rightfully embraced "quality" architecture. After World War II the "welfare of the masses" fell to an all-time low and Soviet critics adjusted accordingly. They painted modernism as a hostile, subversive influence of the capitalist West that was promptly revealed and suppressed by the party. The reform was effected through the party decrees of the 1930s, starting with the USDS review of the international competition. In the late 1950s and 1960s modernism became the official style of the Soviet state, and recent history was rewritten again to exonerate the party. Soviet theorists argued that the architects of the 1930s abandoned constructivism voluntarily and then forged the new monumental style on their own. The "excesses" of Stalinist architecture were the architects' fault only. The party, which carefully advised the professionals, bears no responsibility for what was actually built. A toned-down version of the same narrative persisted until the 2000s, notably in the works of . Western authors, likewise, did not produce a plausible explanation until the 2000s publications by and Christiane Post. In the late 1990s Dmitry Chmelnizki advanced a different explanation. The competitions were set up by Stalin personally as a complex political provocation. In the opening, self-educational phase, Stalin familiarized himself with all active architectural schools and selected the general direction that would soon become the official style. Then, he artfully degraded the social status and self-esteem of the architectural profession—which was a prerequisite to nationalization. Finally, he destroyed the ties that united the architects into firms, groups and movements. In the end, the former diverse and independent professional community was reduced to a homogenous mass of obedient individuals. Anna Selivanova later published a similar theory. Opponents like Sergey Kuznetsov argue the existing evidence of Stalin's personal involvement is too scarce to make far-reaching conclusions. There are very few transcripts and quotations reproduced in the Soviet media. The protocols of the Politburo and the journals of Stalin's office in the Kremlin contain very few records related to the palace. Chmelnizki, on the contrary, rates the same Politburo evidence as substantial. Kuznetsov says mundane issues like deliveries of firewood mattered more than architectural follies. Apart from a few publicized meetings, there is no evidence that Stalin ever invited architects to the Kremlin. The only architect who had spoken to Stalin regularly was his personal contractor Miron Merzhanov, who remained modernist throughout the 1930s. Yet another hypothesis suggested by Sona Hoisington in