Council of People's Commissars on War and Navy Affairs (Soviet Russia)

Council of People's Commissars on War and Navy Affairs
Agency overview
Совет Народных Комиссаров по Военным и Морским Делам
All ministry seals of the RSFSR used the RSFSR coat of arms
Formed	8 November 1917
Superseding agency	Revolutionary War Council (Revvoyensoviet)
Jurisdiction	Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
Headquarters	Petrograd, (later in Moscow), RSFSR

Council of People's Commissars on War and Navy Affairs (Russian: Совет Народных Комиссаров по Военным и Морским Делам, Soviet Narodnykh Kommissarov po voyenym i morskim dyelam) was the very first military government agency of the Soviet Russia initially named as the Committee on affairs of War and Navy. The council was created on November 8, 1917 (day after the October Revolution) on the decree of the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Soviets "On creation of the Provisional Workers' and Peasants' Government" which was the name of the Russian Sovnarkom.

The Kornilov Affair sanctioned by Alexander Kerensky which resulted in detention of the Russian Supreme Commander-in-Chief Lavr Kornilov and the Bolshevisation of Soviets also played a major role in establishing of the Soviet military presence. The council gradually overtook the authority of the Ministry of War of the Russian Republic completely changing the defense policy of Russia.

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sorry for subtitles not fit correct... RADIO ADDRESS OF 22 JUNE 1941 BY VYACHESLAV MOLOTOV ASSISTANT CHAIRMAN OF THE COUNCIL OF THE PEOPLE'S COMMISSARS OF THE U.S.S.R., AND THE PEOPLE'S COMMISSAR FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS Citizens of the Soviet Union! The Soviet Government and its head, Comrade Stalin, have instructed me to make the following announcement: Today, at 4:00 a.m., without presenting any claims against the Soviet Union or issuing a declaration of war, German troops have attacked our country, assaulting our borders in many places and subjecting our cities of Zhitomir, Kiev, Sevastopol, Kaunas, and other of our towns to bombing by their aircraft. Air raids by enemy planes and artillery bombardment ... ... were also made from bases in Rumania and Finland. This perfidious aggression against our country ... ... is a treachery without precedent in the history of civilized nations. The attack on our country has been made despite ... the fact of the Non-Aggression Pact between the U.S.S.R. and Germany, ... and despite the conscientious fulfillment ... ... by the Soviet Government of all the terms of this Pact. The attack on our country has been made ... ... despite the fact that the German Government had not ... ... submitted a single claim against the U.S.S.R. ... regarding observance of the Pact during the entire time it has been in force. The full responsibility for this robber attack ... on the Soviet Union falls entirely on the German fascist rulers. At 5:30 a.m., after the attack had already taken place, the German Ambassador in Moscow, von Schulenburg, handed me in my capacity as People's Commissar ... for Foreign Affairs a statement to the effect ... ... that the German Government had decided to declare war on the U.S.S.R. because of the concentration of Red Army troops at the eastern German border. I replied on behalf of the Soviet Government that up to the last minute the German Government ... ... had not submitted any claims against the Soviet Government, that Germany had attacked the U.S.S.R. in spite of the peaceful posture of the Soviet Union, and that therefore fascist Germany indisputably is the aggressor in this affair. I must also emphasize, as spokesman for the Government of the Soviet Union, that our troops and our aircraft have committed ... no violation of the border at any point, and that therefore the announcement made this morning over Rumanian radio, alleging that Soviet aircraft had fired at Rumanian airports, is a complete lie and a provocation, attempting retroactively to cook up incriminating evidence ... against the Soviet Union for alleged non observance of the terms of the Soviet-German Pact. Now, however, that the attack against the Soviet Union has already taken place, the Soviet Government has issued an order to our troops ... to repulse the robber attack and to drive the German troops from our Motherland. This war has not been imposed on us by the German people, nor by the German workers, peasants, or intellectuals whose suffering we can well understand, but by the clique of bloodthirsty German leaders who have enslaved the French, the Czechs, the Poles, the Serbs, Norway, Belgium, Denmark, Holland, Greece, and other nations. The Government of the Soviet Union ... expresses its unshakable conviction that ... our valiant Army and Navy ... and the daring hawks of the Soviet Air Force will discharge with honor ... their duties towards the Motherland and the Soviet people ... and will deal a crushing blow to the aggressor. The Government appeals to you, citizens of the Soviet Union, to rally your ranks ever closer around ... our glorious Bolshevik Party and our Soviet Government. Our cause is just! The enemy will be defeated! Victory will be ours!

