The paper discusses the stages of normalizing Russian spelling from the 1917–1918 reform all the way through to the year 1956 which brought “A Set of Spelling and Punctuation Rules”. It is claimed that the 1930’s was a crucial period as it brought guides to publishing and drafted sets of spelling rules. The paper studies the drafts through the prism of the 1956 final version so as to get a better understanding of baffling questions and to see how the rules entered into the comprehensive academic reference-book released in 2006.