Pompolit

Pompolit, or in merchant navy jargon pompa, was a rank on Soviet merchant and passenger ships as well as other ships sailing outside USSR borders. It is not to be confounded with politruk, which is the equivalent rank in military units.

The difference between "politruk" and "pompolit"

• "Politruk": on Russian "Политрук" is an abbreviation of "политический руководитель" ("political leader" or "political supervisor"), combining "полит+рук" ("polit+ruk")

The Soviet ship's crew members followed the English rules — the ship's captain wields an absolute authority on board. So appointing the authority of a politruk on a ship would violate this rule. During peacetime, the ship's captain would need an assistant-mate and not a leader or a supervisor.

• "Pompolitn": Russian "Помполит" is an abbreviation of "помощник по политической части" ("mate (assistant) for political affairs") or "помощник по политике" ("assistant (mate) in politic"), composed as "пом+по+лит" (pom+po+lit).
• "Pompa": is seamen's jargon referring to the duties of the "pompolit", i.e. to teach and explain Soviet political ideas. This is a play on the russian word for the pump, "помпа" (pompa), alluding that the pompolit is filling up the brains of soviet sailors with the official ideology like a pump.

The pompolit's obligations

The Soviet pompolits were under order to make the crews to conform to the following rules (list not complete):

• No crew member may speak in English to any foreigner except the officers during mooring operations, cargo operations, bunker operations and resupplying the ship. If the cargo officer or master has to speak in English with representatives of the foreign port, the pompolit must attend this conversations.
• The Pompolit's duty was to monitor the moral comportment of all crew members and to write down reports accordingly. The incriminated behaviors would include alcohol abuse, sex, anti-Soviet conversations, attendance at any entertainment deemed immoral while ashore in other countries (like stripteases), etc.
• He had to instruct the crew of politically at least one time per week to reduce and keep under control the crew members' spare time to avoid negative thoughts or actions (like drinking alcohol). The idea behind this practice was: "less spare time — less problems".

Too good knowledge of English for low-ranking sailors could be dangerous. If any crew member would see the pompolit approaching, he would immediately stop conversation with foreigners to avoid a misunderstanding with the pompolit.

The cargo officer had to call the pompolit to attend during his conversations on cargo operations with the chief stevedore. This had to be the case even when the pompolits themselves could not speak English. On one Soviet ship the cargo officer said to another officer:

"What's the reason to attend during the conversations if he does not speak English? I may talk with the chief stevedore about anything including anti-Soviet conversations and the pompolit will understand nothing!"

Mostly the Soviet deck and radio officers including captains spoke English only badly because they were not taught the language properly to avoid collisions of reality with Soviet reality. Engine officers also weren't taught English properly.

The pompolit had to reduce the spare time of crew members, so only two persons in a Soviet crew had a lot of spare time - the ship's doctor and the pompolit.