The creation and dissolution of the Special Temporary Committee for Science (1922–1924) have already attracted scholarly attention. However, most of the relevant documentation has not yet been introduced into scholarly circulation, and the issue has oft en been examined in isolation from the broader relationship between the Academy of Sciences and Narkompros, and in particular Glavnauka, which has led to certain distortions. The present article reconstructs the context of these events and, by bringing new archival documents into circulation, fills the lacunae created by consideration only of the upper layer of the documentation. The year 1923 marked a turning point in relations between the Academy of Sciences and Narkompros. Narkompros jealously guarded its prerogatives with regard to the Academy’s right to a separate budget and a measure of autonomy in scientific matters. These tensions, and Narkompros’s claims to full power over the Academy, emerged with particular sharpness, when Narkompros and Glavnauka began to challenge the privileges previously granted to the Academy through the Special Temporary Committee for Science. The acute phase of the conflict between the Academy and Glavnauka was settled, in one way or another, in early 1924. The subsequent discussion in the Sovnarkom over whether the Special Temporary Committee for Science should be subordinated to the Sovnarkom of the USSR or that of the RSFSR was likewise rooted in these contradictions. The legal deliberations on transforming this committee into a permanent, all-Union body ultimately led to its liquidation, yet behind the formal objections lay substantive considerations that were not articulated openly. The author argues that these actions formed part of a single political line and possessed a systemic and strategic character. As a result of this policy, the USSR for many years lacked a highly eff ective body for the coordination and executive administration of science on a countrywide scale