1966 in the Soviet Union

The following lists events that happened during 1966 in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Incumbents

 * General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union: Leonid Brezhnev (1964–1982)
 * Premier of the Soviet Union: Alexei Kosygin (1964–1980)

February

 * February 3 – The unmanned Soviet Luna 9 spacecraft makes the first controlled rocket-assisted landing on the Moon.
 * February 10 – Soviet fiction writers Yuli Daniel and Andrei Sinyavsky are sentenced to five and seven years, respectively, for "anti-Soviet" writings.
 * February 20 – While Soviet author and translator Valery Tarsis is abroad, the Soviet Union negates his citizenship.

March

 * March 1 - Soviet space probe Venera 3 crashes on Venus, becoming the first spacecraft to land on another planet's surface.
 * March 29 – The 23rd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union is held: Leonid Brezhnev demands that U.S. troops leave Vietnam, and announces that Chinese-Soviet relations are not satisfactory.
 * March 31 – The Soviet Union launches Luna 10, which becomes the first space probe to enter orbit around the Moon.

April

 * April 8 - Leonid Brezhnev becomes General Secretary of the Soviet Union, as well as Leader of the Communist Party of the U.S.S.R.
 * April 27 – Pope Paul VI and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko meet in the Vatican (the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic Church and the Soviet Union).

May

 * May 4 - Fiat signs a contract with the Soviet government to build a car factory in the Soviet Union.

July

 * July 16 – British Prime Minister Harold Wilson flies to Moscow to try to start peace negotiations about the Vietnam War (the Soviet government rejects his ideas).

October

 * October 7 – The Soviet Union declares that all Chinese students must leave the country before the end of October.
 * October 11 – France and the Soviet Union sign a treaty for cooperation in nuclear research.

Births

 * 3 March – Mikhail Mishustin, Prime Minister of Russia
 * 15 August – Marat Minibayev, former Russian professional footballer
 * 17 July - Taras Nahorniak, Ukrainian geographer

Deaths

 * January 14 – Sergei Korolev, rocket engineer and spacecraft designer (b. 1907)
 * March 5 – Anna Akhmatova, poet (b. 1889)
 * May 7 – Usman Yusupov, 7th First Secretary of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan (b. 1901)
 * September 14 – Nikolay Cherkasov, actor (b. 1903)
 * September 19 – Vladimir Fyodorov, scientist and general (b. 1874)
 * October 17 – Zhumabay Shayakhmetov, 4th First Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan (b. 1902)
 * October 28 – Nikolai Belyaev, 8th First Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan (b. 1903)
 * November 14 – Nikolai Ignatov, 6th & 8th Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR (b. 1901)
 * December 19 – Betty Kuuskemaa, Estonian stage and film actress (b. 1879)
 * December 31 – Elena Stasova, Russian Soviet Revolutionary and Old Bolshevik (b. 1873)