USSR's Sovnarkom Transformed Into Council of Ministers

On 15 March 1946, a law was adopted to transform the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR into the Council of Ministers of the USSR, and the Councils of People's Commissars of the Union and Autonomous Republics into Councils of Ministers of the Republics.

The Council of People's Commissars – the government of the victorious Bolsheviks – was formed immediately after the October Revolution according to the decree adopted at the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets. The Council of People's Commissars was headed by Vladimir Lenin. But after thirty years of Soviet rule, the revolutionary rhetoric had become irrelevant.

“The People's Commissar, or a Commissar in general”, Stalin said at the plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on 14 March 1946, “refers to the period of instability, civil war, and revolutionary breakdown... This period has passed. Our social system has proven itself to be very strong... It is appropriate to move from the name ‘People's Commissar’ to the name ‘Minister’”.

The decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the Council of Ministers, issued on 8 February 1947 “On the Organisation of the Work of the Council of Ministers of the USSR” made serious changes. It divided the powers between the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the Council of Ministers. According to the decree, the Politburo was responsible for “issues relating to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Foreign Trade, the Ministry of State Security, currency circulation, as well as the most important issues of the Ministry of the Armed Forces”. For other issues, the approval of the Politburo was no longer required.

The importance of the Council of Ministers in the USSR state system primarily depended on its leader. When Stalin served as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, he often made key decisions alone. With his death, the concept of sole leadership was changed by the collegial one; this resulted in the weakening of the authority of the prime minister.

Source:

Oleg Khlevniuk, “Stalin: New Biography of a Dictator”, 2015