Lenin and Inessa Armand: revolutionary love. Inessa Armand: biography, personal life, political activities and photos Who was Lenin's mistress

The rural churchyard at the entrance to Aleshino from the village of Eldigino hid in a forest, not far from the road. A couple of natives whom I encountered at the entrance to the cemetery, of course, knew nothing about the burial of the Armand family, the former owners of all local lands. Both Eldigino and Aleshino were their property before the revolution. And only when they heard that I was looking for a grave from 1943, they waved into the depths of the forest - they say, too early.

For a whole hour, wading through thickets and deadwood, I was looking for the burial I needed. And already in despair, as he expected, he stumbled on the very edge of the graveyard on a high fence. Five neat little graves: two male, two female, nee Armand, and a completely fresh one, so far unnamed, under a young spreading maple.

The first thing that caught my eye was an ancient monument - the date of death was 1909 (most likely, this is the earliest burial in the entire churchyard). On the old concrete there is a bas-relief imitating a tablet, and the same relief letters: Vladimir Evgenievich Armand. The meeting, frankly speaking, was unexpected. After all, the owner of the grave died in Switzerland. Behind him is a black marble stele - Alexander Evgenievich Armand, died in 1943. Alexander outlived his beloved younger brother Vladimir by more than thirty years. And he died here, in Aleshino. Least of all I expected to see the burial places of the brothers nearby. More than a century ago, they were drawn into love triangle fatal woman - Frenchwoman Inessa Teodorovna Steffen.

Inessa Steffen (in Russian transcription "Stefan") was born in Paris in 1874. Her father was the French opera singer Theodore Steffen, her mother was the actress Natalie Wild (Wilde), half French, half English, but a Russian subject. The family had three daughters. After the unexpected death of Theodore, Natalie had to leave the theater stage and start teaching singing. In order to somehow ensure a decent upbringing of girls, Natalie decided to send Inessa and her sister Rene to Russia to her grandmother and aunt. The latter at that time worked as a governess and teacher French in a wealthy family of Russified Frenchmen Armand, in their estate in Pushkino near Moscow.

The head of the Armand clan, Evgeny Evgenievich, a manufacturing adviser and a hereditary honorary citizen, headed the Trading House "Eugene Armand with Sons". 1,200 workers worked at his two factories in Pushkino (wool-weaving and dye-finishing). He owned profitable houses in Moscow, estates and forests in the Moscow region. The large Armand house in Pushkino (it still lives out its life today on I. Armand Street, N 27) was hospitable in Russian, free-thinking in French. The family of Evgeny Evgenievich and Varvara Karlovna (nee Demonsi) had 12 children. Therefore, the girls from Paris - Inessa and Rene - were treated in this house in a family way. In 1891, Inessa passed the exam and became a home teacher.

Mikhail Semenyuk

In the twentieth century, no one did more to promote the names of entrepreneurs and patrons of the arts Armand than the Frenchwoman Inessa. When you enter the city of Pushkino near Moscow from the capital, you find yourself in the Armand microdistrict. The city has I. Armand Street, the notary office "Armand", taxis with the inscription "Armand" run through the streets. But these names are not directly related to the last owner of the Trading House. The contribution of the Armand family to the development of the urban infrastructure of Pushkino in the 19th century was significant and noticeable. They built the first building of the railway station, laid the foundations of Moskovsky Prospekt, the central street of the city, built a lot of housing, a hospital, a library, and a school for workers. We rebuilt the buildings of two of our production facilities. It would seem that the Pushkinites should have been grateful to Armand. But who remembers this? The figure of the ideological Bolshevik Inessa from Ulyanov's inner circle overshadowed the work of several generations of Russified French. And today little has changed.

The biographers of Inessa Armand, there were already plenty of them under the Soviet regime (her name is inscribed in the history of the life of Ulyanov-Lenin from 1909 to 1920), did not notice Alexander Evgenievich at all or wrote about him in passing. Meanwhile, throughout the life of Inessa, he was always there: as a husband and father of their joint children, as an organizer of her life, a financier and an addressee by correspondence.

