“She was unusually good,” contemporaries said about her.
Huge gray-green eyes, sensual mouth and fiery temperament.
"It was some kind of miracle," friends of Inessa Armand recalled.
Nobody could resist her charm.
Among the vanquished is the Bolshevik Party, almost in its entirety, headed by its immortal leader.
At the end of December 1909, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin) and Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya,
his faithful wife, moved to Paris.
It was here that the great revolutionary was destined to meet Inessa Armand.
This "Russian Frenchwoman" left a deep heart scar in the soul of the Bolshevik leader.
Krupskaya could not but know that strong feelings seized her forty-year-old husband.
According to another fiery revolutionary Alexandra Kollontai,
Krupskaya was aware of their relationship and knew that Lenin was very attached to Inessa,
and repeatedly expressed a desire to leave.
Lenin held her back.
Inessa Armand was the daughter of French actors Natalie Wild and Theodor Stephan.
At the age of fifteen, together with her sister, she came to Russia to her aunt,
who gave music and French lessons to the wealthy Armand family.
The head of the family, Evgeny Evgenievich Armand, was the owner of forests, estates,
tenement houses in Moscow, factories in Pushkino.
Coming from France, they warmly welcomed Inessa and Rene Stefan,
appeared in their family with an aunt-governess.
Inessa Armand in 1890
Inessa married the son of a merchant of the 1st guild, the owner of the trading house "Eugene Armand with sons"
Alexandra Armand.
The happy and prosperous wife of Alexander Armand was imbued with the ideas of her husband's brother -
Vladimir, who had some revolutionary views.
Moreover, he turned out to be closer to Inessa, not only in looks, but also in feelings.
They passionately fell in love with each other.
Noble Alexander let go of his beloved wife with four children,
and she settled with her new husband at Ostozhenka in Moscow.
Soon they had another child - son Vladimir.
Vladimir Sr. soon ended up in prison for his revolutionary views,
where she met her husband, who had already crossed there.
Two weeks after her arrival, Vladimir Armand died.
Inessa, having stoically survived the blow, moved to Paris, where she wanted to "get to know the French
socialist party."
Inessa said that physical attraction is often not associated with heartfelt love.
She said - this was in 1920 - that in her life only once these two feelings coincided -
in relation to Vladimir Armand ...
So, in 1910, she met Lenin.
Perhaps that is why Krupskaya believed that "the most difficult years of emigration had to be spent in Paris."
But, to Krupskaya's credit, she did not stage petty-bourgeois scenes of jealousy and was able to establish
friendly relations with a beautiful Frenchwoman.
She answered Krupskaya in the same way.
Armand, in the apt expression of A.I., Solzhenitsyna, having become "Lenin's girlfriend", accepted the rules of the game of "three".
She was able to show friendly feelings to the wife of a loved one.
Lenin was not alien to passions, hobbies, intimate experiences.
This, for example, is evidenced by a letter from Armand to Lenin from Paris to Krakow:
“... We parted, we parted, dear, with you! And it hurts so much.
I know, I feel, you will never come here!
Looking at well-known places, I was clearly aware, as never before,
what a big place you occupied in my life, that almost all the activities here in Paris,
was a thousand threads connected with the thought of you.
I wasn't in love with you then, but even then I loved you very much.
I would do without kisses now, and just to see you, sometimes talking to you would be a joy -
and it wouldn't hurt anyone.
I got used to you a little.
I so loved not only to listen, but also to look at you when you spoke.
Firstly, your face is animated, and secondly, it was convenient to look at,
because you didn't notice it at the time. I kiss you hard. Your Armand.
Letters (and there were many) more than eloquently testify to the true character of
relations between Inessa Armand and Vladimir Ulyanov.
Lenin's letter to Armand
Biographers consider the beginning of their romance in the spring of 1911,
when the socialists finally managed to set up a party school near Paris in the village of Longjumeau.
Krupskaya was a great conspirator.
For the sake of the victory of the revolution, she was ready for anything.
If Lenin was destined to fall in love with Inessa Armand and this helped the cause of the revolution,
Nadezhda Konstantinovna was ready to rise above the narrow-minded notions of love,
marital fidelity and their own feminine pride.
Everything was subordinated to the great idea.
In the spring of 1912, the Ulyanov couple gathered in Krakow, closer to Russia.
Hastened to Poland and Inessa. She became the shadow of the family ...
When Armand was not around, Lenin wrote letters to her.
Perhaps he wrote as many letters to few people as Inessa. Sometimes these were multi-page messages.
After arriving in Russia, "into the revolution"
(Inessa, of course, was with the Ulyanov family in the famous "sealed carriage" in the same compartment),
Lenin, captured by the whirlwind of events, met with Armand less often than abroad.
But the revolution quickly tore the strength not only of Lenin, but also of his beloved.
Inessa ardently took up any business that the party leaders entrusted to her.
In her diaries, Inessa, not long before her death, wrote:
“...Now I am indifferent to everything. And most importantly, I miss almost everyone.
A warm feeling remained only for the children and for V.I. In all other respects, the heart seemed to have died out.
As if, having given all his strength, his passion to V.I. and the cause of work, the sources of love have dried up in it,
sympathy for the people with whom it used to be so rich.
I don't have any more, except for the V.I. and my children, any relationship with people, but only business ...
I'm a living corpse, and it's terrible"
Lenin met with the “Russian Frenchwoman” less and less.
He no longer belonged to himself, he belonged to the great cause of the revolution.
True, Vladimir Ilyich wrote Armand's notes quite often:
inquired about her health and her children, sent food, bought her galoshes,
sent a personal doctor to the Arbat to treat the sick Inessa ...
Lenin's note to Armand during her illness
She wanted to go to her native France, at least for a while to escape from the embrace of the revolution and restore
wasted strength.
I called Lenin, but he was busy and answered with a note in which he feared that she would be arrested in Paris,
and advised to go south, "to Sergo in the Caucasus."
Armand followed his advice.
Could Lenin have known that, having dissuaded Inessa from going to France, he would send her there,
where will she meet her death?
A month later, a telegram arrived:
“Out of line. Moscow. Central Committee of the RCP. Council of People's Commissars. Lenin.
Comrade Inessa Armand, who fell ill with cholera, could not be saved. The period ended on September 24
We will transfer the body to Moscow Nazarov.
Armand, on the advice of Lenin, first went to Kislovodsk, but it was not safe there - there were many gangs,
and she moved to Nalchik.
On the way, she contracted cholera.
It is likely that Lenin experienced painful hours after receiving the fatal news.
Sergo Ordzhonikidze reported a couple of days ago that Inessa was fine.
Lenin's shock was enormous.
Lenin was unrecognisable. He walked with his eyes closed and it seemed that he was about to fall.
She believed that the death of Inessa Armand hastened the death of Lenin: he, loving Inessa, could not survive her
care. Inessa made two triangles in her confusing and turbulent life: love and revolutionary.
Result and outcome love triangle she expressed in a letter to her ex-husband
and friend of her life, Alexander Armand:
“I only now fully understood how I was spoiled by life, how I used to be surrounded by people,
who are close to me, whom I love and who love me.
And when I thought about how unbearably hard it became for me when I found myself completely alone,
while so many people are lonely all their lives, I even felt embarrassed in front of myself.
Last photo of Inessa Armand
Comrade Inessa Armand was buried near the Kremlin wall with all honors.
At the funeral, at the grave of Armand, Lenin and Krupskaya affectionately hugged the children of Inessa Armand.
It was.
The line about this is a simple statement of fact.
But this cordial, parental embrace between Lenin and Krupskaya continued all the years.
While Vladimir Ilyich lived. While Nadezhda Konstantinovna was alive.
Caring for Inessa's children has become a constant for them, no, not an obligation, but a spiritual need. ...
At the end of the winter of 1920, Lenin visited the Chaika rest house more than once.
and Ivankovsky highway near Moscow.
He visited the eldest daughter of Inessa, Inna, and the youngest son, Andryusha, who were there.
He was interested in their health, delved into the details of life.
When pilot-observer Fyodor Armand had friction and misunderstandings with the commissar of the military unit
In which he served, Lenin sent a telegram.
Here it is: “The observer pilot of the 38th squadron, Fedor Aleksandrovich Armand, is personally known to me,
credible, although he is a former officer and non-communist.
I ask the comrades of the Red Army and the commissars not to suspect him.
A telegram was sent to the Minsk provincial military commissar, and a copy of it was sent to the provincial party committee.
And signed: "Pre-Soviet Defense Lenin."
“The children of Inessa Armand turn to me with a request, which I zealously support:
1) Can you arrange to plant flowers on the grave of Inessa Armand?
2) The same - about a small slab or stone?
If you can, please drop me a line through whom (through which institutions or establishments) you did this,
so that children can additionally apply there, check, give inscriptions, etc.
If you can't, drop it too, please: maybe you can order privately?
or maybe I should write somewhere, and do you know where?
After the death of her husband, N. Krupskaya continued to patronize the children of Inessa,
and also saved her first husband Armand-Alexander from repression, who outlived everyone and died in 1943.
Inessa gave birth to 4 children from Alexander Armand, and the fifth, Andrey, from Vladimir Armand.
Inessa Armand with children
Interest Circle website
Inessa Armand
Inessa Armand
The question of whether the relationship between Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and Inessa Armand was a passionate love or an ideological kinship of souls has not yet been resolved. In recent years, most journalists do not deny that the possibility of the former is not excluded.
Inessa and her sister Rene were born into the family of opera singer Theodor Steffen and actress Natalie Wild. Inessa Elizabeth, the eldest, was born on May 8, 1874 in Paris. The father died, the girls grew up a little and ended up with their aunt in snowy Moscow. A woman, in order to feed two orphans, gave music lessons and foreign languages, so there is nothing surprising in the fact that Inessa and Rene were fluent in Russian, French and English and also played music.
Since childhood, both sisters were in the house of the Russified Frenchmen Armand. The trading house "Eugene Armand and Sons" owned a large factory in Pushkin, where 1200 workers produced woolen fabrics for 900 thousand rubles a year - a huge amount for those times. In addition, the honorary citizen and manufactory adviser Yevgeny Armand had, in addition to this, several more sources of income. So it was, apparently, destined by fate, both Steffen sisters began to bear the surname Armand: at the age of 19, Inessa married her son Eugene, Alexander, Rene - Nikolai. The financial situation of the family allowed the girls not to deny themselves anything, but, oddly enough, they chose the thorny path of the revolutionary struggle.
Inessa gave birth to four children to Alexander Armand and suddenly left her husband for his brother, Vladimir Armand. They were united not only by love, but also by a common cause - social democracy. Vladimir, as it turned out later, was the bearer of revolutionary ideas, but not a fighter, so Inessa had to act for two. She actively participated in meetings, rallies, publications of illegal literature. Because of her anti-state activities, Inessa ended up in Mezen, from where she fled in 1909 to her Vladimir, who had moved to Switzerland by that time. However, the happiness of the united couple was short-lived: the terminally ill Vladimir died in her arms.
Heartbroken, Inessa had no choice but to go headlong into revolutionary activities, becoming one of the most active figures in the Bolshevik Party and the international communist movement. The name Armand first sounded loudly during the revolution of 1905. In 1915-1916, Inessa participated in the work of the International Women's Socialist Conference, as well as the Zimmerwald and Kienthal conferences of internationalists. She also became a delegate to the VI Congress of the RSDLP (b).
In 1909, Inessa had a historic meeting with Vladimir Ulyanov in Brussels. He was 39, she, a mother of many children, was 35, but her appearance still attracted men. Social Democrat Grigory Kotov recalled: “It seemed that life in this man was an inexhaustible source. It was a burning fire of revolution, and the red feathers in her hat were like flames. Now it is difficult to say what attracted Vladimir Ulyanov to Inessa Armand, but from that moment their close cooperation began. He liked her favorite theory that marriage hinders free love. True, in 1915, when she introduced this postulate into the draft "women's" law and offered it to Lenin for consideration, he crossed out "free love" without hesitation.
What connected the leader of the world proletariat and the ardent revolutionary? According to one version, only a general understanding of the ideas of socialism, according to another, a common bed, a painful passion. Adherents of the second version refer to one of Armand's letters addressed to Ilyich and published only in 1985: that almost all the activity here was a thousand threads connected with the thought of you. I wasn't in love with you then, but even then I loved you very much. I would do without kissing even now, just to see you, sometimes talking to you would be a joy - and it could not hurt anyone. Why was it necessary to deprive me of this? .. "
Little is known about the first three years of communication between Lenin and Armand. The French socialist and Bolshevik Charles Rappoport testified that they often talked for a long time in a cafe and Lenin did not take his eyes off the little Frenchwoman. Armand herself described her feelings at the very beginning of their acquaintance: “At that time I was afraid of you more than fire. I would like to see you, but it seems better to die on the spot than to enter you, and when for some reason you went into the room of N.K. (Nadezhda Konstantinovna), I immediately got lost and became stupid. I was always surprised and envied the courage of others who directly came to you, talked to you. Only in Longjumeau and then the following autumn, in connection with transfers and other things, did I get used to you a little. I so loved not only to listen, but also to look at you when you spoke. Firstly, your face is so animated, and secondly, it was convenient to look at, because at that time you did not notice it.
In the pre-revolutionary years, Armand spent a lot of time in the Lenin family, about which Krupskaya wrote repeatedly in her memoirs. She reported about Inessa's stay in Krakow in 1913: “We, all Krakovites, were terribly glad to see her coming ... In the fall, we all became very close to Inessa. There was a lot of some kind of cheerfulness and ardor in her. Our whole life was filled with party cares and affairs, more like student life than family life, and we were glad to Inessa. She told me a lot about her children, showed me their letters, and somehow warmly emanated from her stories. Ilyich, Inessa and I went for a lot of walks… Inessa was a good musician, she persuaded everyone to go to Beethoven's concerts, she herself played many of Beethoven's pieces very well. Ilyich constantly asked her to play ... "
Lenin, Krupskaya and Armand were returning from Switzerland to Russia in the same compartment of the famous “train to the revolution”. Lenin settled in Petrograd, and Inessa settled in Moscow. Their intensive correspondence did not stop. A Lenin note dated December 16, 1918, addressed to the commandant of the Kremlin, Malkov, has been preserved. "T. Malkov! Giver, comrade. Inessa Armand, member of the CEC. She needs an apartment for 4 people. As we spoke today, you will show her what is available, that is, you will show the apartments that you had in mind. Lenin.
At the beginning of 1919, Inessa, on behalf of Lenin, traveled to France as part of the Soviet mission of the Red Cross to work with the Russian Expeditionary Force. After some time, Ilyich, worrying about her health, sent Armand to heal and rest in the Caucasus. But under the southern sun it was unsettling. Near the sanatorium where Inessa was resting, there was an incident with shooting, and Lenin decided to evacuate her. On the way home, Inessa contracted cholera and died in Nalchik. In the Caucasus, Inessa began to keep a diary. Here is one of the last entries: “I used to approach each person with a warm feeling. Now I am indifferent to everyone ... A warm feeling remains only for the children and for V.I. ” The downcast Ilyich with the obliging Krupskaya met the train that brought to Moscow a lead coffin with the body of Inessa.
It is hardly possible to find another document of Lenin that has been subjected to such cuts by Soviet censors as his letters to Armand. During the years of the First World War, Lenin did not send as many letters to anyone as Inessa. After the death of Lenin, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party adopted a resolution requiring all members of the party to transfer all letters, notes and appeals to them from the leader to the archives of the Central Committee. But only in May 1939, after the death of Krupskaya, Inessa's eldest daughter, Inna Armand, decided to archive Lenin's letters to her mother.
Letters published in different years, even with cuts, indicate that Lenin and Inessa were very close. Recently, an interview appeared in the press with Inessa's youngest son, the elderly Alexander Steffen, who lives in Germany, who claims that he is the child of Ilyich and Inessa's love. He was born in 1913, and 7 months after his birth, according to him, Lenin placed him in the family of an Austrian communist. And the grandson of Rene Steffen, Stanislav Armand, lives in Riga. His daughter Karina, according to relatives, is like two drops of water similar to Inessa.
Not so long ago, a film was shown on British television, the author of which is a well-known English specialist in Russian, a professor at the University of London, Robert Service. This documentary says that in 1924 Nadezhda Krupskaya offered to bury Lenin along with the ashes of his beloved Inessa Armand.
Nadezhda Konstantinovna, according to Service's theory, was aware of her husband's relationship with Inessa Armand, which began in 1911 in Paris, who filed for a divorce from a Frenchman, from a marriage with whom she had two children. Until 1915, Krupskaya tolerated her husband's betrayal and then delivered an ultimatum - either she or Inessa. Lenin chose Krupskaya, explaining this act as a commitment to the "cause of the revolution" and "everything that strengthens it."
