The article studies the development of the Russian-language Soviet translation scholarship in the twentieth century against the background of the political climate and social practices in the Soviet Union. The initial attempt to create a translation theory in the Soviet Union was made with an eye to the existing literary translation practices, which evolved under the influence of socially determined factors, including general orientation of arts and science towards education, the universally implanted principle of primacy of practice over theory, and the requirements of the Socialist realism. The focus on practice created favorable conditions for the application of comparative methodology to the study of existing translations and the wide spread of translation criticism. The groundbreaking work of Andrei Fedorov put linguistics in the focus of translation research and became a turning point in the development of the translation theory. The elevated interest of researchers to the translation theory continued to co-exist with the social requirements, such as the overtly imposed mandatory linkage of theory and practice and the covertly desired methodological orientation of translation studies.