A rifle corps (Russian: стрелковый корпус, romanized: strelkovyy korpus) was a Soviet corps-level military formation during the mid-twentieth century.
[1] When Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, the Red Army initially had some 32 rifle corps headquarters as part of their order of battle in action against the Germans.
[2] The use of rifle corps headquarters never disappeared entirely from the Red Army during World War II, as field armies in areas not fighting the Germans (such as the Far East) maintained their use of rifle corps headquarters during the entire war.
By November 1941, the Soviet order of battle showed only one rifle corps headquarters still active among the forces fighting the German invasion.
Almost all Soviet Rifle Corps were disbanded in the first several months of the war and reformed as the Stavka gained experience in commanding large numbers of forces.