This article considers the main stages of development of rhetorical genres of the first half of the XX century, starting from the reign of Nicholas II and ending with the political situation of the Soviet period. The study of rhetorical genres of this time period is based on the theory of genre and modern concepts of the scientific school of O.B. Sirotinina. The author investigates the issues of correlation of genres and this historical period, semantics, syntactic, pragmatics of genre, laws of genre forms generation, genre contamination. The classification of genres of the Soviet era is given. The author studies the problem in rhetorical, ethical, political and national aspects.
