Thread by @adam_e_casey, A decree was signed Monday by Putin to establish a political department [...]

A decree was signed Monday by Putin to establish a political department in the National Guard (Росгвардия).

/1

This is in addition to the political directorate established within the regular armed forces in 2018
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-military-politics/in-soviet-echo-putin-gives-russian-army-a-political-wing-idUSKBN1KL1VA
/2

In Soviet echo, Putin gives Russian army a political wing

Vladimir Putin has created a new directorate inside the Russian army to promote patriotism, evoking memories of a Soviet practice that once saw soldiers taught the precepts of Marxism and Leninism by...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-military-politics/in-soviet-echo-putin-gives-russian-army-a-political-wing-idUSKBN1KL1VA

The Soviet Union established a political directorate in the armed forces early on, with political commissars starting in the Civil War (see great work by @bdtaylor_SU on this). These commissars monitored the behavior of officers and reported disloyalty to the party
/3

However, after the collapse of the Soviet Union (and as early as the 1991 coup attempt), the new armed forces of the Russian Federation effectively abolished the commissar system and put these officers under the Ministry of Defense (p. 265)
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511615719
/4

Politics and the Russian Army

Cambridge Core - Russian and East European Government, Politics and Policy - Politics and the Russian Army

https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511615719

Some (half-hearted) reforms to the commissar system had actually started under Gorbachev (see pp. 363-69)
https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300082715/collapse-soviet-military
/5

Probably too soon to tell if this is anything more than an empty shell. Scholars disagreed about whether the extensive commissar system in the Soviet Union really mattered anyway https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674497443
/6

Commissars, Commanders, and Civilian Authority — Timothy J. Colton | Harvard University Press

For six decades the Soviet system has been immune to military rebellion and takeover, which often characterizes modernizing countries. How can we explain the stability of Soviet military politics?...

https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674497443

In my view, commissars were likely more important in the early days of the USSR (when the loyalty of the Tsarist officers was highly suspect) vs. once the regime had built a new army with high party membership. But the secret police probably mattered more.
/7

Moreover, coup fears in Russia are also dealt with by counterbalancing (lots of different security and intelligence services) and, as @bdtaylor_SU has shown, a surprisingly apolitical officer corps
https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414001034008004
/end

Russia's Passive Army: Rethinking Military Coups - BRIAN D. TAYLOR, 2001

Military coups are considered most likely when state political capacity is low and the army's corporate interests are threatened. However, these conditions are ...

https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414001034008004

You can follow @adam_e_casey.

Tip: mention @twtextapp on a Twitter thread with the keyword “unroll” to get a link to it.

Latest Threads Unrolled: