Evening star., 1942-11-06
Red Army Commissors Divide
And Strengthen-Commond
Dual System Hos Stopped Germans,
Despite Opposition by Experts


tary academy. Thus, before serv-
ing in the present war, these middle
and upper-rank commissars had all
had the equivalent of at least six
months or a year at an officers
training camp.
Gwen the war correspondents
of all the big Soviet dailies have
had the kind of military train
ing which war correspondents in
Britain and America have never
had. Russian front reporters
those who are not regular army
officers and on the staff of the
army's Red Star-had to take
two months course in rudi-
mentary officers training with
special instruction in topogra-
ply, strategy, automatic weap-
ons, Notifications, engineering
and such subjects0
So the Red Army has a legion of
commissars who are graduates of
the political-military academy and
who now for 10 months, or year,
or even Is months, have been sit
ting beside and sharing the prob
lens of the military commanders in
the field. They have watched ma
jors, colonels, or generals, act under
the hard impact of immediate mill
tary necessity. They have seen
them when they made mistakes,
but they have also seenethem again
and again when their instinct or
their decisions were right.
And these commissars who have
had this arduous firsthand expert
ence under battle conditions repre-
sent unquestionably some of the
keenest minds and bravest hearts
to be found anywhere in the Soviet
Union. They are the cream OF Rus
sia's initiative and trained intelli-
gence and they know the Russian
soldier as few officers in any army
have ever known their men.
Reservoir Of Officer Material.
1t is difficult to estimate how
far-reaching the Soviet govern
ments decision to transform these
middle and upper rank commissars
into regular officers may prove to
be so far as increased efficiency
and leadership in the Red Army is
concerned. 1t seems conservative,
however, to say that the results can
scarcely fail to be important. These
commissars by their unusual ex-
perience of war and by their ex-
ceptional training in psychological
as we'll as N a host of army prob
lens constitute officer material which
simply cannot be found in such
quality and abundance in any other
country in the world today.
Having seen a fair and certainly
representative sampling of Red
Army commissars along this front,
it is difficult for me to escape the
notion that Stain has stolen a
march on Hitler. Before next spring,
there will be thousands of new Of
ficers in the Russian Army and
they will all be officers who long
ago demonstrated their ability to
lead and command. If they are
captains or majors or colonels. they
will have shared intimately all the
responsibilities of these posts of
command for many months, fire.
quent.y in the front line and under
fire. before taking over command
themselves.
Proof in Results.
Ar,,,v evpor+e ohrooJ b,,o ,e,,ol1@,
denounced the commissar system
because they insisted that dual COM
mand in wartime was unworkable
Whether or not it has been as eff
cient as it might be, the fact re-
mains that under the combined Of
flcer-commissar command, the Red
Army fought and remained intact
for 16 months and inflicted the most
terrific damage upon the world s
nlightiest war machine that any
army has ever done.
But none Of the critics had ever
envisaged the commissar system of
the Red Army as the worlds unique
officers training school of rating
completely under combat conditions.
1t now turns out that this is also
cne of the things which the COM
missar system has been serving as
all these months-and the men who
have been taking this training
course are definitely the best leader
ship material to be found in the
Soviet Union.
The Red Army's commissars are
specialists in a great many things
but especially in the cultivation and
maintenance of the fighting spirit.
From what I know of these alert,
aggressive and intelligent commits
sars, who will soon be majors,
lieutenant-colo and colonels,
scattered from one Russian front to
the other, should say that the Red
Army will be in there fighting for
long time to come-and Hitler's
"Fritzes" will be awfully sick of the
war long before men OF this type
will ever think of quitting, if indeed
they could think of that.
Copyright, 1912, by Chicago Daily News