Power and War: The Organization and Activities of the USSR State Apparatus during the Great Patriotic War

The article largely compares the organization and activities of the state apparatus in Soviet Russia and the USSR during the Russian Civil War and the Great Patriotic War. It highlights the peculiarities of what is known as the administrative-command system of government during each of the wars. The author examines the establishment and administration of the top defense institutions, the changes in the structure and functions of the central administrative apparatus, the relations between central and local state bodies and the Bolshevik party organizations. According to the author, the administrative-command system of government created by the Bolsheviks in the course of the Civil War was a significant contribution to the victory of the Soviet state in this war. In the period between the two wars, the administrative-command system was completed with a number of hard centralized control levers spreading in all areas of state and public life of the USSR. At the most difficult time of the Great Patriotic War, despite some mistakes and miscalculations made by the leadership of the Communist party and Soviet state as well as some barbaric methods of that government system, the latter proved fairly efficient for solving military tasks. The party and state leadership once again were inspired by that and continued to use the administrative-command system after the war with no less enthusiasm.