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.

1 Origin and permutations of the name
2 History
3 Renaming
4 References
5 External links

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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 than the more common English language use of the first letter. Thus SNK (Russian: СНК) did find use, but not as much as Sovnarkom.

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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.

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Renaming

In 1946 Sovnarkom was renamed into Sovmin (Russian: Совмин): the Council of Ministers (Совет Министров - Sovet Ministrov) while the People's Commissars (sl.: Нарком, Narkom) and People's Commissariats (sl.: Наркомат, Narkomat) became Ministers and government departments.

The building of the Council of Ministers of the USSR was situated inside the Moscow Kremlin, next to the building of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet.

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