The scientist builds his theory again on the letters of Armand, in which she begged Lenin to return: "It will not be worse for anyone if we are all three again (meaning Krupskaya) together." In response, Lenin first asked her to forward all her correspondence, and then ... returned to Inessa. Somewhat later, the leader of the revolution authorized the transfer of the Women's Department of the Central Committee of the Party under the leadership of Armand.
Krupskaya was so struck by Lenin's intemperance, the author claims, that she undertook a series of trips away from Moscow and Petrograd - to the Volga region. The death in 1920 of Inessa Armand was a harbinger of Lenin's severe brain disease. The disease progressed so quickly that Krupskaya not only forgot all the grievances against her husband, but also fulfilled his will: in 1922, the children of Inessa Armand were brought to Gorki from France. However, they were not allowed to see the sick leader. The last noble gesture of Krupskaya, who recognized the great love of Lenin and Armand, was her proposal in February 1924 to bury the remains of her husband together with the ashes of Inessa Armand. However, Stalin rejected the proposal.
This text is an introductory piece.“I’ll bailiff 2 of the police unit.
Exiled to the city of Samara for belonging to the St. Petersburg working group of the RSDLP, the wife of a hereditary honorary citizen, Elizaveta Fedorova Armand, arrived in Samara on April 20 and stayed at the National Hotel. I suggest that you put Armand under open police surveillance and immediately report everything you see behind her to me ”(Fig. 1, 2).
(Central State Archive of the Samara Region - TsGASO, F-465, op. 1, case 2565, case 3)
Exiled Bolshevik
Here is an order from the Samara police chief V.V. On the morning of April 20, 1913, Kritsky sent a bailiff subordinate to him for execution, on whose territory the National Hotel mentioned above was located (Fig. 3).
By the way, this building still stands in the same place where it stood at the beginning of the 20th century - at the corner of former Saratovskaya and Panskaya streets (now Frunze and Leningradskaya streets). And to settle in this hotel, fashionable even by the standards of the capital, the exiled Bolshevik Armand was allowed in connection with her very high public title - "the wife of a hereditary honorary citizen."
At the same time, in a short certificate filed with a recently declassified case from the archives of the Samara Provincial Gendarmerie Administration (SGGU), it is reported that not a penny was allocated from the treasury for her stay at the National. All hotel bills were then paid by her ex-husband- Moscow manufacturer Alexander Evgenievich Armand, who at that time had own enterprise for the production of woolen fabrics, and was also a co-owner of the Evgeny Armand and Sons trading house. However, even the influence of this major Moscow businessman was not enough then to save his wife, even the former, from exile in a remote Russian province. This is how, in April 1913, a short but very eventful Samara period began in the life of this extraordinary woman, about whom, in the post-perestroika period, our press spoke, perhaps, more than about any other participant in the revolutionary events in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century.
Official encyclopedic reference. Armand (née Steffen) Inessa (Elizaveta) Fedorovna, leader of the Bolshevik Party and the international communist movement. She was born in Paris on April 26, 1874. When registering the birth, the girl was given a double name - Inessa-Elizaveta. Parents are theater actors Natalie Wild and Theodor Stefan (Steffen). Having lost her father early, she moved with her aunt to Moscow, who worked as a governess in the house of Armand manufacturers. Subsequently, she married A.E. Armand. She was fluent in French, English, German, Polish and Russian. Member of the RSDLP (b) since 1904. For belonging to the RSDLP, she was repeatedly arrested and exiled. In the period up to 1917, as a representative of the RSDLP (b), she participated more than once in international socialist conferences. Translated into French a number of works by V.I. Lenin. Letters to V.I. Lenin to Inessa Armand, which are of great historical, party and scientific interest, were published in the Complete Works of V.I. Lenin. After the February Revolution of 1917 she returned to Russia, in October 1917 she participated in the preparation of an armed uprising in Moscow. After the October Revolution, she occupied a number of responsible party and Soviet posts, actively participated in the work of the Second Congress of the Comintern, and collaborated in the journal Kommunistka (pseudonym - Elena Blonina). She died on September 24, 1920 from cholera in Kislovodsk, where she went for treatment at the insistence of V.I. Lenin. She was buried in Red Square in Moscow.
Here it is necessary to say a little about other details from the life of Inessa-Elizaveta that were not included in the encyclopedias. As already mentioned, in 1893 she married Alexander Armand (Fig. 4),
She gave birth to four children, but did not continue to live with him. When the children grew up, the young woman was imbued with the revolutionary ideas of her husband's brother, Vladimir, whom Inessa, leaving Alexander, remarried. The young family settled on Ostozhenka Street in Moscow, where Inessa gave birth to their fifth child. After that, following Vladimir, she also became interested in underground revolutionary work, contriving to manage the household and educate her children at the same time. As a result, in 1904 she joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, after which she actively participated in the events of the First Russian Revolution. For belonging to the RSDLP (b), Armand was arrested and in September 1907 sentenced to exile in the city of Mezen, Arkhangelsk province, from where she fled the following October.
Inessa returned illegally to Moscow, and soon the Armands managed to go to France with their children through Finland (Fig. 5),
where in early 1909 Vladimir died unexpectedly of transient tuberculosis. Living in Paris with children, despite everyday difficulties, Armand continued to engage in party work. And at the end of December 1909, a significant meeting of 35-year-old Inessa Armand with 39-year-old Vladimir Lenin took place in Paris (Fig. 6).
Biographers consider the spring of 1911 to be the beginning of their much closer acquaintance, when the socialists managed to set up a party school in the village of Longjumeau, near Paris, and Armand came here as a teacher.
Having become a person close to Lenin, Inessa also showed friendly feelings towards his official wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya (Fig. 7),
which, oddly enough, responded to her in return. Therefore, it is not surprising that in the spring of 1912, when Lenin and Krupskaya moved to Krakow, Armand ended up there almost immediately. Officially, she was here on the instructions of the party to organize underground party work in the central provinces of Russia. After staying next to the leader for more than three months, in June of the same year she went to St. Petersburg with the passport of the Polish peasant Franciska Jankiewicz. However, the peasant woman from the wife of the manufacturer, apparently, came out bad, because in September 1912, during the next check of documents, Armand was exposed and ended up behind bars.
“I chose Samara as my place of residence”
The investigation into her case dragged on until spring, and during more than six months in a prison cell, Inessa's tuberculosis worsened - the consequences of a year's residence in the Far North affected. Now, in connection with the escape, the revolutionary was threatened with a much more difficult exile - to one of the Siberian provinces. Only thanks to a very large bail for those times in the amount of 5400 rubles, made by Alexander Armand, the verdict in her case, announced by the court of justice in March 1913, turned out to be surprisingly mild. Even taking into account Armand's belonging to the RSDLP (b), she "due to her state of health" was given the opportunity ... to choose the place of exile herself.
Here is what is said about it in archival documents.
"Ministry of Internal Affairs. Department for the protection of public safety and order in St. Petersburg. April 5, 1913
St. Petersburg. Secret. Samara police chief.
The Police Department, by its attitude of March 19, No. 54481, notified that, upon reconsideration of the circumstances of the case, the wife of a hereditary honorary citizen, Elizaveta Fedorova Armand, who was brought to formal inquiry at the St. in the Arkhangelsk province, the city of the Minister of Internal Affairs decided: to allow Armand, in view of her painful condition, to serve the remaining term of public supervision, instead of the Arkhangelsk province, in the chosen place of residence, but outside the capital and metropolitan provinces.
To this, the Police Department added that information about exactly when, depending on the time spent on the run, the remaining period of open police supervision of Armand expires, will be additionally reported ... Upon the announcement of the above decision, Armand chose the city of Samara as her place of residence, where dropped out with a passing certificate for No. 8142.
(TsGASO, F-465, op. 1, file 2565, file 1).
By the way, it is worth saying that Alexander Armand, paying such a huge amount of bail for Inessa and actually buying for her the opportunity to serve the exile in more or less comfortable conditions, at the same time he perfectly understood that he would not receive this money back. Knowing the freedom-loving character of his former wife, the manufacturer had no doubt that at the first convenient opportunity she would run away abroad and from this new exile. That's how it ended up happening.
Here it is necessary to note one more circumstance, on the explanation of which historians will have to work. In Soviet times, in numerous biographical literature dedicated to Armand, the episode about her departure to the Samara province is mentioned everywhere only in passing, literally with just one phrase: “She spends the spring and summer of 1913 with her family, going to koumiss in Stavropol-on-Volga, improve your health." However, this is only a half-truth, and also mixed with factual inaccuracies. The fact is that nowhere in the Soviet official literature for some reason it was not said that in April 1913 Armand went to the Volga by no means of her own free will, but was deported here by a court decision under the open supervision of the police in the rank of a state criminal, which is precisely and can be seen from the above document. In addition, she first arrived in the provincial center of Samara, and not in Stavropol, and at the same time she traveled alone, and not at all accompanied by her family, as previously indicated everywhere in numerous publications.
You can learn about all this from the questionnaire filled out by Armand in the office of the assistant bailiff of the 2nd police unit of Samara, which is now also in her declassified personal file and is stored in the State Archives of the Samara Region. This document is so curious that it is worth quoting it almost in its entirety, with some comments. Moreover, in each paragraph, the first phrase is the question of the questionnaire, and the second phrase is the answer to it by Inessa Armand.
“List about being under public police supervision. Liter A.
1. Name, patronymic and title. Wife of hereditary honorary citizen Elizaveta Fedorova Armand.
2. Place of the motherland. City of Paris.
3. Religion. Orthodox.
4. Summer. 37 years.
5. Literacy or place of education. Home education.
6. Was she under trial or investigation. Under the court and the investigation was not previously. (Note of the assistant bailiff: Armand refused to give information on this matter).
7. Whether he is married, and if so, with whom. Married - husband Alexander Evgenievich Armand, 40 years old, comes from hereditary honorary citizens (at that moment the marriage between Inessa and Alexander Armand was officially annulled - V.E.).
8. Does he have children, and if he has, then their names and years. Children: Alexander 18 years old, Fedor 17 years old, Inna 14 years old, Varvara 12 years old. And Andrey, 9 years old.
9. Does he have parents and whom exactly, their summers and place of residence. Father died. Her mother, Natalya Petrovna Stefan, is about 60 years old, lives in Moscow - she does not know the exact address.
10. Does he have siblings, their names, years and place of residence. Sister - Anna Fedorovna Zhurina, married - lives in St. Petersburg, does not know the exact address. Has no brothers.
11. Whether someone from her family follows him to the place of expulsion and who exactly. No.
12. If the family does not follow her, then where will she live after her expulsion. Family in Moscow - can't give exact address.
13. Does it have its own means of subsistence and what are they. Lives at the expense of her husband.
14. Knows what kind of craft. No.
15. How until now she has earned her livelihood, both herself and her husband. She lived with her husband, who served in Moscow at the Armand factory - the director of this factory.
16. Whether the parents have any condition. The mother lives on personal funds left after her husband.
17. By what order and for what public police supervision was established. By order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for belonging to the St. Petersburg working group of the RSDLP.
18. The term of supervision and from what time it should be considered. The period of supervision and from what time will be reported additionally.
19. Where she was sent or supervision was established in her place of residence. In the city of Samara.
The information was collected by the assistant bailiff Sacheva.
(TsGASO, F-465, op. 1, case 2565, case files 7-9).
The regime of open police supervision, under which Armand was in our city, assumed her daily appearance at the 2nd police unit to note that the person under supervision had not escaped anywhere and was still on the territory of the station. However, in the future, in the course of strict adherence to this formality, Inessa's freedom-loving nature fully affected. Despite the fact that the police unit was literally a block from the National Hotel, Armand managed to violate the established regime several times during April-May 1913, for which, of course, she was punished.
At least twice during the indicated period, after she did not appear for a mark for several days in a row, the supervised drive was taken to the assistant bailiff, where she was left all night in the local “monkey house” along with others, as they would now say, administrative offenders from the lower classes. And once the obstinate Armand for the same violation was forced to serve more than a day in the cell of the provincial prison, after the police squad detained her during a country walk. As a memento of this stay of Inessa in the Samara "Crosses" in her personal file there were two pictures taken by a prison photographer - in front and in profile (Fig. 8).
“I left for koumiss in the city of Stavropol”
Only one person could mitigate the regime of stay under supervision in our city - the Samara governor N.V. Protasiev. Of course, already on the first day of her stay in the Volga city, Armand turned to a high-ranking official with such a request, which Protasyev informed V.V. Cretan the following:
"Urgently. Secret. Samara police chief.
Consisting under public supervision in the mountains. Samara, the wife of a hereditary honorary citizen, Elizaveta Fedorova Armand, applied to me with a request for permission to leave for the summer for treatment with koumiss in Stavropol or Bely Yar.
Encountering no obstacles to the satisfaction of Armand's petition, I inform Your Excellency about the announcement of this Armand and the adoption of dependent orders. Tell me about the time of Armand's departure and return arrival to Samara.
(TsGASO, F-465, op. 1, case 2565, case files 15-16).
Here, according to the dates preserved on this archival document, one can trace the slowness that causes eternal criticism, with which our bureaucratic bureaucratic system has worked at all times. From the office Samara Governor the letter cited above was sent on April 24, 1913, and only on May 2 did the stamp of the office of the Samara police chief appear on it. On the table to Lieutenant Colonel V.V. It got to Crete two days later, after which the following resolution appeared on the governor's message: “I entrust the bailiff of the 2nd part of the mountains for immediate execution. Samara. May 4, 1913." According to the registration stamp, the letter got to the bailiff's office on May 6, and the very next day Armand wrote the following on it with her own hand: “On May 7, 1913, order No. until you decide. El. Armand. The supervised woman thought about the exact route of her trip for more than ten days, after which a certificate appeared in her file, copies of which the bailiff of the 2nd police unit sent to the higher authorities: “Reference. On May 16, Armand left the National Hotel for the city of Stavropol, Samara Province.
While Inessa was being treated with koumiss on the banks of the Volga, her ex-husband continued to beat the door at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, seeking to reduce the term of exile for his revolutionary-minded wife so that she could "quickly return to her family and children." The fact that Alexander eventually succeeded in doing this is evidenced by a letter sent on June 29, 1913 by the Samara police chief addressed to the Stavropol district police officer. It said that, according to the decision of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, “a certain deadline for the end of open police supervision for the wife of a hereditary honorary citizen, Elizabeth Fedorova Armand, expires on August 6, 1913.” However, the police official's message came a little too late. According to available evidence, the Bolshevik Armand, without waiting for her issue to be resolved in high offices, somewhere in mid-June of the same year, disappeared from Stavropol in an unknown direction. And already in early September, Inessa showed up in Krakow, where an expanded meeting of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) headed by V.I. Lenin. Strange as it may seem, N.K. Krupskaya on this occasion left the following phrase in her memoirs: “We Krakovites were terribly glad to see her coming…”
Here it is worth mentioning the ending of the story with the pledge money, which, as Alexander Armand foresaw, did not return to him again. The first hearing of the case on the expiration of the exile of his ex-wife on the return of Armand's bail was scheduled in the St. Nevertheless, the hearing of her case was postponed several times, and only on September 21 did the judicial chamber adopt the following definition: “The accused did not appear and did not provide explanations about the reasons that prevented her from appearing.” The chamber's decision turned out to be quite logical: "The pledge amount of 5,400 rubles should be turned into treasury income."
"The death of Armand hastened the death of Lenin"
It is impossible not to touch on one issue around which many copies have been broken in recent decades: the intimate relationship between Inessa Armand and Vladimir Ulyanov-Lenin. In Soviet times, this topic was deliberately hushed up in Russian literature, for obvious reasons, and historical archival research on the personal relations of the leader of Bolshevism with anyone outside his official family was not welcomed, to put it mildly. But in the perestroika and post-perestroika era, when the question of the connection between Armand and Lenin ceased to be forbidden and secret, a powerful wave of pseudoscientific speculation, false rumors and even outright fraud arose around him, in addition to serious archival research. Nevertheless, by now the vast majority of historians consider it firmly proven that the very close, and apparently intimate relationship between Inessa Armand and Vladimir Ulyanov-Lenin really happened more than once after 1909, when they first met in Paris. At the same time, numerous publications and references to non-existent eyewitnesses, as well as other unconfirmed facts, allegedly indicating that Lenin and Armand had common children, did not stand up to scrutiny during checks and crumbled to dust.
As for the beginning of their romance, as already mentioned, biographers consider it to be the spring of 1911, when a party school was organized in the village of Longjumeau near Paris. However, in the autumn of the same year, Lenin and Krupskaya left Paris for Krakow, after which Armand wrote a desperate letter to the subject of her passion, which was published in Russian only in the 90s. Here are some excerpts from it, showing the true nature of the relationship between these leaders of the Russian revolution:
“... We parted, we parted, dear, with you! And it hurts so much. I know, I feel, you will never come here! Looking at well-known places, I clearly realized, as never before, what a big place you occupied in my life, that almost all the activities here in Paris were connected with the thought of you in a thousand threads. I wasn't in love with you then, but even then I loved you very much.
I would do without kisses even now, and just to see you, sometimes talking to you would be a joy - and it could not hurt anyone ... I got used to you a little. I so loved not only to listen, but also to look at you when you spoke. Firstly, your face revives, and, secondly, it was convenient to watch, because at that time you did not notice this ... I kiss you tightly. Your Armand.
In general, there are more than 150 letters written by Armand to Lenin, most of which have become available to Russian researchers quite recently. All this correspondence is more than eloquent evidence of the true nature of the relationship between Inessa Armand and Vladimir Ulyanov. By the way, most of Lenin's letters to Armand, included in the complete collection of his works, are also painted in bright and sensual tones, leaving no doubt that the author of these messages, to put it mildly, is deeply indifferent to his addressee (Fig. 9).
When in the autumn of 1920 news came to Moscow of the death of Inessa Armand in the Caucasus from cholera, it, according to many eyewitnesses, became a huge moral shock for Lenin. Alexandra Kollontai said in her memoirs that when on October 12, 1920, “we walked behind her coffin, it was impossible to recognize Lenin. He walked with his eyes closed and it seemed that he was about to fall. Thus, according to Kollontai, the tragic death of Armand hastened the death of Lenin himself: he loved Inessa so much that he simply could not survive her departure for a long time.
Companion to the leader
Woman-mystery, woman-idea, woman-symbol. Having died early, she gave rise to so many legends about her life that it is now extremely difficult to separate truth from fiction. In her time, people were different, and their feelings, thoughts and actions are now often difficult to understand. Everyone interprets in his own way, everyone sees his own - and it turns out that her real life was hidden under numerous layers of human reasoning. The most charming beauty, the first feminist in Russia, Lenin's mistress, a fiery revolutionary, a loving mother of five children - who is she, Inessa Armand?
Her father was the once famous French opera singer Theodore Steffen - he performed under the pseudonym Pesche Erbanville. He and his wife, actress Nathalie Wilde, half-French-half-English, had three daughters. Inessa-Elizaveta, the eldest, was born on May 8, 1874. There is evidence that Natalie had not yet been married to Steffen by this time.
A few years later, Steffen died, leaving a widow with three children practically penniless. Natalie retired from the stage and tried to support her family by giving singing lessons. But the money was still not enough, and then the two eldest daughters - Inessa and Rene - were sent to their aunt. To Moscow. My aunt was a governess in the richest family of Russified French Armands - she taught music and French.
The Armand family, well-known Moscow industrialists-manufacturers, owned a large weaving factory in Pushkin, estates and tenement houses. The head of the family, Evgeny Evgenievich Armand, a hereditary honorary citizen, belonged to the highest industrial aristocracy of Russia. He had three sons - Alexander, Vladimir and Boris.
Inessa Steffen, 1882
The Steffen girls were warmly received by the Armand family. Rene and Ine were fluent in three languages: French, English - their mother's native language - and Russian, they knew a little German, they played music beautifully. They had a brilliant education for those times - it was not for nothing that they were brought up by an aunt-teacher. Ine at the age of seventeen passed the exam for the title of a home teacher. In addition, both sisters were not only extremely pretty, but also possessed that irresistible French charm and charm that was extremely rare among Russian girls.
And the Armand brothers could not resist. Alexander was seriously carried away by Ine, and the younger Boris was Rene. Of course, the Steffen sisters were a completely unsuitable match for young men from the Armand family: of unclear origin, a foreigner, a dowry, a different religion - after all, the Armands had long since converted to Orthodoxy, and Ine and Rene were raised in the Anglican faith. Nevertheless, the parents of young people did not mind: the Armands were known for their liberal views. Progressive-minded youth, friends of the Armand brothers from the university, were gladly received in their house, and the older generation willingly applied new methods of organizing work and principles of communication with workers, which only benefited their branched enterprise. In addition, Yevgeny Evgenievich himself fell in love with Rene and Ine, as if they were his own daughters, and gladly agreed that they legally entered his family.
The wedding of Alexander Evgenievich Armand and Inessa-Elizaveta Stefan (as her name was written in Russian documents) took place in Pushkin on October 3, 1893. Inessa was 19 years old, her husband was two years older. A charming, full of life young Frenchwoman and soft, charming, noble Alexander made a wonderful couple.
Inessa Armand, 1895
The newlyweds settled in Eldigin, one of the Armandov estates near Moscow, often came to Pushkino, went to Moscow - to concerts, performances, to visit ... But even then Inessa's active nature awakened: in Eldigin she organizes a school for peasant children and is not only her official trustee, but she also teaches. Inessa lives in an atmosphere of universal love and respect, in full prosperity. But there was no peace in her soul: sometimes Inessa felt very lonely, a stranger, languished that her husband could not fully share her views. In addition, she felt herself gradually being drawn into family life. And she did not want this in any case: at the age of 15, when she read Tolstoy's War and Peace, she was struck, as she herself writes in a later letter, that “Natasha, having married, became a female. I remember that this phrase seemed terribly offensive to me, it hit me like a whip, and it forged in me a firm desire to never become a female - but to remain a man (and how many females are around us!) ”
Nevertheless, in 1894, the son Alexander was born. Two years later, another one - Fedor. Then two daughters - Inna and Varvara. The first spiritual crisis of Inessa is associated with the birth of her first child - the rejection of religion. She was faced with the fact that Christianity forbids women to attend church for six weeks after giving birth. Although Inessa was very religious in her youth, the very first dogma, which seemed absurd and offensive to her, completely destroyed her entire faith. This was how her maximalist nature manifested itself - either all or nothing.
Taking care of children took a lot of time, but the thirst for social activities required an outlet. At that time, for a lady holding such a high position as Inessa Fedorovna (in official documents she was listed as “the wife of a hereditary honorary citizen”), there was only one field of activity - charity. And Inessa joins the Moscow Society for the Improvement of the Plight of Women, where she soon becomes one of the most active participants, and in 1900, the chairman.
Inessa and Alexander Armand, 1895
According to the charter, the society struggled "with drunkenness and debauchery associated with it", was engaged in the dissemination of women's education and the provision of various assistance to those in need. But rather quickly Inessa became convinced that in fact the society was engaged in demagogy, and made her proposals. She tried to organize in society Sunday school where she intended to teach. But the authorities banned the school. Her other projects were also not allowed - neither the people's library-reading room, nor the society's printed organ.
Inessa became interested in scientific literature - she read works on economics, sociology, history ... She entered into correspondence with foreign women's feminist organizations. She became interested in socialist ideas - largely under the influence of students who visited Pushkin: Boris's friends at the university and tutors of younger children. One of them, Eugene Kammer, was associated with a student underground circle. In 1897, Kammer asked the Armands to hide the property of the circle in Pushkin - copiers, leaflets and brochures. Kammer was soon arrested and exiled. His fate worried Inessa very much - she helped him as much as she could in exile, and then in exile.
Gradually, Inessa moves further and further away from her husband, who, although under the strong influence of his wife, nevertheless shares her beliefs less and less. Inessa meets with her husband's brother Vladimir - he, a convinced social democrat, is very close to her both in terms of views and feelings. Love was strong and mutual, not hidden from anyone: Inessa immediately confessed to her husband, and Alexander let his beloved wife and children go. Inessa and Vladimir settled together in Moscow, on Ostozhenka. Together with them lived a medical student Vanya Nikolaev, whom the Armands help in their studies. In 1903, Inessa and Vladimir had a son, Andrey.
Alexander was able not only to forgive Inessa's betrayal, but also to remain her true friend for life. Whenever the need arose, he came to the aid of his wife - he gave money, busied himself, took care of the children. Their divorce was not formalized - apparently because of the children they continued to raise together.
Perhaps Chernyshevsky's novel What Is to Be Done, incredibly popular at the time, influenced this development of the situation. A similar case is described there: the husband of Vera Pavlovna, whose family life is built on the principles of partnership, voluntarily yields his beloved wife to his friend, a happy rival, and even fakes his own death in order to help the lovers officially unite, but then continues to help them in any way he can.
Inessa was 28 years old, Volodya - 17. He was a natural scientist, researcher, he had a first-class education and a sensitive soul. He also fell under the influence of Inessa, who - very tactfully, but persistently - drew him into her revolutionary work.
In the autumn of 1903, Inessa and her children went to Switzerland to improve their health. While the children were resting, Inessa studied works on Marxism, political economy, social issues and pedagogy, tried to understand the social democratic trends. Under the influence of a book by a certain Ilyin, The Development of Capitalism in Russia, Inessa joins the Bolsheviks.
