not have the necessary skills to make serious command decisions. This often led to blunders, particularly in 1941 and 1942, when sensible retreat orders given by commanders were countermanded by military commissars. Dual command would be abolished in the fall of 1942, with many political workers being sent to military academies.
A common misconception, stemming mostly from Western Historiography, is that political workers shot deserters, sometimes on sight. Summary execution in the RKKA, like in any contemporary army, was a last resort in absolute emergencies—such as in the worst battles of 1941 and 1942. However, all of the RKKA’s command staff (political workers and regular commanders—collectively, nachsostav) had this ability. The difference is that despite popular notions about political workers today, they in fact regularly defended men against extreme or unfair punitive measures from commanders.
Moreover, there was an entire legal branch of the RKKA whose purpose was to resolve serious breaches of rules and crimes. Serious infractions, including desertion, were usually resolved by transferring the man to a different task and/or different unit. It was in fact chiefly Nazi propaganda that painted political workers as butchers and as well as agents of the purported ‘Jewish-Bolshevik-Masonic conspiracy’ because they understood how useful political workers could be to the morale of the RKKA.
For the record, corporal punishment (both formal and impromptu) was officially banned but still a common practice. Memoirs even suggest that Zhukov was sometimes violent towards his HQ staff in times of crisis. It was not the unique domain of political workers.
Political workers had their own parallel ranks system with unique rank names, although there was not a political worker equivalent for every regular commander rank. The lowest rank, Assistant Politruk, equivalent to Starshina, was created in 1937 for the carrying out of basic political work at the platoon level, or to assist a company level or higher political worker in Party administrative work. However, due to a shortage of Assistant Politruks, regular junior commanders were often subordinated to the role without being given the rank itself.
Junior Politruk was inexplicably equivalent to Lieutenant, and not Junior Lieutenant. Likewise, Politruk was equivalent to Senior Lieutenant (not Lieutenant), and Senior Politruk was equivalent to Captain (not Senior Lieutenant). The equivalent to Major was Battalion Commissar, followed by Regimental Commissar, Divisional Commissar, and so on. However, ranks with ‘commissar’ in them did not mean the bearer was necessarily a military commissar.
Political workers wore uniforms identical to their equiva- lent commanders, except that Komsostav equivalents did not wear gold-bordered collar tabs, but instead kept basic collar tabs as per junior commanders, but with the relevant rank emblems.
