The following lists events that happened during 1931 in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

• General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union – Joseph Stalin
• Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Congress of Soviets – Mikhail Kalinin
• Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union – Vyacheslav Molotov

• 1–8 March – The 1931 Menshevik Trial is held.^[1]

• 27 April – 1931 Zangezur earthquake^[2]

• 1 January – Anatoli Ivanovich Bogdanov, Olympic shooter (died 2001)
• 17 January – Yury Rudov, Olympic fencer (died 2013)
• 21 January – Tatjana Michaylovna Zacharova, production worker, author and politician
• 22 January – Galina Zybina, Olympic athlete
• 1 February – Boris Yeltsin, first President of Russia (died 2007)
• 2 March – Mikhail Gorbachev, last leader of the Soviet Union (died 2022)
• 13 March – Alisa Aksyonova, museum director
• 23 March – Yevdokiya Mekshilo, Olympic skier
• 29 March – Aleksei Gubarev, cosmonaut
• 7 April – Lyubov Vorona, Ukrainian farm worker and politician (died 2021)
• 27 April – Igor Oistrakh, Ukrainian violinist
• 25 May – Georgy Grechko, cosmonaut
• 25 June – Anatoli Georgievich Vitushkin, mathematician
• 27 June – Anatoli Ilyin, footballer
• 24 September – Mark Midler, Olympic fencer
• 28 September – Emma Yefimova, Olympic fencer
• 1 November – Dmitri Bashkirov, pianist (died 2021)
• 21 November – Revaz Dogonadze, Georgian physicist (died 1985)

• 23 January – Anna Pavlova, Russian ballerina, died in The Hague (born 1881)
• 15 August – Nigar Shikhlinskaya, first Azerbaijani nurse (born 1871 or 1878)^[3]

• 1931 in fine arts of the Soviet Union
• List of Soviet films of 1931