Ilyin is one of the pseudonyms of the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Ulyanov, better known as Lenin.
Returning from Switzerland, Inessa Fedorovna is carrying a load of illegal literature, hidden on her back by the folds of a wide cape-thalma. From the brought, a library of propagandists is formed at the Moscow Committee of the Party - Inessa herself manages it. In her apartment, she constantly arranges evenings, debates and reports on revolutionary topics.
In Switzerland, 1903.
On February 6, 1904, a police raid was carried out in the Armandov's apartment. After the recent terrorist act of the Socialist-Revolutionary Ivan Kalyaev, who killed the Moscow Governor-General, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich with a bomb, the police diligently cleansed the city of unreliable elements.
Inessa was chased around Moscow prisons for several months. Her health deteriorated greatly. Inessa was released only in June due to lack of evidence.
Immediately after the release, Inessa plunges into party work: she is in charge of propaganda, organization of workers' circles and selection of people. She runs all day long: from the Arbat to Lefortovo, to Izmailovo, to Zayauzye. Organizes a working circle in Pushkin. Hard work and hard life greatly affected her appearance: not the former elegant, refined, rich young woman dressed in the latest Parisian fashion, but tired, in a modest dress, with a thick braid instead of an intricate hairstyle. Only the eyes are the same - gray-green, sparkling, shining. And if the first thing that struck people who came to her apartment was the abundance of children she had (even at that time there were five in the families of the Armand circle - it was a lot), then they fell under the irresistible charm of Inessa herself.
In 1905, it was allowed to allow women to lecture at Moscow University - as volunteers. Inessa immediately applied to the Faculty of Law. She studied one course - alas, she had to stop her studies due to circumstances beyond her control.
In April 1907, Inessa was arrested again - however, they were quickly released - in July they were arrested again. Inessa came to the railroad party committee, which met under the sign "Bureau for hiring servants." And although Inessa Feodorovna claimed that she had only come to hire a cook, they did not believe her.
When she was filmed for the police archive, Inessa closed her eyes in order to annoy the gendarmes at least this way.
In the Lefortovo prison, Inessa also does not waste time: she teaches her cellmates French and political economy. At the end of September, she was sentenced to two years of exile in the Arkhangelsk province.
At the Yaroslavl station, she was seen off by the entire Armand family, headed by Yevgeny Evgenievich and Alexander.
In Arkhangelsk, Inessa first spent two weeks in solitary confinement (and not in a transit prison, as it was supposed to). Following her, Vladimir Armand arrived there - he was busy with allowing Inessa to stay in Arkhangelsk. But even a medical examination, which confirmed that Inessa had malaria, did not help. She was sent to Mezen, a remote county town.
Mezen is a tried and tested place of exile for the objectionable. At the end of the 16th century Archpriest Avvakum was exiled here. Disgusting climate, mosquitoes, malaria and wilderness. But this is not enough for the authorities: they wanted to send Inessa to the village of Koyda, several hundred miles to the north. There is syphilis, there is no mail, often there is not even bread. It is difficult to stay in Mezen.
Vladimir came for Inessa and here. Their hut immediately becomes the center of a colony of political exiles. But Inessa's health is getting worse, and depression sets in from longing. And here time does not pass in vain - Inessa creates an organization of social democrats, arranges political debates and lectures, gives lessons in Russian and French.
At this time, in Pushkin, the workers of the Armandov factory are on strike. One of the leaders was Alexander Armand himself - he was arrested, and after his release he was banned from living in large cities of Russia. Alexander left for France, taking his eldest sons with him. Soon, Vladimir also went abroad, to a Swiss sanatorium - his tuberculosis worsened in Mezen.
Inessa is horrified: after all, it was because of her that Vladimir went to Mezen. After being in exile for less than a year, she begins to prepare for her escape.
On October 20, 1908, Inessa fled, taking advantage of the fact that Polish revolutionaries who had served their term of exile were leaving for their homeland. She mingled with the crowd of mourners, and at the last minute she was hidden in a sleigh.
After escaping, Inessa lives in Moscow with a fake passport. He doesn’t hide much: he constantly meets with children, goes to theaters and exhibitions, meets with party comrades. Having learned that they are already looking for her in Moscow, she ... leaves for St. Petersburg - a women's congress is opening there, and her sister-in-law, Anna, will take part in it. Inessa is traveling with Anya.
About seven hundred delegates gathered at the congress - mostly the so-called "equal rights", champions of obtaining equal rights with men. Was and working group- forty-five people, including Inessa. She enrolled in an economic group, but she was especially interested in the issue of "freedom of love." Inessa even decided to write about this, but so far there was not enough material or time. Postponed until better times.
In early January 1909, disturbing news came from Switzerland: Vladimir suddenly became worse. Inessa, leaving everything, travels through Finland to him. Two weeks after her arrival, Vladimir died.
For Inessa, it was a terrible blow. She really loved Vladimir very much, and his sudden death greatly broke her. She lost a lot of weight, grew ugly, haggard ...
In order to forget, Inessa moved to Paris - to get to know the French Socialist Party better, by her own admission. From Paris to Brussels, where she completed a university course in a year and received a licentiate degree in economics. And then she met another Vladimir, who for many years became the center of her life - Lenin.
It is still not known exactly where exactly their personal acquaintance took place. Probably either in Paris, where Inessa often visited from Brussels, or in Brussels itself, where Lenin visited in November 1909. It is only known that the first meeting quickly grew into a strong friendship - both Vladimir Ilyich and Nadezhda Konstantinovna immediately liked Inessa. As Krupskaya wrote, “it brightened up in the house when Inessa came.” Gradually, Inessa becomes the shadow of the Ulyanovs - a secretary, translator, housekeeper, closest friend. In the autumn of 1910, Inessa moved to Paris - closer to the Ulyanovs. She attends lectures at the Sorbonne, actively conducts party work, gathers like-minded people around her. People were drawn to her. Inessa was an extraordinary woman. Maybe not a beauty in the strict sense of the word - she had regular features, thick ashy hair, slim figure and unusual, radiant green eyes, but the face was a little spoiled by an overlong nose, like a bird's beak. However, her irresistible charm, the light that emanated from her, her energy, goodwill and ability to enjoy life conquered everyone. They joked about Inessa that she should be included in diamat textbooks - as an example of the unity of form and content.
At the request of Lenin, Inessa takes part in the VIII International Socialist Congress, which was held in Copenhagen in early September 1910. From this began her participation in the international activities of the party. She soon became practically indispensable: fluent in four languages and possessing a good literary style, and most importantly, a fantastic capacity for work, Inessa conducts extensive correspondence with foreign Bolshevik groups, translates intensively, and establishes personal ties with the French socialists. In 1911, she was one of the main organizers of the party Bolshevik school in Longjumeau. There were eighteen students from all over Russia, among the teachers of the school - Nikolai Semashko, Anatoly Lunacharsky and, of course, Inessa and Lenin himself.
Another prominent Bolshevik, Alexandra Kollontai, was also eager to work at the school. But she was refused - all teaching positions were occupied. It turned out that another place claimed by Kollontai, the closest associate of the leader, was also occupied. No matter how hard Alexandra Mikhailovna tried to “wipe off” Inessa from Lenin, nothing came of it - her relations with the Ulyanovs only worsened. In retaliation, Kollontai began to intensively spread gossip about the more than close relationship between Inessa and Vladimir Ilyich.
Their relationship really became very close. According to rumors, it was in Longjumeau that they began a stormy romance. It seems that even the proud Nadezhda Konstantinovna asked her husband to let her go, but Vladimir Ilyich did not agree: he too valued in her a devoted employee and a true friend. And relations with Inessa gradually became only business.
According to other sources, there was no romance and could not be. Lenin was always a little susceptible to feelings, and Inessa, who had just lost her adored Vladimir, would hardly have been able to betray his memory so quickly. For her, Lenin was a leader, an ideological teacher, whom she trusted in everything, but nothing more. In addition, she and Krupskaya were close friends all their lives, and the mother of Nadezhda Konstantinovna, Elizaveta Vasilievna, who lived with the Ulyanovs, loved Inessa very much - by the way, she clearly did not like Kollontai. Such a close relationship between the leader and his closest assistant was then easily explained by party necessity, unity of interests and common work.
