The central governing board of a Communist Party, in particular that of the old Soviet Union and present-day China.
Originally, it was merely the "Political Bureau" of the Party's Central Committee, a broader group that held the real power, and the Politburo was to make decisions in between meetings of the Central Committee. In 1917, the first five members were V.I. Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Joseph Stalin, Lev Kamenev and Nikolai Krestinsky. Over time, the Politburo became the real power, and under Stalin, the General Secretary (i.e. Stalin himself) became the sole authority.
In the Fifties, Sixties, and Seventies, when the inner workings of the Soviet Union were highly secretive, one of the few public indications of influence was the annual May Day celebration in Red Square. Which Politburo members appeared at the Kremlin and where they stood gave Western analysts some hint as to who was in and who was out.
A political officer assigned to an army unit, to enforce its loyalty and political correctness. During the Russian Civil War, the head of the Red Army, Leon Trotsky, began the system, largely to ensure the reliability of former Czarist officers, whose military skills he needed.
The famous photographs on the lower left show the manipulation of news in Stalinist Russia. The man to the right of Stalin is Commissar Nikolai Yezhov, who fell out of favor, and was liquidated, and his image erased from the photograph. The photo was featured in David King's 1997 book about how totalitarian governments manipulate news.
An authoritative pronouncement, a directive, typically put forth by a totalitarian government or other strict authority.
From late 2003 to late 2008, I ran a blog, mostly about politics, originally with a faux-Communist satirical theme, under the pseudonym The Commissar.
It became too much of a headache to stay ahead of the hackers and spammers on my own hosted site, so I moved it to Blogspot.
I've been focusing on the main site, World War Two and aviation topics. Here are some of the new sections I've added recently:
Added a section on WW2 Health Issues and Risks for US Servicemen
Created pages for WW2 stuff: WW2 movies, WW2 music, WW2 games,
Created a page on WW2 in color photographs
Created a page on WW2 Museums
Added a section on WW2 Weapons
Greatly expanded the Pictures of World War Two section
Re-organized the U.S. Military Medals section
Added several pages about German Medals of WW2
Historical Aviation Photo Archives, picture galleries of WW2 fighter planes, bombers, airfields, etc.
Ships of U.S. Navy in WW2, a large update to this
section, adding a lot of battleships, aircraft carriers, and escort carriers