This article deals with the papers by M. A. Leontovich on the subject of thermodynamics and statistical physics. Primary attention is given to the paper entitled ``The fundamental equations of the kinetic theory of gases from the standpoint of the theory of random processes'', which was published in 1935 in \emph{Zhurnal Eksperimentarnoi i Teoreticheskoi Fiziki}, No.~5. This paper is one of the basic works in the modern statistical theory of nonequilibrium processes.