The rank of Generalissimo was awarded to several military leaders in the Imperial Russian Army, including for the first time by Peter the Great to Aleksei Shein in 1696, by Catherine I to Prince Alexander Danilovich Menshikov in 1727, to Duke Anthony Ulrich of Brunswick in 1740, and most famously by Paul I to Count Alexander Suvorov after the War of the Second Coalition in 1799.

[1] The first proposal to create the rank of Generalissimo of the Soviet Union came after the Red Army's victory at the Battle of Stalingrad in World War II.

On 6 February 1943, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) received an appeal from employees at a Moscow factory for Joseph Stalin, "a brilliant military leader", to be awarded the title of Generalissimo of the Red Army.

The note stated that "for the outstanding leadership of combat operations of the active Army and Navy, which led to the historic victory over Nazi Germany in the Great Patriotic War", it was necessary "to establish the military rank of Generalissimo of the Soviet Union and to award it to Comrade Stalin".

[2] Stalin soon regretted allowing himself the title, and at the Potsdam Conference asked Winston Churchill to continue to refer to him as Marshal instead.