On October 3, 1893, the parish priest Ignatius Kazansky married Alexander and Inessa in the Pushkin church of St. Nicholas of Myra. The ancient St. Nicholas Church was especially revered by Armand. And not only because their big house was within walking distance from her. Near the temple they built an almshouse, which has survived to this day. The church cemetery contains the graves of several generations of the Armand family.

Later, the brother of Alexander Evgenievich, Nikolai, married Inessa's sister, Rene.

Alexander was not a major, in the sense that this category of young people is perceived today. He graduated from a real school. And despite the fact that his father was the owner of Pushkin's factories, he began working at one of the factories as an apprentice in the dyeing department. In 1894, his father entrusted him with the management of forest estates. He was a vowel of the Dmitrovsky district zemstvo, then a vowel of the provincial zemstvo assembly, a vowel of the Moscow City Duma, a member of the Moscow Forestry Committee, a member of the presence for the analysis and recognition of beggars. The young people settled in the family estate in the village of Eldigino, about 15 kilometers from Pushkino. From her marriage to Alexander, Inessa had four children: Alexander (1894), Fedor (1896), Inna (1898), Varvara (1901). Alexander turned out to be a real family man. He idolized his wife. In order to satisfy Inessa's social ambitions, he involved her in organizing a school for peasant children in Eldigino, in which she was a trustee. Under the influence of Armand's university friends and tutors large family Inessa was carried away by socialist ideas. In 1898, she joined the Moscow Society for the Improvement of the Plight of Women, and two years later became its chairman. Alexander largely agreed with the social democratic views of his wife. But he was never a supporter of revolutionary methods to achieve social goals.

The couple gradually moved away from each other. At this time, Inessa became close to her husband's younger brother, Vladimir, a student at the Faculty of Biology at Moscow University. He helped her get acquainted with the metropolitan group of Socialist-Revolutionaries. Youth evenings gathered at his apartment, disputes and reports were arranged, including on revolutionary topics. They had a significant age difference: Inessa - 28, Vladimir Armand - only 17. The question arises who influenced whom in this intimate duet. The answer is unequivocal - Inessa dominated it. The couple did not hide their relationship. After an explanation with her husband, Inessa moved to an apartment with Vladimir in Moscow, on Ostozhenka. In 1903 their son Andrei was born.

What is Alexander? A deceived husband, abandoned by his wife ... It would seem that his male pride should have been wounded. Against. He treated the feelings of Inessa and Vladimir with dignity, and remained a true friend to them for the rest of his life. He helped them with finances, arranged for Inessa to meet with the children, even when she was already in an illegal position. Their marriage was not officially annulled.

"golden wedding"The owner of the Trading House Evgeny Evgenievich Armand and Varvara Karlovna

In 1903, Inessa joined the RSDLP and joined the Bolsheviks. It is difficult to deny her pragmatism and prudence, brought up and raised in a strange family, who has achieved a stable status in this family. She clearly had to understand what she was losing by choosing the path of a revolutionary. Prosperous life, family comfort, domestic comfort, raising beloved children - Inessa threw all this under the wheels of the revolution.

In 1904, she was arrested and spent more than four months in Moscow prisons. She was only released due to lack of evidence. In April 1907, she was again briefly arrested. In July 1907, he was arrested during an illegal meeting of the Zheleznodorozhny district committee of the party. The head of the Trading House, Yevgeny Evgenievich, and his wife visited their daughter-in-law, who was detained in the Prechistensky police house. In September, she was expelled from the capital under public supervision to the Arkhangelsk region, to the town of Mezen. Vladimir follows his beloved and becomes an employee of the Murmansk Biological Station, which studied the flora and fauna of the Arctic Ocean.

