The Ministry, at the all-Union level, was established on 6 July 1923, after the signing of the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR, and was, in turn, based upon the People's Commissariat for Health of the RSFSR formed in 1917.

The main duties of the ministry were to develop and to prepare these for legislation and to maintain a decent level of health organisation in the USSR.

The ministry missariat monitored and supervised the application of standards and measures to improve Soviet health care.

The union ministries, along with the oblasts and the district health departments, were in control of the public hospitals and medicine in their area.

Kaminsky was arrested in 1938 after his speech in 1937 which denounced the ongoing stalinist repression in the country (Great Purge).