Defining the evolution of the ministerial structure and of appointments to ministerial posts in Soviet government proved to be an unexpectedly substantial research task in its own right. There did not appear to be any one definitive listing of posts and their occupants, and the findings shown in this appendix were culled from a variety of official, biographical and scholarly sources. The results can be consulted in conjunction with the indispensable and much more comprehensive work of S. G. Wheatcroft and R. W. Davies on prominent officials in the Soviet Union before 1941.

Below are listed all USSR People's Commissariats and other posts bringing membership of the USSR Council of People's Commissars (the Sovnarkom) on 19 January 1938, and all additional commissariats and posts created between this date and the close of the Great Patriotic War. The starting date of this list relates to information given at the first session of the first USSR Supreme Soviet to be elected under the 1936 ‘Stalin’ Constitution (the term of this first Supreme Soviet was extended after the outbreak of war in 1941, and new elections were not held until 1946).

During this period there were many changes in the structure of government and in official appointments. Posts were created, abolished or renamed. Often the subdivision or merger of big bureaucracies was involved. Also associated with this was a rapid turnover of leading personnel.