State Defense Committee of the USSR

The State Defense Committee of the USSR ( Russian Государственный комитет обороны transcription Gossudarstwenny komitet Oborony · Scientific transliteration (according to DIN 1460). Gosudarstvennyj komitet oborony- GKO) was born on 30 June 1941 a week after the beginning of the Great Patriotic War founded to defend the USSR to organize against the German attack .

composition

The committee initially included:

• Jossif Wissarionowitsch Stalin as chairman
• Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov as deputy chairman
• Kliment Eefremowitsch Voroshilov until November 22, 1944
• Georgi Maximilianowitsch Malenkow
• Lavrenti Pavlovich Beria , deputy chairman from May 16, 1944

There were also:

• on February 3, 1942 Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan
• on February 3, 1942 Nikolai Alexejewitsch Voznesensky
• on February 20, 1942 Lasar Moissejewitsch Kaganowitsch
• on November 22, 1944 Nikolai Alexandrovich Bulganin for Voroshilov

The committee was formed by a resolution of the Central Committee of the WKP (B) and the government of the USSR. Stalin was appointed chairman. The political, military and economic leadership of the USSR was to be concentrated in this committee as the supreme war cabinet. Individual members took over the overall direction of a group of people's commissariats and the existing administrative bodies with related fields of work.

In areas close to the front, the committee maintained local defense committees with executive powers, a "quadrumvirate" consisting of the local party secretary, military commander, representatives of the People's Commissariat for Home Affairs and the chairman of the regional or city soviet (party, military, police and state).

The committee was dissolved on September 4, 1945 through a reorganization of the defense structure.

literature

• Great Soviet Encyclopedia, Volume 50, p. 426.
• Merle Fainsod: How Russia is governed; Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1965.
• John Barber, Nark and Harrison: The Soviet Home Front 1941–1945: A Social and Economic History of the USSR in World War II . Longman, London 1991. ISBN 0-582-00964-2 .
• Alexander Werth: Russia at War 1941–1945 . Carrol and Graf, New York 1964. ISBN 0-582-00965-0 .