Talk:Commissar

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[edit] Prior Military Use

Can someone provide a reference regarding the Russian usage's derivation from the French military position? Dictionaries I've checked give an etymology based on a German term, Kommissar, meaning "deputy". That's based on the medieval Latin "commissarius", from the Latin "commissus", or "entrusted". Per Etymonline.com, the term dates to 1362 as an ecclesiastic position, "one to whom special duty is entrusted by a higher power"; there's a military usage dating to 1489 which seems to indicate someone with a quartermaster function. I have no information on when the usage might have changed, and which military organizations used it. -- Epimetreus 15:23, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Truth in fiction?

Is there any truth in the fiction relating to commissars being given the authority to shoot fleeing soldiers, as seen in Enemy at the Gates? I've always sorta been under the impression that this rank was not only just a military officer, but also one of political purposes, in which they pushed the communist propoganda, shot traitors, cowards, malcontents, and simply enforced the red agenda above all others.

In many armies the fleeing soldiers used to be shot on the spot. As for Soviets, see Order No. 227. `'Míkka 02:04, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Other Meanings?

I wonder if someone knowledgeable can shed some light on the use of this term to denote a class of intellectuals subservient to the state. It seems Noam Chomsky uses it especially often, when he is deriding the intellectual class of the United States for playing into the interests of power. Obviously this has to do with the bureaucratic role of commissars in the Soviet Union -- but how did it come to describe intellectuals in the service of the state at large? -- Ori.livneh 01:30, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

The American Heritage Dictionary gives the definition "A person who tries to control public opinion", i.e. regardless intellectuals or not. Can you give a quotation? `'Míkka 02:00, 25 July 2007 (UTC)