Soviet troops did use Thompson submachineguns. In fact, some Soviet troops were issued with the exact Thompson SMG, the Thompson M1928A1, used in this picture. The United States supplied the USSR with Thompsons through Lend Lease. Not to mention, in the early days of World War two, the Russians, as well as the British and French, placed huge orders for Thompsons as it was pretty much the only SMG available to them at the time.



On the Eastern Front, the Thompson was mostly carried by Red Army officers and troops in US lend-lease military vehicles such as half-tracks, tanks, motorcycles, and jeeps. The Thompson was considered standard equipment for certain lend-lease military vehicles being sent to the USSR. Basically, the Americans sent Thompsons to the USSR as part of the "military vehicle" package. And the Russians, needing every gun they could get, used Thompsons and mostly assigned them to soldiers who mostly equipped with lend-lease vehicles and weapons.



Even so, Thompsons were rare in the Red Army, thus the guns are not as visible as the PPSh-41, which itself was a copy of a Finnish submachine gun, used in the Winter War. Not to mention, the Soviet Union discouraged its photographers from taking pictures of Red Army soldiers using American lend-lease equipment. The Red Army's use of Lend-Lease equipment was somewhat embarrassing for the USSR, thus pictures of Red Army soldiers using lend-lease equipment were not highlighted.

