The article is explore the "case" in 1938-1940 of the famous historian Sergei Valerianovich Voznesenskii. Genuine archival materials-investigative case files from the FSB archive for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region-provide reasons for his arrest and circumstances of this scholar’s so-called "confessions" about belonging to a counter-revolutionary terrorist organization, the Leningrad Menshevik Center. The case itself was completely fabricated by investigators from the Leningrad NKVD, who widely used illegal methods of investigation: threats, torture, and the like. Voznesenskii was brought before the court of the Military Tribunal of the Leningrad Military District on September 14, 1939, where he and his “accomplices,” professors S. I. Kovalyov, Ia. M. Zakher, A. N. Shebunin, and others found the courage to resolutely reject their earlier confessions, and on September 15 their case was returned for further investigation. However, because the accused continued to reject their previous testimony, and the