The article examines the main stages in the development of the theory of the zero grammatical and word-building morpheme in Russian linguistics, the contribution of I.A.Baudouin de Courtenay to the development of the theory of "zero of linguistic thinking" and the contribution of scientists from the Kazan linguistic school and other scientists to the development of synchronous-diachronic approach to linguistic facts including the theory of zero morpheme (Baudouin's position). Particular attention is paid to the discovery by V.M. Markov of a zero derivational morpheme. The parallelism of form and word formation and inflection is emphasized, as well as the productivity of language models of zero suffixation in modern Russian.