← 1939 1938 1937 1940 in the Soviet Union → 1941 1942 1943
Decades:	1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s
See also:	History of the Soviet Union List of years in the Soviet Union

The following lists events that happened during 1940 in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.^[1]

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

• May 24 – Joseph Brodsky
• June 28 – Alina Vedmid, politician and agronomist.^[2]
• October 5 – Rein Aun, Estonian decathlete and coach (d. 1995)

Deaths

• January 27 – Isaac Babel
• February 2
  • Vsevolod Meyerhold
  • Robert Eikhe
  • Mikhail Koltsov
• February 4
  • Nikolai Yezhov
  • Mikhail Frinovsky
• 10 March – Mikhail Bulgakov