Army. The political commissars are the representatives of the class will of the proletariat in the army; they are mandated by the party and the military centres. Thereby are determined the mutual relationships of the commissar alike with the military staff and with the communist groups of the division to which he is assigned. The communist group is a section of the ruling party; the commissar is a plenipotentiary of the party as a whole. Thence derives his leading role, both in the army division, and in the communist groups of that division. Thence, likewise, his right to supervise the military staff. He is a political leader who acts as overseer to watch the technical experts performing their duties.
The task of the communist groups is to give to the soldiers of the Red Army clear ideas concerning the civil war, and concerning the need that they should subordinate their interests to the interests of all the workers. A further duty of the members of the communist groups in the army is, by personal example, to display their devotion to the revolution, and to arouse in their fellow-soldiers a desire to emulate this example. The members of the communist groups are further entitled to watch how their own commissar