The Union of Russian Composers (formerly the Union of Soviet Composers, Order of Lenin Union of Composers of USSR (Russian: Ордена Ленина Союз композиторов СССР) (1932- ), and Union of Soviet Composers of the USSR) is a state-created organization for musicians and musicologists created in 1932 by Joseph Stalin in the last year of the Cultural Revolution and first Five-Year Plan. It became the official replacement for the various artistic associations which were present before like the Association for Contemporary Music and the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians, two of the independently directed, music committees. According to Richard Taruskin, the Union had fully materialized into its full-form well before 1948 and in time for the delivery of Zhdanov's Doctrine.
During the First Constituent Congress of post-Stalin Union of Soviet Composers, held in Moscow, in April 1960, the composer Dmitri Shostakovich was unanimously elected General Secretary.[1]