M. : Ed. House . Higher School of Economics, 2014. (WP6 Humanitarian Studies Series). 40 s. The formation of the system of scientific certification in the USSR was closely connected with politics and ideology. However, when studying this topic, researchers, both Soviet and modern, as a rule, do not pay attention to the political context, and therefore the overall picture appears in a distorted form. The authors of this work outline possible prospects in the study of the history of the Higher Attestation Commission in 1933-1938. They show that the HAC from the very beginning was conceived not only as a structure that assigns academic degrees and titles, but also as a mechanism for managing science by the state. On the basis of archival materials, first introduced into scientific circulation, the techniques and methods of work of the HAC as one of the links of the state machine of Stalinism are demonstrated.