By 1905, Alexander Evgenievich left work in the Zemstvo and the City Duma. During Japanese war he was on Far East, led the Moscow sanitary detachment. During the December uprising, he delivered a batch of weapons to the capital. In 1907 he became the director of the Pushkin factory. In the same year, two strikes took place at the factory. In 1908, Alexander Evgenievich was arrested and served three months in the Taganka prison on charges of organizing a strike at his factory. After leaving prison, he and his sons went to France, where in the city of Roubaix at the Higher School of Applied Arts he studied the technology of dyeing fabrics. Returning two years later to Russia, he worked at his factory in the dyeing department.

In the Arkhangelsk region, Vladimir's tuberculosis worsened. He went to Switzerland for treatment. A year later, Inessa escaped from Mezen. And from that moment until the revolution, she lived in an illegal position. By fake documents she comes to Moscow, meets with children, then moves to St. Petersburg. Alarming news about Vladimir's health comes from Switzerland. Through Finland, she travels to Switzerland. Two weeks after her arrival, Vladimir dies. The son of Vladimir and Inessa, Andrei, was adopted by Alexander Evgenievich.

The most controversial question in the biography of Inessa Armand: was she Ulyanov-Lenin's mistress? Even today there is no clear answer to it. After the collapse of Soviet power, the version of the intimate triangle, Krupskaya - Lenin - Armand, turned out to be very popular. Rather, not even so much in demand as - opportunistic and well-sold. Several books have appeared on the subject. A. Solzhenitsyn adhered to this version in the chapters of The Red Wheel - Lenin in Zurich. However, numerous members of the Armand family have always questioned her. The French communists, who always cherished the memory of Inessa as a fiery fighter for socialist ideals, did not believe in this version either.

After the death of Vladimir, Inessa moves to Paris, then to Brussels, where she attends a university course for a year and, as a result, receives a licentiate degree. economic sciences. This is perhaps the only educational stage that Inessa goes through. Prior to that, in 1905, as a volunteer, she attended the law faculty of Moscow University, and then only one course. I had to drop out of school.

And although Inessa's daughter Inna in her memoirs wrote about her mother as a person with a "remarkable mind", it must be said that Inessa did not have a systematic education. She, like many revolutionaries, acquired all her knowledge as a result of self-education.

They could meet with Ulyanov for the first time in Paris or in Brussels. Already in the autumn of 1910, Inessa moved to Paris, closer to the Ulyanov family. And soon becomes indispensable in their home as a secretary, translator, housekeeper and friend. Nadezhda Krupskaya warmly recalled how Inessa appeared in their house, how her mother, who in the Ulyanov family played the role of a housewife, visited her.

In the spring of 1912, despite the fact that Inessa was wanted by the police for escaping from exile, Ulyanov sent her to Russia, to St. Petersburg, to restore the defeated party cell. On September 14, she was arrested by the police. Only in the spring of 1913, her husband Alexander Evgenievich paid a deposit for her in the amount of 5400 rubles (a significant amount at that time). Inessa was released pending trial.

The historian Geliy Kleymenov analyzes in detail the correspondence between Ulyanov and Inessa in his book Truth and Lies about the Ulyanov Family. There were very few letters. In July 1914, Ulyanov asked Armand: "Please bring all our letters when you arrive. It is inconvenient to send them here even by registered mail: friends can easily open it." Only that part of their correspondence, in which there was not even a hint of feelings, got into the modern archive. Accidentally, due to an oversight, as Geliy Kleimenov writes, one letter dated July 1914 was omitted, which Lenin ended with a standard phrase in English language: "Oh, I wish I could kiss you a thousand times." According to the historian, he continued to love Inessa, but stayed with Krupskaya.

This summer, Alexander Evgenievich brings children to the resort town of Lovran, on the shores of the Adriatic Sea. Finally, Inessa is resting with her family. But Lenin demands her participation in the Brussels Conference of the Second International. The first World War. With great difficulty, Inessa sends the children through Italy to England, then to Arkhangelsk. She herself remains in Bern, with the Ulyanov family. For three years she has been working under the direct supervision of Lenin. Participates in numerous conferences, is engaged in translations and journalism under the pseudonym of Elena Blonina.

In April 1917, in a "sealed" carriage, together with the Ulyanov family, she returned to Russia. Ulyanov turned 47 this year, 15 of which he lived abroad.

Inessa's activities in Moscow are described in detail in Communist Party textbooks. Lenin appointed her chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Moscow province and settled her near the Kremlin, with the apartment of his sister Anna Ilyinichna. When it became clear that she could not cope with the chairmanship, on the initiative of Lenin, she was transferred to the newly created position of head of the women's department at the Central Committee of the RCP (b). They continued to maintain more than just business relationships. When Lenin could not visit Inessa, he wrote notes to her, inquired about her health, resolved communal issues, sent a doctor if necessary. In February 1920, Inessa finally took to her bed. I wanted to go to France. But Lenin advised her to go for treatment to the Caucasus, to Sergo Ordzhonikidze. And here Inessa obeyed Ilyich. During the evacuation from Kislovodsk to Nalchik, at one of the stations, she contracted cholera and died on the night of September 24th. On October 1, Inessa's body was brought to Moscow, the farewell took place in the House of Unions.

They buried her in the Kremlin wall. This, of course, violated the protocol established by the Bolsheviks. But as Larisa Vasilyeva wrote in her book The Kremlin Wives, this is the only thing Lenin could do for his beloved.

After the death of Inessa, Alexander Evgenievich lived for another 23 long years. Returning from abroad in 1915, he worked in the Zemsky Union as the head of an auto repair plant. After February Revolution left the factory. In 1918, the workers invited him to the same plant as an elected manager. But the impossible housing conditions and the illness of family members (it consisted of 7 people) forced him to move to live in the village of Aleshino. Alexander Evgenievich ran a large farm on 4 acres of land (more than 4 hectares).

In 1920, the Sofrinsky volost executive committee recognized him as a labor element. But in 1923 he was deprived of the right to vote. The Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR restored Alexander Evgenievich in the rights of citizenship. His activities during these years were mainly connected with the arrangement of the economy: as a technician, he participated in the construction of a public mill, was a member of the revolutionary commission of the consumer society, chairman of the Aleshinsky agricultural credit society, secretary of the commission for improvement at the Aleshinsky village council. In 1930, the Armand family was dispossessed and evicted, but the Pushkin District Executive Committee did not approve dispossession. The property was returned to the family. In 1931, Alexander Evgenievich was accepted into the Aleshinsky collective farm, where he was engaged in the repair of equipment.

Personal life has also settled down. At the age of 55, he married Stepanida Karaseva. She was 30 years younger than him, as a girl she served as a seamstress in their house. In 1926 their son Vladimir was born.

Alexander Evgenievich died at the age of 73 in 1943. Armand's house in Aleshino burned down in a fire in the 90s. The same fate befell the Armand family estate in Eldigino, a house near the Trinity Church, rebuilt by the father of Alexander Evgenievich in 1878. He almost completely died in the fire. The room with the exposition dedicated to Inessa Armand also burned down. All that remained of the house was a stone porch, part of the wall and foundation, now densely overgrown with weeds.

In the Soviet Union, this was silent for many years. They bashfully hushed up the absence of children from Lenin and his wife Nadezhda Krupskaya. The Jewish roots in the pedigree of the leader of the proletariat and his personal life were an absolute taboo.

And suddenly it sounded like thunder from a clear sky: Lenin had a mistress. There are no mistresses among celestials. And the "Kremlin dreamer", as the English writer called Lenin H. G. Wells, and seemed to be a kind of Olympic god. Ordinary citizens of the country of the Soviets did not know ancient myths, which is a pity. The gods descended from Olympus to mortal women, because nothing human was alien to them.

And then the elect were well aware of the relationship between Vladimir Ilyich and Inessa Armand. After the death of Ulyanov-Lenin, an experienced Bolshevik, the world's first female ambassador, Alexandra Kollontai, shrewdly remarked: “He could not survive Inessa Armand. The death of Inessa hastened his illness, which became fatal.

Inessa Armand was called by some journalists "the leader's muse". It is somehow embarrassing to imagine the leader of the world revolution in the guise of a kind of Apollo Musagete, that is, the "master of the muses." Muses, for the most part, are also drawn to artistic natures, to creators and creators, and not destroyers, even if they are of the “old world”. However, Inessa had her own reasons for receiving such an epithet.

Like many professional revolutionaries, Inessa Fedorovna Armand also had several names, not counting pseudonyms. AT different time, and sometimes at the same time she was called Elisabeth Pécheux d "Herbenville or Inessa Stéphane, and later Armand or Inès Elisabeth Armand. However, the matter was not yet at all in the revolution. Just born in Paris on May 8 (April 26, old style) 1874, parents belonged to the creative bohemia.And in this environment, like revolutionaries and criminals, pseudonyms and nicknames are in use.In a word, the habit of nicknames is in the blood.

The father of the future Russian revolutionary was the successful French opera singer Theodore Stéphane (Théodore Stéphane, his real name was Théodore Pécheux d "Herbenville), and the mother was the French actress Natalie Wild (Nathalie Wild). This married couple, besides Inessa, had two more girls. Due to the early death of his father, so as not to be a burden to his big family, Ines goes to her aunt in Moscow, who became a music teacher in the family of merchants and textile manufacturers Armand.

On October 3, 1893, in the church of St. Nicholas, in the village of Pushkino, which was then part of the Mytishchi volost of the Moscow district of the Moscow province, Inessa Stefan married Alexander Armand. Married to him, Ines gave birth to 4 children: two sons, Alexander and Fedor, and two daughters, Inna and Varvara. An ardent admirer of social democratic ideas and Tolstoyism turned out to be an unfaithful wife. She fell in love with her brother-in-law Vladimir Armand. Her husband's brother was nine years younger than Inessa.

Having accidentally learned about adultery, Alexander Evgenievich Armand, despite the shock, showed generosity. Vladimir and Inessa first drove off to Naples, and then settled in a Moscow house on Ostozhenka. In 1903, in Switzerland, the couple had their first child Andrei. In 1905, “Comrade Inessa” was arrested for the first time, and in 1907 she was sent to the Arkhangelsk province, where she was followed by new husband. Vladimir Armand died of consumption in a Swiss private clinic.

Feminists and revolutionaries avoided wearing makeup, wearing jewelry, and wearing perfume. Against the background of these blue stockings, Inessa Armand stood out "like a lawless comet" with her beauty and charm. Party comrades joked that Inessa should be included in textbooks on Marxism as an example of the unity of form and content.

Lenin met Inessa Armand in her hometown, Paris, in 1909 or 1910. The exact date didn't matter to either of them, as it was pure friendship. “At that time I was more afraid of you than fire,” Armand wrote to Lenin in 1913. - I would like to see you, but it seems that it would be better to die on the spot than to enter you, and when for some reason you entered the room of N.K. (Nadezhda Krupskaya - ed.), I immediately got lost and stupid.

I was always surprised and envied the courage of others who directly came to you, talked to you. Only in Longiumeau (Longjumeau - ed. . ) and then the following autumn, due to translations, etc., 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 so animated, and, secondly, it was convenient to look at, because at that time you did not notice it ... ". They began to sit for a long time in a Parisian cafe near Porte d'Orleans.

Two years after they met, Lenin in his letter, Armand lamented: “Oh, these “deeds” are similarities of deeds, surrogates of deeds, an obstacle to deeds, how I hate fuss, trouble, deeds, and how I am inextricably and forever connected with them !! That "is a sign more that I am lazy and tired and badly humoured. Generally I like my profession and now often almost hate it" (This is another sign that I'm lazy, tired and in a bad mood. In general, I love my profession, and now I often almost hate it).

In this recognition, some researchers even see Lenin's desire to throw the whole cause of the world revolution to hell and indulge in all the delights of Eros with the woman he loves. More serious ones believe that Ilyich did not expect to see the victory of the revolutionary forces in Russia during the lifetime of this generation - hence, they say, fatigue ...

Nevertheless, observant contemporaries noticed that the leader of the Russian revolutionaries was not indifferent to the lively Frenchwoman. The French socialist Charles Rapoport said: "Lenin did not take his Mongolian eyes off this little Frenchwoman." The apogee of their relationship came in 1913. Lenin was then 43 years old, Inessa - 39 years old. As Kollontai testified, Lenin himself confessed everything to his wife. Krupskaya wanted to "move away", but Lenin asked her to "stay". In the name of the triumph of the idea, Lenin sacrificed the love of his life.

Faded over the years, Nadezhda Konstantinovna was sympathetic to the feelings of her husband. She wrote that Lenin "could never have loved a woman with whom he disagreed, who was not a fellow worker." The subjunctive mood with a triple particle "would" with the head betrays how difficult it was for an unloved woman to be forgiven.

“There must be a connection between the will to power and impotence. I like Marx: you can feel that he and his Jenny made love with enthusiasm. This is felt by the serenity of his style and unchanging humor. At the same time, as I once noticed in the corridor of the university, if you sleep with Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya, then with iron inevitability a person will write something terrible, like "Materialism and Empirio-Criticism" ”, - our contemporary Italian writer and writer wrote at the end of the 20th century. medievalist Umberto Eco in his bestseller Foucault's Pendulum.

Lenin wrote to his passion in English: “Oh, I would like to kiss you a thousand times ... (“Oh, I would like to kiss you a thousand times ...”). It is unlikely that kisses in July 1914 became exclusively friendly. Although his appeals to her in letters always remained emphatically friendly. Yes, that's how he wrote in English - dear friend! How her letters contrasted against this background with the invariable address “dear” and with the ending: “I kiss you tightly. Your Inessa.

Inessa's death remains somewhat of a mystery. Tired of the endless revolutionary struggle, Armand wanted to go home to restore her wasted health, but in August 1920, Lenin persuaded her by letter to go to a sanatorium in the Caucasus, to Sergo Ordzhonikidze, who “there is power” and was supposed to arrange for his mistress “rest, sun, Good work". Soon, Comrade Sergo cheerfully reported to the leader: "Inessa is all right." Probably, this old acquaintance of hers, who once attended school in the Parisian suburb of Longjumeau, managed to arrange the “sun” too!

And suddenly a telegram: “Out of any queue. 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 point ended on September 24. The body will be transferred to Moscow Nazarov. Historians were surprised by this telegram signed not by Ordzhonikidze, but by the unknown Nazarov. It is quite possible that the Chekist. In less than two days, 46-year-old Inessa Armand suddenly fell ill with cholera and died.

On October 11, 1920, the zinc coffin with the body of Armand was delivered from the Kazansky railway station to the center of Moscow on a hearse drawn by two white horses. The next day, Armand was buried in the Kremlin wall between the American journalist John Reid and pediatrician Ivan Vasilyevich Rusakov. A few months later, Lenin had his first stroke.

Let's remember, dear subscribers, women whose fate turned out to be closely connected with a name known to all mankind - with the name of Lenin. This name still excites mankind: some consider him a saint, others consider him a devil. Therefore, it is certainly interesting what were the women whom the leader of the world proletariat loved, what was his intimate life.
Two names remained in history: Nadezhda Krupskaya and Inessa Armand. Both - fighting girlfriends. The first was a wife, the second was a lover.
First meeting.
The meeting of Nadezhda Krupskaya and Vladimir Ulyanov took place in St. Petersburg in 1893.

