State Defense Committee

State Defense Committee Государственный комитет обороны
Soviet Union
History
Established	30 June 1941
Disbanded	4 September 1945
Preceded by	None
Succeeded by	None
Leadership
Chairman	Joseph Stalin
Meeting place
Moscow

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The State Defense Committee (Russian: Государственный комитет обороны - ГКО, romanized: Gosudarstvennyĭ komitet oborony - GKO) was an extraordinary organ of state power in the USSR during the German-Soviet War (Great Patriotic War) which held complete state power in the country.

General scope[]

The Soviets set up the GKO on 30 June 1941 (a week after Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941) by a compound decision of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom), and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The war situation at the front lines required a more centralized form of government. The Supreme Soviet, however, continued unsuspended. On 18 June 1942 over a thousand members attended the 9th session of the Supreme Soviet in Moscow.^[1])

Geoffrey Roberts sees the GKO as "a sort of war cabinet".^[2]

Composition[]

The initial composition of the committee was such:

• Chairman - Joseph Stalin
• Deputy Chairman - Vyacheslav Molotov (until May 16, 1944)
• other members - Lavrentiy Beria, Kliment Voroshilov, Georgy Malenkov (Aviation Industry)^[3]

On February 3, 1942 the members of the committee also became the chairman of Gosplan Nikolai Voznesensky and Anastas Mikoyan, while on February 20, 1942 was also included Lazar Kaganovich (Narkom of Transportation). By the end of the war on November 22, 1944 Nikolai Bulganin (Chairman of State Bank Directory) replaced Klim Voroshilov in the committee.

See also[]

• Council of Labour and Defence

References[]

Bibliography[]

• Barber, John, and Harrison, Mark. (1991). The Soviet Home Front 1941–1945: A Social and Economic History of the USSR in World War II. London: Longman. ISBN 0-582-00964-2, ISBN 0-582-00965-0.
• Werth, Alexander. (1964). Russia at War 1941–1945. New York: Carrol and Graf.

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Category: GKO Orders (in Russian)

Further reading[]

Glantz, David M. When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army stopped Hitler. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1995. ISBN 978-0-7006-0899-7 Overview of Eastern Front from Soviet side.

Roberts, Geoffrey. Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939-1953. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006. ISBN 0-300-11204-1 Post-revisionist study of Stalin's wartime and post-war leadership.