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State Defense Committee

Powerful body in the Soviet government during World War II

Summary

Powerful body in the Soviet government during World War II

Field	Value
agency_name	State Defense Committee
nativename	Государственный комитет обороны
logo	Coat of arms of the Soviet Union (1936–1946, printed version, FireBrick).svg
logo_width	140
logo_caption	All ministry seals of the Soviet Union used the USSR coat of arms
formed	30 June 1941
preceding1	Defense Committee
dissolved	4 September 1945
jurisdiction	USSR
headquarters	Moscow, Russia
chief1_name	Joseph Stalin
chief1_position	Chairman
chief2_name	Vyacheslav Molotov
chief2_position	Deputy Chairman
parent_agency	All-Union Supreme Soviet

The State Defense Committee () was an extraordinary organ of state power in the Soviet Union during World War II with complete state power in the country.

General scope

The Soviets set up the GKO on 30 June 1941, a week after Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, by a joint decision of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, the Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom), and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The war situation at the front lines required a more centralized form of government. The Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, however, continued unsuspended. On 18 June 1942, over a thousand members attended the 9th session of the Supreme Soviet in Moscow. Compare: Handbook on the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union: "Верховный Совет СССР, сессии [:] I созыв [:] всего 1143 депутата, 569 в Совете Союза и 574 в Совете Национальностей [...] 18.6.1942 [:] IX сессия (Москва)"

Geoffrey Roberts described the GKO as "a sort of war cabinet".

Composition

The initial composition of the committee was such:

Chairman – Joseph Stalin
Deputy Chairman – Vyacheslav Molotov
Members – Lavrentiy Beria (State Security), Georgy Malenkov (Aviation Industry), Kliment Voroshilov

On 3 February 1942, Nikolai Voznesensky and Anastas Mikoyan were added as additional members of the committee. On 20 February 1942, Lazar Kaganovich was added. On 16 May 1944, Beria replaced Molotov as deputy chairman. On 22 November 1944, Nikolai Bulganin replaced Voroshilov as a member.

References

Bibliography

Barber, John, and Harrison, Mark. (1991). The Soviet Home Front 1941–1945: A Social and Economic History of the USSR in World War II. London: Longman. , .
Werth, Alexander. (1964). Russia at War 1941–1945. New York: Carrol and Graf.

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

state-committees-of-the-soviet-union 1941-establishments-in-the-soviet-union 1945-disestablishments-in-the-soviet-union military-history-of-the-soviet-union-during-world-war-ii

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