In the military, a political commissar or political officer is a supervisory officer responsible for the political education (ideology) and organization of the unit to which they are assigned, with the intention of ensuring political control of the military.
Kombat, a photo of a Soviet political commissar of the 220th Infantry Regiment calling soldiers to an assault, Eastern Front, in Soviet Ukraine, 12 July 1942
The death of the Political Commissar, 1928 propaganda painting by Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin
Finnish propaganda poster (1939–1940) aimed at Red Army soldiers: "Political commissar: worse than the enemy. He shoots you in the back!"
Leonid Brezhnev (right) in the rank of commissar giving a Communist Party membership-card to a soldier (1942)
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by Leon Trotsky to oppose the military forces of the new nation's adversaries during the Russian Civil War, especially the various groups collectively known as the White Army. In February 1946, the Red Army was renamed the "Soviet Army" - which in turn became the Russian Army on 7 May 1992, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Red Guards unit of the Vulkan factory, Petrograd
Leon Trotsky and Demyan Bedny in 1918
Vladimir Lenin, Kliment Voroshilov, Leon Trotsky and soldiers, Petrograd, 1921
Anti-Polish Soviet propaganda poster, 1920
