Leonid Leonov is one of the outstanding Russian writers, a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, a Hero of Socialist Labor, and a Lenin Prize laureate. His novels “Sot,” “Skutarevsky,” “Russian Forest,” and “Road to the Ocean” entered the golden fund of Russian literature. The novel “The Thief” was written in 1927; in a new edition by L. Leonov, the novel appeared in 1959. In the psychological novel “The Thief,” the atmosphere of the NEP era is recreated, the appearance of Moscow’s outskirts in the 1920s, and the everyday life of the petty bourgeoisie, criminals, and circus performers is shown. Narrating the fate of former Red commander Dmitry Vekshin, the writer raises many important problems of post-revolutionary Russian life.