People's Commissar

From 1919 to 1946, functions of ministers in the government of Russia and, later, the Soviet Union were performed by People's Commissars (Russian title: Narodny Komissar, or Narkom). A ministry was called People's Commissariat (Russian: Narkomat), whose main governing body was the Council of People's Commissars (Russian: Sovnarkom).

Communists wanted to show that their government is a government of workers and peasants. Traditionally, government is a council of ministers nominated by a ruler or by a president. This was a bourgeois institution, in communist thinking. In Soviet Russia, state of workers and peasants, there were no place for such thing. There was no president and no parliament. Revolution gave whole power to local workers, peasants and soldiers councills (soviets). The soviets created an assembly, which elected people's commisars to rule Russia. They were not ministers - nobody nominated them, because there was no president (communists regarded the institution of president as indemocratic, because only one person was a president). They were commissars elected to control ruling in the name of working people. The chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, also elected by Congress of Soviets, had a function of prime minister.

In 1946, Narkoms were renamed into Ministers, as a part of the reorganization of the Sovnarkom into Sovmin.

Related articles

Commissar, Political commissar