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Cartography Workshop of KazNKZ (Kazakh People's Commissariat)

Картографическая мастерская КазНКЗ

Cartography Workshop of KazNKZ (in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic) produced maps and paper ephemera and was a large printing operation. The People's Commissariat was the manager of the workshop. The Commissariat was an executive structure first used in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) to manage economic and industrial activities. This structure was later used in the union and autonomous republics of the USSR. People's Commissariats also managed sectors of the national economy. For example, there was the People's Commissariat of Finance, the People's Commissariat of Internal Trade, the People's Commissariat of Agriculture, the People's Commissariat of Defense, and so on. By 1920, there were seventeen People's Commissariats and by the Second World War, over thirty. Commissariats were headed by a People’s Commissar. According to historian Jonathan Smele, the title "commissar" was first used in October 1917 in lieu of using the title minister for members of the Council of People's Commissars. The People's Commissariat was abolished in 1946 when it was transformed into a ministerial structure.

Sources & Citations

Smele, J. (2015). Historical dictionary of the Russian civil wars, 1916-1926. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
Kim, M. P., Kuleshov, V. (1982). History of the USSR: The era of socialism. Moscow: Progress Publishers.
Book publishing in the USSR: Reports of the delegations of U.S. book publishers visiting the U.S.S.R. October 21 - November 4, 1970, August 20 - September 17, 1962. (1971). Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
Conquest, R. (1968). The Soviet political system. New York: Praeger.
Stipp, J. L. (1956). Soviet Russia today: patterns and prospects. New York: Harper. (1946 ministries)