1940 in the Soviet Union
The following lists events that happened during 1940 in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Incumbents
- General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union — Joseph Stalin
- Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union — Mikhail Kalinin
- Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union — Vyacheslav Molotov
Births
January
- January 11 — Andres Tarand, 10th Prime Minister of Estonia
- January 17 — Mircea Snegur, 1st President of Moldova
- January 18 — Alexander Almetov, Soviet and Russian ice hockey player
- January 27 — Petru Lucinschi, 2nd President of Moldova
- January 30 — Leonid Polezhayev, 1st Governor of Omsk Oblast
February
- February 4 — Yuri Veksler, cinematographer
- February 16 — Nikolai Kondratenko, 5th Governor of Krasnodar Krai
- February 17 — Alexei Fridman, Soviet and Russian physicist
- February 19 — Saparmurat Niyazov, 1st President of Turkmenistan
March
- March 4 — Vladimir Morozov, sprint canoeist
- March 7 — Viktor Savinykh, cosmonaut
- March 8 — Viktor Kalashnikov, 1st Governor of Voronezh Oblast
- March 9 — Larisa Golubkina, actress
- March 16 — Vagif Mustafazadeh, jazz pianist and composer
- March 20 — Igor Ryomin, football player
May
- May 4 — Viktor Getmanov, football player
- May 9 — Inna Gulaya, theatre and cinema actress
- May 15 — Svetlana Svetlichnaya, Soviet and Russian actress
- May 24 — Joseph Brodsky, poet and essayist
- May 28 — Valentin Gerasimov, 1st Governor of Kurgan Oblast
June
- June 8 — Vladimir Semyonov, 2nd Head of Karachay-Cherkessia
- June 13 — Valery Sudarenkov, 3rd Governor of Kaluga Oblast
- June 20 — Lyudmila Marchenko, Soviet and Russian film actress
- June 26 — Vyacheslav Ionov, Soviet and Russian sprint canoeist
- June 28 — Alina Vedmid, politician and agronomist
- June 29 — Vyacheslav Artyomov, composer
July
- July 6 — Nursultan Nazarbayev, 1st President of Kazakhstan
- July 14 — Utkir Sultonov, 2nd Prime Minister of Uzbekistan
- July 19 — Anzor Kavazashvili, football goalkeeper
August
- August 4 — Jamshed Karimov, 5th Prime Minister of Tajikistan
- August 6 — Mukhu Aliyev, 2nd Head of the Republic of Dagestan
- August 15 — Aleksandr Surikov, 3rd Governor of Altai Krai
- August 20 — Musa Geshaev, Chechen poet
- August 31 — Gennady Vasilyev, Soviet and Russian film director
September
- September 14 — Gennady Kuptsov, 1st Governor of Lipetsk Oblast
- September 18 — Lyudmila Davletova, engineer, technologist and stateswoman
October
- October 5
- *Rein Aun, Estonian decathlete and coach
- *Viktor Pavlov, actor
- October 9 — Valery Nosik, actor
- October 18 — Aleksandr Starovoitov, Soviet and Russian security services and academic officer
- October 20
- *Hasan Hasanov, 1st Prime Minister of Azerbaijan
- *Viktor Barannikov, 10th Minister of Interior Affairs of the Soviet Union
November
- November 21 — Natalia Makarova, ballerina
December
- December 22 — Doku Zavgayev, Soviet and Russian diplomat and politician
- December 24 — Saylau Serikov, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the Kazakh SSR
Deaths
- January 27 — Isaac Babel, writer, journalist playwright and literary translator
- February 2
- *Vsevolod Meyerhold, theatre director, actor and theatrical producer
- *Robert Eikhe, politician
- *Mikhail Koltsov, journalist, revolutionary and NKVD agent
- February 4
- *Nikolai Yezhov, Head of NKVD
- *Mikhail Frinovsky, secret police official
- March 10 — Mikhail Bulgakov, writer, medical doctor and playwright
- August 21 — Leon Trotsky, politician and political theorist
- December 2 — Nikolai Koltsov, biologist