The article is devoted to the Leningrad stage of the life of Bakhtin and his closest circle, considered from the point of view of the final solution of the Bakhtin question, more precisely, the first half of this stage: 1924–1926, when the mechanism of Bakhtin’s Publications under the masks of his friends (V.N. Voloshinov, I.I. Kanaev, P.N. Medvedev) was formed. The trigger for the operation of this mechanism is associated with the initiative of Medvedev, who first offered Bakhtin a dubious order from the Russkii Sovremennik magazine, and soon published article “Scientific Salierism” in the Zvezda magazine (No. 3, 1925) under the name “Medvedev”.