Sovnarkom
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Sovnarkom (Russian: СовНарКом, fully Совет Народных Комиссаров) was the name of administrative arm of the Soviet governments until 1946 when it was renamed.
Origin and permutations of the name
Sovnarkom was an abbreviation of the phrase "Sovet Narodnykh Komissarov" or the "Council of People's Commissars". In Russian acronyms are often formed by using the first syllable of the words, rather then the more common English language use of the first letter. Thus SNK (Russian: СНК) did find use, but not as much as Sovnarkom.
History
The Council of People's Commissars was formed at the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Soviets on November 8, 1917 with Vladimir Lenin as chairman.
The 1918 Soviet Constitution made the Sovnarkom of the RSFSR responsible to the Congress of Soviets for the "general administration of the affairs of the state." The constitution enabled the Sovnarkom to issue decrees carrying the full force of law when the congress was not in session. The congress then routinely approved these decrees at its next session. (In fact, the Sovnarkom had already exercised governmental authority of the RSFSR since November 1917 after the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets).
After the formation of the USSR, the sovnarkom of the USSR was created under proposals of its Constitution; see Premier of the Soviet Union for the chronology of its chairmen. The Soviet republics retained their own governments which dealt with domestic matters; they were also named Sovnarkom by conventions of their pre-Union legislation.
Renaming
In 1946 Sovnarkom was renamed into Sovmin (Russian: Совмин): the Council of Ministers (Совет Министров - Sovet Ministrov) while the People's Commissariats (sl.: НарКомат, NarKomat) and People's Commissars (sl.: НарКом, NarKom) became Ministers and [[(government department)|]]s.Template:Poli-stub
de:Rat der Volkskommissare he:סובנארקום ru:Совет Народных Комиссаров СССР nl:Raad van Volkscommissarissen ro:Soviet al Comisarilor Poporului sv:Sovnarkom