The Council of People's Commissars (CPC) (Russian: Совет народных комиссаров (СНК), romanized: Sovet narodnykh kommissarov (SNK)), commonly known as the Sovnarkom (Совнарком), were the highest executive authorities of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), the Soviet Union (USSR), and the Soviet republics from 1917 to 1946.
The Sovnarkom of the RSFSR was founded in the Russian Republic soon after the October Revolution in 1917 and its role was formalized in the 1918 Constitution of the RSFSR to be responsible to the Congress of Soviets of the RSFSR for the "general administration of the affairs of the state". Unlike its predecessor the Russian Provisional Government which had representatives of various political parties, and except for the brief two-party cabinet with the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries from December 1917 to March 1918, the Sovnarkom was a government of a single party, the Bolsheviks. The Sovnarkom of the USSR and Congress of Soviets of the USSR founded in 1922 were modelled on the RSFSR system, and identical Sovnarkom bodies were founded in the Soviet republics and autonomous republics. The Sovnarkom evolved into the main executive of the government of the Soviet Union with its head, the Premier of the USSR, serving as head of government. The Sovnarkom issued decrees having the force of law when the Congress was not in session, and if these decrees were not approved at the Congress's next session, they were considered revoked.
The Sovnarkom was dissolved and transformed into the Council of Ministers in 1946.[1]
The first council elected by the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets in late 1917 was composed as follows. Many early commisars later opposed the party majority organized by Stalin and allegedly conspired with the Trotskyist opposition[2] or some other opposition group, which resulted in their expulsion from the party or being arrested. The party had banned factional opposition groups at the Eleventh Party Congress during 1921.[3] Still, the original council included Left-Communists, Trotskyists and other ex-oppositionists. Most alleged conspirators were executed for treason during the Great Purge, while some had sentences reduced to imprisonment.[4]
Upon the creation of the USSR in 1922, the Soviet Union's government was modelled after the first Sovnarkom. The Soviet republics retained their own governments which dealt with domestic matters.
In 1946, the Sovnarkoms were transformed into the Council of Ministers (Sovmin) at both all-Union and Union Republic level.[1][5][6]