1936 in the Soviet Union

Incumbents

• General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union – Joseph Stalin
• Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Congress of Soviets – Mikhail Kalinin
• Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union – Vyacheslav Molotov

  Events

• August 19–24 – Trial of the Sixteen

  Undated

• Stalin's Great Purges begin.
• Second Five-Year Plan underway

  Films

• By the Bluest of Seas – directed by Boris Barnet
• Circus – directed by Grigori Aleksandrov
• Girl Friends – directed by Lev Arnshtam

  Publications

Births

Deaths

• August 22 – Mikhail Tomsky
• August 25 – Lev Kamenev, Grigory Zinoviev and Ivan Nikitich Smirnov