‘How did it happen that the whole of RAPM was left standing alone, while everyone else turned to Comrade Stalin for protection?’ This was the question thrown at members of RAPM, who had been called to attend a special closed session of the Narkompros Collegium on 26 February 1932. What brought RAPM to this point was the so-called ‘Gnesin affair’, when a fight with Vseroskomdram peaked in an open and bitter confrontation with one man who would not retreat – the composer and Conservatoire professor Mikhail Gnesin. A man of strong views, Gnesin retained his independence and refrained from aligning himself with any group during the 1920s. In 1928, for example, we find him opposing Goldenweiser and taking the side of Pedfak (he became its Dean). But later he fought against Rabfak, which had caused a lowering of standards that dismayed him. During the previous year, he had been involved in several highly publicised events. The first was a discussion of his own music at a Conservatoire ‘production meeting’, where he made an unguarded comment: