This is a study of the politicised critical responses to a popular Russian author by both Russian and Western critics. Mikhail Zoshchenko was one of the most popular and contentious Russian writers in the period from 1920 to 1950. He and his work have been enlisted by many scholars and critics in the former Soviet Union, the West, and Russia today to fight the cultural battles of early Soviet history, the Cold War, and even the glasnost era. In this text, Gregory Carleton analyses how and why Zoshchenko’s legacy has become a battleground for competing ideological interests.