The article discusses the novel “A Degree of Trust” by Vladimir Voynovich, published in 1972 within a series of historical novels “Ardent Revolutionaries” launched by the publishing house of the political literature of the CPSU Central Committee. The article investigates the techniques of coded language in the novel (such as the method of incomplete statements, the change of a composition structure, and the transfer of current problems to the past). All these techniques testify to the fact that the novel by Vladimir Voynovich was written in Aesopian language. Aesopian language provides for a "double" reading of the text. On the one hand, it enabled the writer to overcome censorship, on the other, it promoted the dialog with a “privy” reader, expressing his opinion on the current problems.