Any case that soviet soldiers killed their own commissars?

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ymzxdh
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Any case that soviet soldiers killed their own commissars?

#1

Post by ymzxdh » 22 Jul 2014, 13:27

Hi, I'm debating with another guy on the internet regarding the issue of commissar and NKVD's roles in WWII. I believe there must be some cases existing that soviet soldiers shot their own commissars/political commanders while the other guy insists that commissar was "a well respected role in the Red Army". So, is there any creditable source I can find to support my guessing?

Dann Falk
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Re: Any case that soviet soldiers killed their own commissar

#2

Post by Dann Falk » 22 Jul 2014, 22:19

Yes, I have read about this many times but I can't find the stories, sorry.

One story that I do remember was from 1943 just before the battle of Kursk. A Soviet rifle division was at the front (southern side of the bulge) and one night an entire company, around 200 men, killed their officers and political commissars and went over to the Germans. After this act, the entire rifle division was withdrawn from the front lines and sent off for punishment and political training.


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John Hilly
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Re: Any case that soviet soldiers killed their own commissar

#3

Post by John Hilly » 23 Jul 2014, 18:16

The most feared person in a Soviet unit was "Delegate of the Special Branch", OO. He was responsible only to his superiors in NKVD, later renamed "SMERSH".

With best, J-P :milwink:
"Die Blechtrommel trommelt noch!"

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Re: Any case that soviet soldiers killed their own commissar

#4

Post by James A Pratt III » 31 Jul 2014, 23:11

During the RCW there were a number of cases where RKKA units killed their commissars and defected. One was the 3rd Petrograd Rifle Regiment. On 29 May 1919 they shot their Commissars and Communists and defected to Yudenich's White forces.

In WW II/GPW when Stalin reduced the power of the Political commissars there were from what I have read a lot of very happy RKKA unit commanders. I think in one IAP the Political Commissar found himself being treated sort of badly by the pilots. They didn't want him to eat in the officers mess any more.

I don't think some of these people were all that popular with the officers. After all they did report on you and one bad report could hurt your career to put it mildly.

SMERSH and the OOs were guys you needed to keep away from at all costs for reasons of health!

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Re: Any case that soviet soldiers killed their own commissar

#5

Post by frcoplan » 01 Aug 2014, 13:35

I think that it is not about the role as such but a lot also depends on circumstances and personality of individual and how much respect or hate will he bring up in people that are under him. Ijust finished a book written by slovene who was enlisted in german army and there are a few cases where he describes how german soldiers got rid of their officers who were unpopular.

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Re: Any case that soviet soldiers killed their own commissar

#6

Post by ML59 » 02 Aug 2014, 06:33

Many armies experienced episodes of open or covert revolt against officers and/or, in general, authorities. For example, by late sixties the morale and discipline in the American Army in Vietnam was so low that thousands of episodes were reported of "unpopular" officers being treated with a grenade launched, at night, in their tent. A new word was invented, fragged, meaning to be treated with a fragmentation grenade. After the war several eyewitnesses told to interviewers that many officers that were deemed by the troops too "zealous" received a shot in the back at the first opportunity, and that was not Soviet Russia!

Back to the Soviet Army, according to many veterans tales I've read, the figure of the political commissar was generally well respected by the front soldiers, because they were keen in taking care of the soldiers morale, psychological and material needs. They were used to mix with the soldiers in the trenches, keeping lectures about the Nazi brutalities, the outcome of the war, the necessity of defending mother Russia, the achievements of the socialist state and so on. Moreover, they were used to read to the soldiers, many of whom were illiterate, newspapers and letters from home and to take care of soldiers' menial needs; actually they played a very useful role in an army that didn't recognize the existence of battle fatigue, depression, home sickness or any kind of psychological disorder.

The NKVD personnel, on the other side, was always much feared and despised by the troops, but those were not "political" soldiers, they were simply a repressive force designed to keep the soviet state free of internal opponents, spies, saboteurs, bandits, anti-soviet elements of any kind.

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Re: Any case that soviet soldiers killed their own commissar

#7

Post by ML59 » 03 Aug 2014, 14:32

About politruks and GlavPUR role in motivating the common soldiers, see also "Why Stalin's soldiers fought", by Roger R. Reese.

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Re: Any case that soviet soldiers killed their own commissar

#8

Post by James A Pratt III » 18 Aug 2014, 22:07

One reason the RKKA had Political Commissars is because during the Russian Civil War the army had large numbers of former Tzarist army officers in it the the Bolshevik regime didn't trust very much but they needed their military expertise. As Trotsky pointed out these Commissars were there to shoot them if they did anything disloyal. The Bolsheviks also took members of the officers families as hostages and they defected the family members were shot. Which did happen on at least one occation. See the "Red Terror in Russia post on this site.

Stalin's USSR was a police state where everyone spied on everyone else. Children were brought up to denounce their parents. There were a number of officers and men in the RKKA during the WWII/GPW period who had either did time in the Gulag or internal excile or both. Many others had friends or relatives who had also been jailed or exciled. There were others who were "Former People". Then there were many who had friends and realtives who were killed by the Communists. In some cases for trivial reasons. Then there was the collectivization of agriculture which killed millions and didn't leave the survivors all that "happy" with the Communists. One should also point out that about half the population of the USSR was non-Russian many of whom really didn't care for Russians Communist or not.

For further reading see:
The Gulag Archipelago A. Solzhenitsyn
Robert Conquests books "The Harvest of Sorrow, The Great Terror ect
Stalin the court of the red Tsar
Bloodlands

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wm
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Re: Any case that soviet soldiers killed their own commissar

#9

Post by wm » 21 Aug 2014, 09:43

The children-snitching-on-their-parents idea was shelved quickly after a few months. The collectivization killed millions, but millions divided by the number of villages in Russia, and by the years of collectivization gives maybe a few deported/killed per year/per village.

