Soviet SOVIET MILITARY POLITICAL OFFICER AWARDS

[drewchaneyau]

Good Day Guys....I need some authoritative help! Soviet Political Officers, Political Commissars / politruks etc etc.......has anyone got authoritative information on their insignia of office? I seek help too with the Academy awards. I know that the Lenin Political Academy existed, but have bo definitive example of what their academy awards look like. Can you help? Any help received will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks -Drew, Sydney

[Guest Rick Research]

The special insignia was abolished early in the war following Hitler's "Commissar Order." Large red stars with the hammer and sickle were worn on each forearm until then, and collar tabs (there were no shoulder boards then) were edged with enlisted ranks contrasting color rather than line officers' metallic braid. This can sometimes be awkward identifying in photos if the whole "waist up" isn't shown, since a number of technical specialist officers also wore "enlisted" style collar rank, but without commissar stars on their sleeves.

Here is Air Force Lieutenant-equivalent Commissar (Politruk) Vasily Smiridonovich Betmanov looking like Bruce Willis after a VERY bad hair day, taken in 1938 and attested again by Kharkov Military District Command in 1940:

At first glance he looks like a "normal" Air Force (OK, he DOESN'T look "normal," but let's move on anyway ) officer-- but his collar tabs are not edged in the metallic braid of a "real" officer:

Once shoulder boards were introduced in 1943, there was nothing ... tangible ... to identify commissars, who were re-titled "Deputy Commander of this or that In Charge of Political Matters" etc etc, and with normal military rank titles. But everybody knew who and what they were.

Here is the Military-Political Academy "in the Name of Lenin" (VPA im. Lenina) graduates' badge as number 4 in the center. Only scan I've got ready made is the clump of 'em all together.

These did not exist until the early 1950s. Center device changed when the number of Union Republics was decreased at the end of 1956. Center device is always gilt. The rest of the badge was silver-- Voroshilov Academy (even when unnamed) was entirely gilt.

Badges were granted retroactively along with flimsy paper award documentation for graduates from the years before badges existed.

[Ed_Haynes]

Looking around other threads will yield riches, but a good question.

Example of a forearm star: