The Return of the Commissars

The Russian Army is planning to recreate the Main Political Directorate that existed in the Soviet Army (GlavPUR), according to the Deputy Chairman of the Public Council at the Russian Ministry of Defense, Alexander Kanshin. “The role of the moral and political unity of the army and society is increasing immensely at the time of global informational and psychological confrontation. Therefore, it is necessary to fundamentally reform and significantly strengthen the armed force’s entire [political] structure, which will organize, conduct and be responsible for the moral and ideological aspect of the Russian Army,” Kanshin said (Interfax, February 5).

If true, the rebirth of the Soviet-type GlavPUR seems a likely prospect. The state administration’s return to Soviet practices has become a trademark of Putin’s regime in recent years. The creation of political governance in the armed forces seems to be a logical step when the army has become the most important political instrument of the Kremlin. The authors of the idea to create a special body for carrying out a certain “state policy” among the troops ostensibly proceed from the assumption that such state policy would remain unchanged, just like Putin’s rule has not been replaced for a long time. In fact, this will be another institution aimed at safeguarding Putin’s regime. At the same time, the authors of the idea are ready to ignore the provisions of the constitution stipulating that no ideology can be established as a state ideology and made mandatory.

Ivan Konovalov, director of the Center for Strategic Conjuncture, believes that “patriotism will be put at the forefront” instead of “ideology” (Versia February 13). However, in Russia, the concept of patriotism has acquired a value far beyond just love for the Motherland. The Russian form of “patriotism” is a real ideology that includes Orthodoxy in its most primitive and fundamental version, and faith in the infallibility of the supreme power, both Imperial and Communist. This “patriotism” does not allow for any critical assessment of the history of the country. It is an “ideology” that the new GlavPUR will spread. Almost the entire male population of the country will be doomed to undergo this ideological brainwashing.

We should not forget that GlavPUR was responsible not only for the indoctrination of the Soviet soldiers, but its Eight Directorate was engaged in “special propaganda” aimed to demoralize the troops and civilian population of a potential adversary. A year ago, Vladimir Zhirinovsky offered to revive it. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu responded that “information operations troops have already been created. They are much more effective in what we had previously created in the direction of counter-propaganda. Propaganda should be smart, competent and effective,” Shoigu said (TASS, February 22, 2017). It is possible that these structures, which apparently continue to function today, would join the new directorate.

It would be a mistake to believe that the function of the new GlavPUR would be limited only to the ideological indoctrination of the armed forces. It is no coincidence that Kanshin spoke about a significant increase in the authority of the political directorate. Ideological indoctrination was one of the instruments of political control over the armed forces, the primary goal of the political commissars from the first days of the Red Army. The Soviet GlavPUR had the status of a Central Committee department of the Soviet Communist Party, and it carried out control functions concerning the entire Soviet Armed Forces. The deputy commanders for political affairs (political officers) in the armed forces ruined a massive number of military careers. All those who did not meet stringent standards of morality and ideological loyalty were persecuted and punished. For example, in the case of a divorce, the officer had to go through humiliating proceedings in his unit’s party committee, inevitably receiving a party penalty, which for a long time excluded any promotions. The political officers carefully watched during the endless political lessons during which no one deviated from the strict “party lines.” The officer regularly wrote up their commanders in “political reports.”

There is hardly anyone among those who began their military service in the USSR who holds warm feelings for GlavPUR—and this is almost the entire Supreme command of the Russian Army. However, the creation of an ideological directorate, experts say, promises the creation of new positions for military generals and officers. It is no coincidence that an unnamed source, quoted by RIA Novosti, reminded that the chief of the Soviet GlavPUR had a rank of Army General. According to experts, the deployment of an ideological network in the army, from the company to the military district, will require 6,000-8,000 political officers. It will be necessary to reopen the military-political schools, of which there were more than a dozen in the USSR. Possible costs will amount to at least 100 billion rubles ($1.8 billion). If the government goes to this expense, it will mean that the political control of the armed forces is a priority task for the Kremlin.

Aleksandr Golts was born in 1955. In 1978, he received an M.A. in journalism from the Department of Journalism at the Moscow State Lomonosov University. From 1980 until 1996, he worked with the “Krasnaya Zvezda” (“Red Star”) editorial board, a Soviet and then Russian military daily based in Moscow. In 1996-2001, Mr. Golts served as military editor of “Itogi” (Moscow), a premier Russian news magazine. In 2001-2004, he worked for the Moscow-based magazine “Yezhenedelnyi Journal” (“Weekly”) as deputy editor-in-chief. He currently works as a deputy editor for the website EJ.ru.

This article appeared originally at The Jamestown Foundation's Eurasia Daily Monitor.