Not "Greater", but "Great" -- and even then, the term "Great Russian" is rarely used: it sounds archaic, and has distinct nationalist overtones. Just plain "Russian" will do.
I would not say that the (Great) Russians always received "preferential" treatment. For example, Stalin was a Georgian, as was his hangman Beria, while other top Communist officials were Jewish (considered a nationality, not a religion), etc. In the early years of Soviet rule, "Great Russian Chauvinism" was condemned (following Lenin), and the regime did indeed encourage the flourishing of non-Russian languages & cultures. In the thirties that changed, but not because of an upsurge of "Great Russian chauvinism", but basically because Stalin could not tolerate any potentially competing centers of power. And so forth and so on.
At the same time, of course the Soviet Union was really only a new version of the Russian Empire. The lingua franca of the new Empire was Russian. So, of course, Russian culture did tend to dominate -- Russian-speaking Soviet culture, I should say, which is a unique hybrid.
In the later years of the Soviet Empire, I would say that ethnic Russians, not surprisingly, DID tend to dominate the government and the military (that is, the officer corps). But to say they "controlled" the government & the military sounds too strong to me, since it seems to imply that an ethnic dictatorship of sorts was involved here, and that is not the case.
jbe
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