The Soviet Top League, known after 1970 as the Higher League (Russian: Чемпионат СССР по футболу: Высшая лига, romanized: Vyschaya Liga), served as the top division (tier) of Soviet Union football championship from 1936 until 1991. Over the years, the league's name has changed several times. Created in 1936, the tier was originally known as "Gruppa A" and was one of four tiers that comprised the Soviet football championship. It was owned and governed by the All-Union Committee of Physical Culture (an institution of the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union). The winner of the competition was honored with the title "USSR Champion" and awarded the All-Union Committee banner.

From its inception to its eclipse, the top tier operated in conjunction with the second tier for most of the time, allowing for participants to exchange between tiers through promotion and relegation. In 1963, a third tier was introduced. Starting from 1971, the full official name was the USSR Championship in football: Top League. An attempt to create an independent league as an autonomously governed business entity or organization during "perestroika" period was denied by the Federation due to the political culture in the Soviet Union.

Although the competition is considered professional, there were no professional (or commercial) sports in the Communist state due to its political stance on that issue. The teams that played in the league were composed of players who, officially, in fiscal books, were employed and paid by the state enterprises or agencies (such as SKA or Dynamo) that the teams represented. Also, players from the state agencies' teams, SKA or Dynamo, held a rank, captain, lieutenant, major, etc. Also, the naming of teams was strictly controlled and had to be approved by the central government. Only after the death of Stalin, teams were allowed to have names associated with their geographic location, due to the Soviet political stance on the national issue. Also, officially, teams represented so-called "voluntary" sports societies, which is a political oxymoron considering the organization of business in the Soviet Union (Voluntary Sports Societies of the Soviet Union).

After the World War II, along with the competition among the first teams, there were also conducted official competitions among reserve squads. It carried the name of "Tournament of the Doubles" (Turnir doublyorov). The reserve squads' competitions were running parallel to the first teams' competitions, normally scheduled a day prior, with relegation rules completely dependent on the league standing of their respective first team.

The Top League was one of the best football leagues in Europe, ranking second among the UEFA members in the 1988–89 season. Three of its representatives reached the finals of the European club tournaments on four occasions: FC Dynamo Kyiv, FC Dinamo Tbilisi, and FC Dynamo Moscow (all in the European Cup Winners' Cup). In the same way Russia politically succeeded the Soviet Union, UEFA considers the Russian Premier League to have succeeded the Soviet Top League.

The league was established on the initiative of head of Spartak sport society, Nikolai Starostin. Starostin proposed to create eight professional club teams in six Soviet cities and hold two championship tournaments per calendar year. With minor corrections, the Soviet Council on Physical Culture accepted Starostin's proposal, creating a league of "demonstration teams of masters" which were sponsored by sport societies and factories. Nikolai Starostin de facto became a godfather of the Soviet championships. Numerous mass events took place to promote the newly established competition, among which there was an introduction of football exhibition game as part of the Moscow Physical Culture Day parade, and the invitation to the Basque Country national football team which was on the side supported by Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War and others.

In 1936, the first secretary of Komsomol, Kosarev, came up with the idea of playing an actual football game at the Red Square as part of the Physical Culture Day parade. Stalin never attended any sports events, but the Physical Culture Day was an exclusion to the rule. The 1936 Physical Culture Day parade was directed by Russian theatre director Valentin Pluchek. For the football game, a giant green felt carpet was sewn by Spartak athletes and laid down on the Red Square's cobblestones. A night before the parade, the rug was stitched together in sections, rolled up and then stored in a vestibule of the GUM department store located at the square. Following the 1936 Red Square game, it became a tradition before the World War II and part of the Physical Culture Day parade event.

In the late 1930s Spartak was giving out thousands of tickets per game to members of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). Among serious football fans was Lavrentiy Beria who proposed to have one team from each of union republics in the league. In July 1937 a conflict erupted following a successful tour to the Soviet Union of the Basque national team during which the main governing body of sports in the country, the All-Union Council of Physical Culture, was accused by the party and Komsomol for failing the sports policy. Spartak's leadership and Starostin in particular were accused of corruption and implementing "bourgeoisie methods" in Soviet sport.