Editing Commissar (section)

===Political commissar===
{{Main|Political commissar#Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc}}
In the [[Red Army]], a [[political commissar]] was a high-ranking functionary at a military headquarters who held coequal rank and authority with the military commander of the unit.  The [[Bolshevik Party]] established political commissars in 1918 to control and improve morale in the military forces. Commissars were in charge of communist political propaganda and indoctrinating the public with communist ideology. From 1917 the Bolshevik administration, like the Provisional Government before it, relied on experienced (ex-Tsarist) army-officers whose loyalty it distrusted. [[Leon Trotsky|Trotsky]] summarised the solution to the issue: "We took a military specialist and we put on his right hand and on his left a commissar [...]."<ref>
{{cite book
| last                  = Trotsky
| first                 = Lev Davidovich
| author-link            = Leon Trotsky
| translator               = Brian Pearce
| title                 = How the Revolution armed, Volumes 4-5
| url                   = https://books.google.com/books?id=jexoAAAAMAAJ
| access-date           = 2013-10-16
| year                  = 1981
| publisher             = New Park Publications
| page                  = 125
| isbn = 9780861510030
| quote                 = We took a military specialist and we put on his right hand and on his left a commissar — who was in those days something different from what he is today.
}}
</ref> 
During the early stages of the usage of commissars, no military order might be issued which did not have the prior approval of both the commander and the commissar.

Many lower-level political officers never received the same military training as commanding officers. Prior to becoming a commissar an individual had to be registered as a communist for a minimum of three years and had to attend specific political institutions, many of which never offered any military-oriented training.

Following the problems encountered [[Operation Barbarossa|in 1941]] with dual commanders in units, commissars and other political officers were removed from direct command-roles. Political officers were then more directly tasked with morale- and regulation-based goals. A political officer's classification changed to the form of a "Deputy for Political Matters" in 1942. The specific position of "Commissar" itself survived only at [[regiment]]al and [[Front (Soviet Army)|front levels]], where the Commissars formed the Military Councils with their corresponding military commanders.

Other Communist-bloc militaries also adopted systems of using political commissars. Mulvenon and Yang (2002) report that the role of the political commissar in the [[People's Liberation Army]] (PLA) of China has become one resembling that of an [[human resources|HR]] specialist.<ref>
{{cite book
 | editor1-last = Mulvenon
 | editor1-first = James C.
 | editor2-last = Yang
 | editor2-first = Andrew N. D.
 | title = The People's Liberation Army as Organization
 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=rtO5AAAAIAAJ
 | series = Volume 182 of Conference proceedings (Rand Corporation)
 | year = 2002
 | volume = V 1.0, Volume 1
 | publisher = Rand
 | publication-date = 2002
 | page = 483
 | isbn = 9780833033031
 | access-date = 29 March 2021
 | quote = Some analysts of the PLA believe that professional performance is increasingly important, and that the political commissar's job is increasingly that of a personnel manager and 'human resources' specialist, rather than ideological policeman 
}}
</ref>