People’s Commissars, Council of

…1941, became chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars, in addition to his general secretaryship of the Central Committee) concluded that a Nazi invasion might be avoided; he felt that in any case an invasion would certainly not be possible in 1941. In spite of intelligence from all quarters that…

…Council of People’s Commissars, or Sovnarkom. The Bolsheviks also had a majority in the Soviet Central Executive Committee, which was accepted as the supreme law-giving body. It was, however, the Central Committee of the Communist Party, the Bolsheviks’ party, in which true power came to reside. This governmental structure was…

…Council of Peoples’ Commissars (Sovnarkom), chaired by Lenin, all of whose members were drawn from the elite of the Party.

In 1932 three People’s Commissariats (for heavy, light, and timber industries) replaced the V.S.N.Kh.; these were further split, and by 1939 the industries of the U.S.S.R. were run by 21 People’s Commissariats (the numbers varied in subsequent years). Each commissariat (renamed ministry in 1946) controlled a branch of…