Did Russia ever issue SKS as general purpose rifle for their Military?  I have never seen a picture of Russian military (or any Eastern European miliaty) unit with SKS rifles except their honor guards. I believe SKS rifles were  introduced in 1946 and AK rifles were introduced in 1947 so I don't even understand why Rissia even made SKS rifles.  
     

I'm no expert but from what I can recall from the "Tales of the Gun" show on the AK-47, the SKS was standard issue weapon *soon* after WWII ended.  The AK-47 was named after A? Kalashnikov in the year 1947.  Somehow, the SKS was selected over the AK in 1947, but when the Russian rolled into Hunguary in the 50's, their troops had AK's.  This would indicate to me that the SKS may have been widely used for 5-7 years.

Spambo

Avtomat Kalashnikova 47 :)  It was adopted in either 1950 or around there give or take a year.  Even after the ak-47 became standard issue they still used the sks as ceremonial because it was longer.  Read that in some book.  We all know the popularity of the sks in asia though. ;)

SKS's saw limited use near the end of WWII.  But they were not adopted as a service wide weapon till after the war.  Soon after the AK's replaced the SKS.  They are still used for ceremony (much like the US Army often uses M14s for ceremony when the M16 has been the issued rifle for about 35 years).

I AM NO EXPERT! But here I go.

The Semiautomat Karabiner Simonov [sp] (SKS) was developed near the end of WWII (where it saw limited use in field trials) as a replacement for the Mosin-Nagant series of bolt-action rifles. The weapon was basically a scaled down version of an earlier anti-tank rifle design. One of the design criteria was its use of the 7.62x39mm cartridge adopted in 1943 (yes the cartridge came first!) It was adopted over a Kalashnikov design partly for political reasons. Simonov was more widly known and respected than Kalashnikov. But the bigger reason behind the SKS adoption was that the AK concept was just too great a leap from the Mosin-Nagant to take in one step. The SKS offered many "modern" features (mid-range cartridge, auto-loading action, easy handling, etc.)but retained many traditional (maybe comfortable) characteristics (aimed shots, traditional stock arrangement, "bolt-shaped" op-handle, fixed magazine, perm. attached bayonet, etc.). Furthermore, the SKS was based on a proven design and Red Army troops could be easily trained on the SKS. Remember,  AK reliability was EARNED over many years and lots of battlefield testimony, in 1947 the AK was still an experiment and unproven. The SKS was manufactured and issued by the Russians well into the 50's until the AK was fully accepted.