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. Currently, they are funded by the Russian government, specifically the Ministry of Culture, as well as various other state organizations.

Their mission, as stated in 2021, is to contribute to "the moral and ethical education of a modern person." They also stipulate key tenants that the Union are focused on addressing, such as:

The Union of Soviet Composers was originally founded in 1932 at the behest of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the final year of the Cultural Revolution, known as the Josef Stalin's first Five-Year Plan. The official memorandum entitled "On the Restructuring of Literary and Artistic Organizations," published on April 23 of 1932 notes that while there has been significant progress towards in the fields of literature and art to develop and further Socialist ideals, there was still more work that had to be done in order to fully render these two disciplines Socialist oriented. The reasoning for dissolving the disparate Associations and organizations that had existed prior to 1932 such as the Association for Contemporary Music, the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians, the [[All-Union Org. of Associations of Proletarian Writers], and the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers] was that these groups, with their distinct goals and aspirations, were stifling collective progress. This was dangerous, as the development of a socialist nation could only be facilitated if the arts and literature were focused on furthering party messaging. Such splinter groups were charged with "group insulation" and "isolation from political tasks," meaning that their focus was not enough of political education of the Proletariat. Thus, in effort to reign in their influence and centralize control over the arts and literature, they were disbanded and replaced with swift measure.

In 1939, the Union created its first leadership council called the Organizing Committee of the Union of Soviet Composers. This newly instated administrative body, originally created by two composers, the Soviet Ukrainian Reinhold Glière and Armenian Aram Khachaturian, was created as a way to consolidate management of all the separate branches of the Union of Soviet Composers. The original Board included musical luminaries from various musical distinctions, both literarily and performance-based, like M. Arkadiev, composer A. Goldenweiser, V. Gorodinsky, Boyarsky, compose Nikolai Myaskovsky, Sergei Vasilenko, Anatoly Alexandrov, A. Kerin, composer Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov, composer Vissarion Shebalin, B. Shekhter, Viktor Bely, B. Pshibyshevsky, composer Alexander Goedicke, and pianist Konstantin Igumnov.

From April 19 to 25, 1948, the first Constituent Congress was held where, during the proceedings, the governing bodies such as Secretariats and Chairmen were decided and the Charter was officially christened. Elected during the proceedings was the Inaugural Chairman of the Union, that being the Soviet Musicologist Boris Asafiev (1948–1949), along with the first General Secretary, a title belonging to the composer T.N. Khrennikov. During the year, the Board would hold 1–2 plenary sessions, where a Secretariat would be elected who would collectively guide the Union in between sessions and act as the leading force of the Union's affairs. Following the First Congress, they would be held every five years until 1991.

In the late 1950s (1957 to be exact), there was a unanimous decision to create a Union of Soviet Composers that was not tied to the political party and was operated as an independent organization, equivalent in freedoms to their pre-1932 form. Ergo, the previous name was changed to the Union of Composers of the RSFSR and local organizations were then allowed to operate as satellite organizations of the main body, however retaining the localized independence. At the first Constituent Conference of the new Union in 1960, D. Shostakovich was elected as the General Secretary.