After the VI All-Russian Conference of the RSDLP in Prague, Inessa became the secretary of the Committee of Foreign Organizations of the Bolshevik Party. More and more work was added: in addition to correspondence and translation activities, Inessa took part in many congresses and meetings. Its main business was propaganda and dissemination of Lenin's ideas among foreign Bolsheviks. And in the spring of 1912, Inessa, on behalf of Lenin, went to Russia: she had a passport in the name of the Polish peasant woman Franciska Kazimirovna Yankevich and the task of restoring the recently defeated St. Petersburg party cell. Through Krakow, where Lenin moved, Lublin and Kharkov, Inessa ends up in St. Petersburg. Her trip is fraught with a huge risk of failure - Inessa is still being sought for escaping from exile, but this does not stop Lenin: if the case requires, any sacrifices are made.
Inessa managed to hold out for only two and a half months. And all this time she - sick, without money, unable to contact her relatives - is busy with party work. She was arrested on September 14, 1912. Passed her provocateur.
Alexander Armand immediately begins to petition for her release. In the spring of 1913, they agreed to release Inessa on bail of 5400 rubles - at that time an incredible amount. And, knowing full well that the money would be lost (Inessa warned that at the first opportunity she would go abroad again), Alexander Armand makes a deposit for his wife.
Inessa spends spring and summer with her family on the Volga. She needs to improve her health, she enjoys the opportunity to finally be with the children. But already in August she leaves - through Finland to Stockholm, and then to Galicia.
There, near Krakow, Lenin holds the August (Summer) Conference of the Central Committee of the Party (in fact, the conference was held in September; it was called Summer for conspiracy). Inessa liked Krakow very much. She was going to send the children here, she was looking for an apartment. But party necessity demanded that Inessa move to Paris.
In Paris, Inessa, together with the Bolshevik Lyudmila Stal, organized a new printed organ for Russian women - Rabotnitsa. The editorial board also included Krupskaya, Lenin's sister Anna Ulyanova-Yelizarova, and several other prominent Bolsheviks. Part of the editorial staff was in St. Petersburg, part - abroad, in Paris and Krakow. The first issue came out in February 1914, then six more were published, of which three were confiscated. On the eighth issue, the magazine was closed.
Inessa spent the summer of 1914 in Lovran, a resort in the south of the Adriatic Sea - her health was completely upset. Children come to her there - four out of five. Finally, Inessa can rest in peace with her family. But Lenin demands her participation in the Brussels Conference of the Second International. Inessa refuses as best she can, but then concedes. It was impossible to argue with Lenin.
After Brussels, Inessa is again going to Russia, but the war prevented her. With great difficulty, Inessa manages to send the children home, to Russia - through Italy to England, and from there to Arkhangelsk. Inessa herself remains in Bern, along with Lenin and Krupskaya. For the next three years, Inessa worked hard under the leadership of Lenin: she takes part in many conferences and meetings, makes translations, and is engaged in journalism under the pseudonym Elena Blonina (in memory of long walks in the vicinity of Krakow; blon in Polish means meadow).
In March 1915, the International Conference of Socialist Women, organized by Inessa and Clara Zetkin, took place. In order to deceive the censorship, all correspondence was conducted as if about the upcoming wedding. A few days later - the International Conference of Socialist Youth. Two points of view clashed at both conferences: the pacifist one, demanding immediate peace, and Lenin's idea of turning the imperialist war into a civil one. It is not surprising that the Leninist position did not find supporters: people were already tired of the war, whatever it was. Inessa, with all her characteristic fervor, defended Lenin's ideas, but she was also unable to attract delegates to his side.
At the beginning of 1915, Inessa, using another fake passport - this time in the name of Sofya Popova, the daughter of a retired major, comes to Paris with new Leninist instructions, from there - to Switzerland, where the Second International Conference of Socialists is held in the town of Quintale. There, Inessa again wanted to write a book about the "women's issue", family and freedom of love. She sends the plan of the article to Lenin - and runs into a sharp rebuff. Vladimir Ilyich called Inessa's views bourgeois, and smashed the theses to smithereens. And Inessa, who for many years blindly obeyed the will of Lenin, could not object to him. The book was never written.
According to some reports, Alexandra Kollontai is to blame for this. By this time, she had fully restored her relationship with Lenin and managed to gain a reputation for herself as the main expert on the women's issue. Many of the ideas expressed by Inessa are also present in Kollontai - but if Vladimir Ilyich was ready to forgive her thoughts about freedom of relationships and love, then it was impossible for him to listen to this from the devoted Inessa. Kollontai was able to obtain from Lenin the exclusive right to discuss this topic.
After the February Revolution, Lenin and his closest associates rush to Russia. Return plans arise and are discarded one by one. The authorities of England, and then France, refuse to let them through. The most realistic is the return through Germany - Lenin is ready to accept the help of the enemy of Russia, if only to get to his homeland. Representatives of the French, German, Polish and Swiss socialists approve this plan by a special protocol: "We believe that our Russian like-minded people not only have the right, but are obliged to take advantage of the opportunity presented to them to travel to Russia."
In a sealed carriage, Lenin, Krupskaya, Armand and their associates arrived in Petrograd on the night of April 3 (16), 1917. Lenin from an armored car called on the crowd for a socialist revolution, then the rally continued at the palace of Matilda Kshesinskaya.
Soon Inessa went to Moscow - to the children. In addition, there was also enough business in Moscow, and who better than Inessa could spread Lenin's ideas there? She again organizes courses for the training of agitators, constantly speaks to the workers with lectures and reports, organizes Soviets of Deputies throughout Moscow. When in June 1917 there were elections to the Moscow Duma, Inessa was elected a deputy on the list of Bolsheviks.
She also became a member of the Executive Commission of the Moscow Committee of the Party. At the same time, on the direct instructions of Lenin, she began to publish the magazine Life of a Worker. Only two issues were published.
In the fall, Inessa's youngest son Andrey fell seriously ill: he was threatened with tuberculosis. Inessa, with difficulty getting a vacation, took him to the south. She returned in the midst of the October battles - she could not sit still. Directly from the station, leaving her son to the relatives who met them, Inessa went to the Moscow district party committee.
After the victory of the revolution, Inessa receives many party posts. She essentially became the most powerful woman Russia. But there is no time to rest on our laurels: she works twenty hours a day. In the spring of 1918, she took on the organization of a school of Soviet-party work: she drew up a program, found a room, selected teachers, and taught herself. Then she became the chairman of the Moscow Provincial Council of the National Economy. And he organizes the All-Russian Congress of Working Women and Peasants, two preparatory conferences in Moscow. In March 1919, she was sent on a business trip to France - through the Red Cross; the task of the delegation was to ensure the return of Russian prisoners of war and internees to their homeland. The delegation itself was sent home with the first batch of prisoners.
Hard labor in the most difficult conditions - there was no light, heat, not enough food - undermined her health. In February 1920, Inessa finally took to her bed. Lenin touchingly takes care of her, constantly sending notes with questions about her health and instructions on how to be treated. But the recovery was very difficult: Inessa's body was severely depleted. Lenin suggested that she leave for treatment; Inessa wanted to go abroad, to her native France - but Vladimir Ilyich, fearing that she would be immediately arrested there, advised her to go to the Caucasus, under the wing of Sergo Ordzhonikidze. After much persuasion, Inessa agreed. On August 22, 1920, she arrived in Kislovodsk.
Lenin wrote a letter to the Administration of Resorts and Sanatoriums of the Caucasus with a request to create Inessa and her sick son best conditions, and he instructed Ordzhonikidze to personally monitor the safety and device of Inessa. At that time, the Caucasus was restless.
She arrived very tired, broken, emaciated - it was difficult to recognize the former, full of life Inessa in her. She was tired of people, she tried to be alone. In the evenings she remained in her room, in complete darkness - she did not have a lamp. There was no pillow, food was very modest, medical care was almost absent. But even in such conditions, Inessa begins to recover.
When the threat of encirclement loomed over Kislovodsk, they decided to evacuate the vacationers. Inessa organized the loading of people, intending to stay in Kislovodsk to the last. She was threatened: if Comrade Inessa did not leave voluntarily, they would resort to the help of the Red Army. She obeyed. The train was sent to Nalchik. On the way, Inessa took care of the sick, got food and medicine at the stations. At the Beslan junction station, the train got stuck: the roads were clogged with refugees. Finally the train arrived in Nalchik. Inessa and her comrades toured the city, were at a meeting of local communists. At night, Inessa became ill. She, not wanting to disturb the neighbors, endured until morning. She spent two days in the hospital. At midnight on September 23, Inessa lost consciousness and died by morning.
