Renormalization of N = 1 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories: (I). The classical theory

We investigate the classical N = 1 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories and pay special attention to the search for the most general action fulfilling the Slavnov identity used to define the theory. It turns out that the well-known action of Ferrara, Zumino and Salam, Strathdee represents a special case, our general solution being equivalent to it through a redefinition of the gauge-fixing condition.