Athletics at the 1979 Soviet Spartakiad

The athletics events of the final stage of the 7th Summer Spartakiad of the Peoples of the USSR were held in the Central Lenin (Luzhniki) Stadium in Moscow between 21 July and 29 July 1979.

For the first time in the history of the Soviet Spartakiad, non-Soviet athletes were invited to take part. Miruts Yifter of Ethiopia and Lyudmila Kondratyeva of the Soviet Union were the only athletes to win two individual events; both went on to become Olympic champions in the same stadium the following year.

One world record was broken, by Marina Makeyeva in the women's 400 m hurdles.