The Group of Inspectors General of the Ministry of Defense of the Soviet Union (Russian: Группа генеральных инспекторов Министерства обороны СССР), colloquially known as the paradise group, was a body of the Soviet Ministry of Defense established in 1958.
A sinecure position for semi-retired senior officers, the group was eliminated by the 1992 reforms of Marshal Yevgeny Shaposhnikov and its members dismissed.
[1] Due to the lack of a mandatory retirement age in the Soviet Armed Forces, elderly senior officers who wished to avoid retiring or transferring to the reserve were assigned to the group,[2] where they enjoyed full privileges of rank for the rest of their lives without regular duties.
[4] Although the group was theoretically limited to military personnel, two party leaders, Sergey Afanasyev and Lev Zaykov were assigned as consultants by 1991.
[3] This formed part of the official justification for the disbandment of the group, along with the introduction of a mandatory retirement age of 60 for colonel and army generals in the Russian Armed Forces.