Historical background

Per decree "On creation of the Provisional Workers' and Peasants' Government"^[1] the committee was headed by a collegiate of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee (Petrograd VRK) "Field Headquarters" (triumvirate) consisting of Vladimir Antonov-Ovseyenko, Pavel Dybenko and Nikolai Krylenko. Ovseyenko oversaw the Military ministry and internal front, Dybenko headed the Navy ministry, while Krylenko was put in charge of foreign front. However, on the next day the leadership was increased to 10 members, due to organizational complications. The same day (November 9, 1917) Vladimir Antonov-Ovseyenko was placed in charge of the Petrograd Military District replacing at that post Mikhail Artemyevich Muravyov. Together with Muravyov, Antonov was placed in charge of an expeditionary force to the Southern Russia, while the acting Supreme Commander-in-Chief was General Nikolay Dukhonin.

On November 15–16, 1917 new changes took place. The committee changed its name to the Council of People's Commissars on War and Navy Affairs. Originally it consisted of the college of war minister and a leader of revolutionary forces, while later a position of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief was created and by the end of November the Supreme Navy College was added to the council. On November 22, 1917 the Soviet government appointed its own Supreme Commander-in-Chief and overran the Main Headquarters of Supreme Commander-in-Chief (Stavka) in Mogilev when the acting Supreme Commander-in-Chief General Dukhonin was killed by enraged soldiers. The Military People's Commissariat was practically finalized and fully functional on December 10, 1917.

College of War Minister - Nikolai Podvoisky
Commander-in-Chief of revolutionary forces against - Vladimir Antonov-Ovseyenko
Supreme Commander-in-Chief of Army and Fleet of the Russian Republic (November 22) - Nikolai Krylenko
Supreme Navy College (formed on November 27) - Pavel Dybenko

Military revolutionary committees and Voyenka

Key role in establishing the Soviet military presence played military revolutionary committees (VRK) and the Communist Party military organization. The Soviet military majorly was based on its own military organizations of the RSDLP(b) headed by the Military organization at Central Committee, better known as Voyenka (abbreviation derived from Voyennaya Kommissiya).^[2] Upon acquiring a state power the leadership of the RSDLP(b) adopted a decision at the 7th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) on formally disbanding of its military organizations. The military organizations were used to established local military revolutionary committees throughout cities of the Russian Empire and along its frontlines. After establishing a Soviet power in the capital of Russia the council continued to rely on decisions Petrograd VRK leadership and encouraged creation of new military revolutionary committees throughout the former Russian Empire that played a key role in solidifying of the Soviet power. By the beginning of 1918 the number of military revolutionary committees jumped to 220. In the Soviet historiography the role of Petrograd VRK was depicted as a preventative against the counter-revolution (such as the Kerensky–Krasnov uprising) rather than an instigator of revolution.

List of Military Revolutionary Committees of Russia

Petrograd VRK created on October 25, 1917 (existed until December 18, 1917)^[3]
12th Army VRK (Cēsis) created on October 31, 1917 (famous Latvian Riflemen)
Estland VRK created on November 4, 1917
Northern front VRK created on November 4–5, 1917 (until November 8 - Pskov VRK)^[4]
Moscow VRK created on November 7, 1917
Voronezh revkom created on November 7, 1917
Ryazan VRK created on November 8, 1917
Western front and Northwestern region VRK (originally Minsk VRK) created on November 9, 1917
Samara VRK created on November 9, 1917
Tula revkom created on November 9, 1917
Tom VRK created on November 10, 1917
Smolensk revkom created on November 11, 1917
Kiev VRK created on November 11, 1917
Dagestan VRK created on November 21, 1917
Orenburg VRK created on November 27, 1917
Southwestern front VRK created on December 1, 1917
Romanian front VRK created on December 15, 1917
Barnaul VRK created on December 20, 1917
Kharkov VRK created on December 23, 1917
Yekaterinburg VRK
Vinnytsia VRK
Odessa VRK
Simferopol VRK
Sevastopol revkom created on December 29, 1917
Astrakhan revkom created in January 1918
Caucasus Army VRK created on January 10, 1918
Don VRK created on January 23, 1918
Kuban-Black Sea VRK created on January 30, 1918
Semirechye (Seven rivers) VRK created on March 2, 1918

References

External links

Military Revolutionary Committee (Военно-революционные комитеты), Great Soviet Encyclopedia
Revolutionary committees as an extraordinary bodies of the Soviet power (Революционные комитеты (чрезвычайные органы Сов. власти)). Great Soviet Encyclopedia.
Borisov, V.A. Higher bodies of military power of the USSR in 1923 - 1991. "Legislation" magazine. 1996. Archived 2016-01-26 at the Wayback Machine (Высшие органы военного руководства СССР (1923 - 1991 гг.) [Журнал "Правоведение"/1996/№ 2])

This page was last edited on 25 December 2023, at 05:56