Seems like an interesting similarity to the Soviet 'politruk'[0], a Communist Party official assigned to maintain the political control of the armed forces. A f

Seems like an interesting similarity to the Soviet 'politruk'[0], a Communist Party official assigned to maintain the political control of the armed forces. A familiar example is the politruk who voted to launch nuclear warheads during the Cuban Missile Crisis with his submarine Captain, but First Officer Vasili Arkhipov voted to wait for orders from Moscow. Similar functions also existed in their academic structures, but the official-ness of this order certainly smacks of the politruk. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_commissar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_commissar