In 1941 the collectivization was old news anyway. Millions of those peasants were living in the cities, working in factories, had access to free health care and education (including higher education, many countries don't have those even today), and didn't want to return the rural life that they had left.
If they wanted something, it was a better communism/socialism not the capitalism of the past, nor the new Nazism.

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Re: Any case that soviet soldiers killed their own commissar

#10

Post by PF » 09 Oct 2014, 14:54

Commissar-the regime "Secular" Bishop to the troops?

By the way Trotsky rule on Commissar was that if anyone retreated-the first shot would be the military commander-and the second shot would be the commissar...

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Re: Any case that soviet soldiers killed their own commissar

#11

Post by ML59 » 12 Oct 2014, 18:44

A factor so often overlooked when talking about Soviet Union of the 30s and 40s is that for millions of peasants that were uprooted and relocated or simply repressed, there were millions more that, for the first time in centuries, enjoyed a living standard that was not that of feudal serfdom. The support to bolshevism and Stalin himself was quite widespread and genuine enough among the cities dwellers and the new classes of workers that were the heroes of the socialist state. From the middle of the 20s to the end of the 30s a gigantic internal migration moved millions from the countryside to the old and new cities booming everywhere in Soviet Union at the time, entering in contact for the first time with such luxury such a salary every month, factory canteens, food in adeguate supplies, medical care, free instruction. In the great purges of late 30s the main targets were people involved in politics (party officials, civil servants, military officials) and members of "foreign" communities suspected of unreliability, especially the big Polish community and the Galicians (Western Ukrainians). For most of the rest, the red terror was the rightful action of the young state to defend itself against internal enemies.

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Re: Any case that soviet soldiers killed their own commissar

#12

Post by Art » 12 Oct 2014, 21:50

ML59 wrote:In the great purges of late 30s the main targets were people involved in politics (party officials, civil servants, military officials) and members of "foreign" communities suspected of unreliability, especially the big Polish community and the Galicians (Western Ukrainians). For most of the rest, the red terror was the rightful action of the young state to defend itself against internal enemies.
It wasn't the case actually. Former peasant top class was the most numerous target. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NKVD_Order_No._00447
According to the NKVD own statistics of 937 000 people arrested in 1937 370 000 were tagged as "former kulaks". Plus 97 000 individual and collective farm peasants. For comparison the number of army officers arrested this year was 7 650, NKVD personnel - 3 837. Only some 64 thousands or 7% of arrested were Communist Party members:
http://istmat.info/node/288
The idea that purges were directed against the elite is a myth somehow, most victims were common people.
As for living standards the Soviet golden age was in 20s between the start of economic recovery and the onset of mass collectivization. In early 30s availability of consumer goods including foodstuffs deteriorated very sharply and even some recovery by the end of 30s didn't quite compensate for this. Availability of social services such as education or health care much imporoved compared with pre-Soviet period though.

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Re: Any case that soviet soldiers killed their own commissar

#13

Post by ML59 » 13 Oct 2014, 19:52

There is a difference between the number of people arrested and that of people executed or sentenced to long terms in the Gulag. In those years there were huge numbers of common criminals or petty criminals sent to the labour camps or to prison, even because the Soviet Penal Code introduced or re-introduced a number of petty crimes that were punished with very harsh sentences. Even minor offenses could bring a citizen in front of a court where soviet justice was quickly and "efficiently" served with hundred of thousands of sentences to 5 years or 10 years of hard labour. But, again, this was not always seen by the common citizens as an evil in itself; all along the 30s there was a demand of law enforcement coming from most strata of the population, to fight the plague of banditry, young criminal gangs (very feared), thefts, damage to public property etc.
The same demand resurfaced after the Great Patriotic War, when thousands of young and very young displaced persons roamed all over the Soviet Union living "off the land" at the expense of the population.
The Red Terror was not only aimed against the politically active citizens, even if members of the elite were preferred targets, but mostly against the members of the communities that could represent, in the event of a major European conflict, a fifth column inside the soviet state: Poles and Galicians, mostly. Out of about 650.000 soviet citizens killed during the great purges, about 300.000 were either Poles or Ukrainians. But when the purges gained momentum, any subject deemed politically unreliable could become a target.

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Re: Any case that soviet soldiers killed their own commissar

#14

Post by ML59 » 13 Oct 2014, 20:56

Back to the main topic, I suggest to read the book "Why Stalin's soldiers fought" by Roger R. Reese. It's a well researched and quite well written book that explain why repression methods only, and for sure there was a lot of them in the RKKA, cannot explain the resilience of the Soviet Army as an organization and of soviet soldiers as individuals. Actually, the author's thesis is that motivation rather than repression was the main force behind the stubborn resistance of the common soldier and his dedication to the cause of the socialist motherland. In just a sentence, Mr Reese states that the RKKA of WW2 was a very effective combat force, even if not really efficient; the politruks were just a not negligible part of that hugely successful organization.

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Re: Any case that soviet soldiers killed their own commissar

#15

Post by JKindred » 26 Aug 2016, 17:20

ML59 wrote:Many armies experienced episodes of open or covert revolt against officers and/or, in general, authorities. For example, by late sixties the morale and discipline in the American Army in Vietnam was so low that thousands of episodes were reported of "unpopular" officers being treated with a grenade launched, at night, in their tent.

Thousands? Not hardly, maybe a few hundred at best.
Books: The original search engine.

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