Mikhail Zoshchenko was one of the most popular and contentious Russian writers in the period from 1920 to 1950. Scholars and critics have long enlisted Zoshchenko to fight the cultural battles of early Soviet history, the Cold War, and even the glasnost era. In "The Politics of Reception, " Gregory Carleton analyzes how and why Zoshchenko's legacy has become a battleground for competing ideological interests.