Komkor
Soviet military rank
Komkor (Russian: комкор) is the syllabic abbreviation for corps commander (Russian: командир корпуса, romanized: komandir korpusa; lit. 'commander of the corps / corps commander'). It was a military rank in the Red Army and Red Army Air Force of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in the period from 1935 to 1940. It was also the designation for officers appointed to command a corps sized formation.
Until 1940 it was the fourth highest military rank of the Red Army. It was equivalent to corps commissar (ru: корпусной комиссар) of the political staff in all military branches, flag officer 1st rank (ru: флагман 1-го ранга) in the Soviet navy, or to commissar of state security 3rd rank (ru: комиссар государственной безопасности 3-го ранга). With the reintroduction of regular general ranks in 1940, the designation komkor was abolished, and replaced by Colonel general.
History
This rank was introduced by a decision of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union and the Council of People's Commissars, from September 22, 1935.
The new rank structure was as follows:
Command level Brigade X: Kombrig (Brigadier)
Command level Division XX: Komdiv (Division commander)
Command level Corps XXX: Komkor (Corps commander)
Command level Field army XXXX: Komandarm 2nd rank (Army commander 2nd rank – Commander Army)
Command level Army group, Front XXXXX: Komandarm 1st rank (Army commander 1st rank – Front commander)
Marshal of the Soviet Union
A total number of 146 military personnel were promoted to Komkor. However, 59 were purged during the Great Purge. As a result of the reintroduction of the regular military rank system in 1940, one Komkor was promoted to General of the Army (Georgy Zhukov), 51 to Lieutenant general (OF-7), and six to Major general (OF-6).
The public source identifies “Komkor” as soviet military rank. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Komkor, Soviet and military.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 10, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q2619976. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1935 and 1940.
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This entry incorporates text from “Komkor” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.