 Ryutin was arrested by the Soviet secret police, along with his co-thinkers, in what has come to be known as the Ryutin Affair.He was executed in January 1937 as part of the Yezhovshchina (Great Purge) conducted against political oppositionists and suspected economic "wreckers" and spies.During the final years of the Soviet Union, Ryutin was politically rehabilitated, and his lengthy critique of Stalin and his policies was published for the first time.