Parking in Beslan turned out to be fatal for Inessa: there she contracted cholera. From the train, Inessa's body was transported to the House of Unions. Lenin trudged behind her coffin, leaning on the hand of Nadezhda Konstantinovna. The next day she was buried near the Kremlin wall. According to the memoirs of Alexandra Kollontai, “Lenin was impossible to recognize. He walked with his eyes closed, and it seemed that he was about to fall.
According to many, the death of Inessa greatly crippled Vladimir Ilyich, in many ways hastening his death. He managed to order that all the children of Inessa be brought to Russia, but they were not allowed to see the dying Lenin. After his death, Krupskaya took an active part in their fate.
In recent years, the question has been much discussed - did Inessa Armand and Vladimir Lenin have an affair and how far did he go. They even said that Inessa had a child from Lenin - a son named Alexander Steffen, who is either buried in Switzerland or still lives in Berlin. The entire Armand clan - children who adored their mother and relatives of her husband - deny the existence romantic relationship between Inessa and Lenin, the same opinion is defended by the French communists, who sacredly honor her memory. And the sister of Inessa Rene Fedorovna did not pronounce and did not want to hear the name of her sister until the end of her days ...
She left a bright memory of herself, which cannot be obscured by indiscreet questions. There are mysteries that are destined to remain unsolved. Among them is the secret of Inessa. The secret of her charm, the secret of her life, the secret of her memory...
April 22 is a significant date in the world and Russian history, for the sake of it, you can stir up the affairs of a bygone century. At the suggestion of Kollontai, there are many rumors about the closeness of Inessa Armand and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. They said that Inessa had a child from Lenin. Two characters are "tipped" to this place. The first is Andrey Armand, buried in Lithuania, killed during the Great Patriotic War. The second is a son named Alexander Steffen, who is either buried in Switzerland or still lives in Berlin.
In the Lithuanian town of Marijampole, local guides will definitely take you to the memorial cemetery and show you the monument to Captain Andrei Armand, who died on October 7, 1944 in the battles for the liberation of the Baltic states from the Nazis.
According to local local historians, the Red Army captain Andrei Armand is the illegitimate son of ... Vladimir Lenin and Inessa Armand. Official documents from the time of the war actually say that "the buried Andrey Alexandrovich Armand (1903-1944) is the son of Inessa Armand and Vladimir Ulyanov." Today, these papers are kept in the city administration of Marijampolė. But how this entry appeared in the registration book in the regional center, none of the locals can explain.
Professor Russian Academy theater art Faina Khachaturyan is sure that in her childhood she was friends with Lenin's grandson. “One of the most vivid memories of my childhood is visiting Inessa Armand’s relatives,” says Faina Nikolaevna. “My mother was friends with Hiena Armand, the wife of Inessa’s youngest son, Andrey. These were the post-war years. "Later I learned that they were given an apartment on Lenin's orders. It was a huge communal apartment. They lived very modestly. The apartment was furnished with old official furniture. But it had a special atmosphere, bright representatives of the Moscow intelligentsia gathered here.
For us, children, wonderful holidays were arranged in this hospitable house. Hiena raised two sons. The youngest was called Volodya. We became friends with him. He impressed with his intelligence and erudition. It always seemed to me that he reminded me of someone very much. Later, the older sister opened my eyes by saying, "Look in a history book and you'll understand everything." And indeed. Volodya Armand in childhood was almost a copy of the photograph, which depicts Volodya Ulyanov in a gymnasium uniform. The same bulging forehead, the same piercing gaze. When I grew up, my mother told me that his father, Andrey Armand, was Lenin's son." Such is the legend.
OPINION OF HISTORIAN Akim ARUTYUNOV, a famous historian, author of books about Lenin.
To answer the question of who Andrei Armand is, one must remember the fate of his mother, Inessa (Eliza) Feodorovna Armand. She was born on May 9, 1874 in Paris. Her father, Theodor Stefan, was a famous opera singer. Mother, Natalie Wild - a housewife. After the death of her husband, she was left with three small children without funds. In search of a way out of the most difficult financial situation, my aunt (a teacher of French and music), together with Inessa, emigrated to Russia. In Moscow, the girl received a good education.
A very gifted Inessa, who was fluent in French, English and Russian and played the piano superbly, became a home teacher for children from wealthy Moscow families. In October 1893, she married the son of a merchant of the first guild, the owner of factories in the Moscow region, Alexander Armand. During their eight years of marriage, Inessa gave birth to two boys (Alexander in 1894 and Fedor in 1896) and two girls (Inessa in 1898 and Vera in 1901).
Living in full harmony and mutual understanding with Alexander, Inessa unexpectedly left in 1902 ... to her husband's younger brother, Vladimir. In 1903, she gave birth to his fifth child, a boy, who was named Andryusha. But a long life with Vladimir did not work out. After Inessa's reference for political activity he followed her, although he was ill with tuberculosis. In the north, my husband's illness sharply worsened. Vladimir Armand was forced to urgently move to Switzerland for treatment. Inessa, having escaped from exile, went to her husband. Alas, the doctors could not save him. In early January 1909, Vladimir died. After burying her husband, Inessa decided to move to her native Paris. All five children at that time were cared for in Russia by her first husband Alexander.
Inessa first met Vladimir Ulyanov in Paris in the spring of 1909. The two men had never met before. In the year Lenin met Armand, Inessa's youngest son Andrei was already 5 years old. So, in Marijampole they are mistaken: Vladimir Ilyich could not be the father of Andrey Armand.
It was possible to establish that after the death of his mother on September 24, 1924, Andrei - not without the support of the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars Lenin - received higher education. Until 1935, he worked as a mechanical engineer at the Gorky Automobile Plant, then moved to Moscow. At the beginning of the war, he volunteered for the front with the Moscow militia. In 1944 he joined the CPSU (b) and soon died heroically. Now we know that Red Army captain Andrei Armand is buried in Lithuania.
Russians will certainly be interested to learn about what almost all schoolchildren in Germany know about. There, in the history textbooks for the eighth grades, in the chapter devoted to Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin), it is said about Alexander Steffen, the only son of the leader of the revolution and the sixth child of Inessa Armand.
In 1998, journalist Arnold Bespo tracked down 85-year-old Alexander Vladimirovich Steffen in Berlin, where he lived near the Brandenburg Gate. His wife died long ago, the children (that is, the true "grandchildren of Ilyich") live separately. A modest pension of 1,200 DM was enough to live on, but he was looking for a publisher to publish a book of his memoirs.
The old age of this man was not conducive to a long conversation, but Herr Steffen nevertheless agreed to give the journalist a short interview. Here is what he said about himself: “I was born in 1913, 3 years after my mother met Vladimir Ilyich. And it happened in Paris in 1909, immediately after the death of her second husband, Vladimir Armand, from tuberculosis. As I suppose, my parents did not really want to advertise the fact of my birth. Therefore, 7 months after my birth, I was placed in the family of an Austrian communist. There I grew up until 1928, when unknown people took me away, put me on a steamer in Le Havre, and I ended up in America. I think that these were Stalin's people, who, most likely, wanted to use me for propaganda purposes in the future. But apparently it didn't work out. In 1943, already an American citizen, I volunteered for the Army and served at the Portland Naval Station until 1947.
I know about my father from my mother. In the spring of 1920, shortly before her death, she visited Salzburg. She told about him, brought a letter from her personal archive, written to Vladimir Ilyich in Paris in 1913, and asked to keep it as a keepsake.
In the US, life did not work out. My wife died in 1959 and I went to Europe, to the German Democratic Republic (GDR). I guessed why the East Germans immediately agreed to my request and granted citizenship along with a good apartment. Later my guess was confirmed. I was invited to an appointment with Comrade Walter Ulbricht, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany - he knew everything. And in 1967, during the Berlin meeting of the leaders of the world communist movement in the Soviet embassy, Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev met with me. He presented me with the Order of Friendship of Peoples and kissed me firmly in parting. He promised to invite him to the XXIII Congress of the CPSU as an honored guest. Did not work out. And today Lenin is not liked in Russia. So there is nothing for me to do.”
Alexander Vladimirovich kindly allowed to publish an excerpt from a letter from Inessa Armand to Vladimir Ulyanov, who lived at that time in Poland, in Krakow. “... Looking at well-known places, I clearly realized, more than ever before, what a big place you still occupied here in Paris in my life, that almost all activity here in Paris was a thousand threads connected with the thought of you. I wasn't in love with you then, but even then I loved you very much. I would do without kissing even now, just to see you, sometimes talking to you would be a joy - and this could not hurt anyone. Why was it necessary to deprive me of this? .. "
