The USSR was one of the first countries to introduce and mass-produce a semi-automatic rifle. It was adopted by the Red Army in the mid-1930s. This new rifle presented several advantages over its bolt-action counterparts since it had a larger magazine capacity and was capable of semi-automatic — and in some cases — automatic fire. The first model of this type in the Red Army arsenal was the 1936 Simonov automatic rifle, also known as the AVS–36. However, due to the complexity and high cost of assembly, it was decided to develop a new rifle.

In 1938, the Tokarev SVT-38 semi-automatic rifle was adopted. It turned out to be much simpler and cheaper to produce and its operational and technical characteristics were higher than those of the AVS-36.

By 1940, with the experience of the Soviet-Finnish War in mind, the rifle was modernized. It featured several changes to simplify production while maintaining the same specifications. In other words, the SVT-40 became the most widespread semi-automatic rifle of the Red Army. Before the war, there were plans to discontinue the production of the Mosin-Nagant and re-equip the entire army with new semi-automatic rifles. The outbreak of the Great Patriotic War put an end to these plans. However, by the beginning of the war, in some regular units the number of semi-automatic rifles was more than half of the total number of rifles. For the German troops, the abundance of such weapons in the Red Army came as a surprise, as the Wehrmacht didn’t have such rifles. This is why, German photos and newsreels often show German soldiers with Tokarevs as trophies.

The SVT-40 had a detachable magazine for 10 rounds of 7.62×54 mm caliber. In addition to the standard infantry version of the rifle, several more versions were developed: a sniper variant with a PU scope was used during the war and an automatic variant with a semi-automatic or automatic magazine. However, throughout the war, only the SVT-40 model was used.