Lately the quest for first-hand access to historical documents and their independent evaluation has become one of the most important features of the study of Russian history. At the same time, there is a growing understanding that the layers of time conceal from us the history of events, ideas and people, all of which are mutually interconnected yet still distinct from one another. For this reason yet another distinguishing characteristic of recent historical research is the growing emphasis on documents illustrating the daily lives of ordinary people: memoirs, diaries and letters. These sources, in contrast to official documents, are largely free of political concerns or the bureaucratic tendency to please one's superiors. Daily correspondence is especially interesting since it reflects the concerns and meditations of ordinary people. Of course, even such letters-these "snapshots of time"-are extremely subjective. Indeed, popular moods at any given moment depend on many factors, including the personalities of the persons to whom these letters are addressed. But collectively they permit one to understand the concerns, thoughts and moods of the most diverse groups. Listening to this "multivoiced Russia" has become possible with the opening of previously restricted-access archives. In the files of the former Leningrad Party Archive (the St. Petersburg Central State Archive of Historical-Political Documents) I was able to examine letters which the Politkontrol' of the OGPU monitored for the purposes of political supervision and criminal investigation. The "black office" (chernyi kabinet)-special sections at post offices for monitoring correspondence, despite the formal existence of laws protecting the privacy of correspondence-represented a tradition going back to Catherine the Great, one which the Bolsheviks not only continued but even expanded upon. Unfortunately, there are materials only for two years, 1924 and 1925. It can be assumed that the Politkontrol' sent copies of intercepted materials in the strictest secrecy to the Leningrad provincial party committee (gubkom) during these same two years, given that the chairman of the Leningrad Soviet, G. E. Zinoviev, not only was a prominent party official who sat on the Politburo and presided over the Executive Committee of the Comintern but also delivered the political report to the Thirteenth Party Congress in 1924. In any event, every month for these two years, one of the five copies of the "Summaries of excerpts compiled by the organs of the OGPU from monitored correspondence" was sent either to P. A. Zalutskii, Secretary of the Leningrad Gubkom, or to a certain Gusev,