Sovnarkom

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Sovnarkom (Russian: СовНарКом, fully Совет Народных Комиссаров) was the name of the administrative arm of the Soviet government until 1946 when it was renamed.

Contents

1 Origin and Variants of the Name
2 History
3 Renaming
4 References
5 See also
6 External links

Origin and Variants of the Name

Sovnarkom was an abbreviation of the phrase "Sovet Narodnykh Komissarov", or the "Council of People's Commissars." In Russian, acronyms are often formed by using the beginnings of the words, rather than single initial letters. Thus, SNK (Russian: СНК) was used, but not as much as Sovnarkom.

History

From 1919 to 1946, the 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), and the country's main governing body was the Council of People's Commissars (Russian: Sovnarkom).

Communists wanted to create a government of workers and peasants. Traditionally, a government is a council of ministers nominated by a ruler or by a president. The communists saw this as a bourgeois institution, and wanted to organize things differently in a workers' state. After the October revolution, political power was held by councils (soviets) of workers, peasants and soldiers. The Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets (1917) introduced and elected the first Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom) to manage Russia in the name of working people. The Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, also elected by the Congress of Soviets, had a function similar to that of a prime minister. The first Chairman of Sovnarkom was Vladimir Lenin.

The 1918 Soviet Constitution made the Sovnarkom of the RSFSR responsible to the Congress of Soviets for the "general administration of the affairs of the state." The constitution enabled the Sovnarkom to issue decrees carrying the full force of law when the congress was not in session. The congress then routinely approved these decrees at its next session. In fact, the Sovnarkom had already exercised governmental authority of the RSFSR since November 1917 after the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets.

In 1946, under Stalin's rule, the Commissars were renamed Government Ministers, as a part of the reorganization of the Sovnarkom into Sovmin.

After the formation of the USSR, the Sovnarkom of the USSR was created under proposals of its constitution; see Premier of the Soviet Union for the chronology of its chairmen. The Soviet republics retained their own governments which dealt with domestic matters; they were also named Sovnarkom by conventions of their pre-Union legislation.

Renaming

In 1946, Sovnarkom was renamed as Sovmin (Russian: Совмин): the Council of Ministers (Совет Министров - Sovet Ministrov) while the People's Commissars (sl.: Нарком, Narkom) and People's Commissariats (sl.: Наркомат, Narkomat) became Ministers and government departments.

The building of the Council of Ministers of the USSR was situated inside the Moscow Kremlin, next to the building of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet.

References

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External links

[Building of the Council of Ministers of the USSR] - satellite photo