Commissars

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Political officers appointed to enforce party discipline and ideological loyalty within military units or state organizations ; ministers who once headed the administrative departments of the early Soviet government
2. Party representatives who monitored officers and troops to ensure political reliability in communist-run armies ; senior officials who directed a Soviet people's commissariat as its chief executive
3. Ideological overseers placed in Soviet armed forces and institutions to guarantee obedience to the party ; the top administrators who once led the government's specialized commissariats

Etymology: The plural "commissars" is simply the English plural of "commissar," so the interesting history belongs to the singular. The word reached Russian from German "Kommissar," meaning "commissioner," and German had taken it from Latin "commissarius," a person entrusted with a task. That Latin base comes from "committere," "to commit" or "entrust." The word is a doublet of "commissary," which came into English through the same Latin source but by a different route, so the two English words are cousins that arrived separately. Where "commissary" stayed in ordinary administrative and military use, "commissar" travelled east and gained a sharply political meaning in Russian. When it entered English, it carried that Russian political sense, referring to an official who supervised a unit or institution on behalf of a ruling party, often with authority over the commander. The English word is therefore a borrowing from Russian rather than directly from Latin or German.

Synonyms: commissioners, political officers