Social and political activities in the local illegal party group, where Nadezhda Krupskaya was already one of the active participants, brought young people closer. Five years later, in exile, in Shushenskoye, they got married. Inessa Armand and Vladimir Ulyanov first met in 1909 in

Paris. Inessa was delighted with him. The childless marriage of Lenin and Krupskaya was already 11 years old. Inessa was 31 years old, she survived two husbands and had five children.
Krupskaya and Armand were the absolute opposite of each other. There was only one thing in common - a passionate desire to participate in the revolutionary movement.
Character.
The character of Nadezhda Konstantinovna was balanced and docile. Cold, unemotional, modest, she was always ready to help her husband in party affairs, doing all the dirty work. Contemporaries rightly noted the high level of her intelligence, education and tenacity. A wonderful personal secretary-referent, they would say now.
Inessa, on the contrary, was distinguished by impetuosity of character, increased emotionality. Her whole life is proof of this. Inessa Armand was the daughter of French actors. At the age of fifteen, together with her sister, she came to Russia to visit her aunt, who gave music and French lessons to the wealthy Armand family. The head of the family, Yevgeny Evgenievich Armand, was a very rich man: the owner of forests, estates, tenement houses in Moscow, and factories in Pushkino. Yevgeny Evgenievich had two sons: Alexander and Vladimir. Pretty Inessa soon married Alexander. Temperamental The Frenchwoman gave birth to four children. And then an affair began with his own brother-in-law - Vladimir. They passionately fell in love with each other. Inessa leaves Alexander Armand and settles with her new husband Vladimir and her four (!) children. Soon they had another child - son Vladimir. The fate of Vladimir Sr. was tragic: carried away by the revolutionary impulse of Inessa, he was constantly either in exile, or in prison, or in exile. Health was undermined. Vladimir is dying. Inessa moved to Paris, where she wanted to "better acquainted with the French Socialist Party". Isn't it a stormy biography?
Consistency of views.
Nadezhda Konstantinovna agreed with her husband in everything. Inessa, on the other hand, entered into discussions with Lenin on many issues in which she demonstrated her more radical views, especially on the issue of free love. Inessa said that physical attraction often unrelated to heartfelt love.
Appearance.
N. K. Krupskaya, to put it mildly, was far from being a beauty. The fact is that she was seriously tormented by the so-called Graves' disease. Signs of the disease: bulging eyes, irritability, palpitations, sweating. Moreover, N. K. Krupskaya developed this disease in a very severe form, she had to undergo several operations. The party nicknames awarded to Krupskaya by her comrades-in-arms are more than eloquent: "Lamprey", "Fish" (!) and others.
From a response to a letter sent to the editors of a youth newspaper:
“Dear Katya, you should not despair. Here is Nadezhda Konstantinovna, what a scuffle was, and what a guy she grabbed!
Inessa Armand was a recognized beauty. Deep expressive eyes, luxurious hair, chiseled figure, pleasant voice, good manners. She enjoyed unconditional success with men. Ilyich did not resist either.
Thrift.
Krupskaya did not know how and did not like to run a household. She didn’t cook well, her husband was accommodating: “quite obediently he ate everything that they would give.” Krupskaya called cooking “mura”. The attitude towards comfort was very cool. When she and Lenin lived abroad, Nadezhda Konstantinovna described her home as follows: “Our room was clean, lit by electricity ... but we had to clean it ourselves, and clean our boots ourselves.”
According to the memoirs of contemporaries, Inessa Armand was a very good housewife. Being married to Alexander, and later to Vladimir Armand, she was able to organize a cozy home. How else to explain that both brothers were crazy about her?
Sexuality.
Why did the leader and his wife never have children? Krupskaya herself writes that she was pestered by some “ female disease”, which required “persistent treatment”. Apparently infertility Nadezhda Konstantinovna really suffered. Otherwise, how to explain the absence of heirs? The Ulyanovs did not have a lack of time for sex: what else could they do during long evenings and nights in exile in the Krasnoyarsk Territory (in the famous village of Shushenskoye)? It remains a mystery whether sex brought pleasure to the Ulyanov spouses. The conclusion suggests itself that the marriage of Lenin and Krupskaya was rather an alliance of comrades in the struggle.

Meanwhile, temperamental Inessa gave birth to five children, was repeatedly married! There is no doubt about her sex appeal. One can only wonder how, with so many children, she actively participated in the revolutionary movement. Inessa passionately took on any business. And Lenin was attracted, most likely, by her sexuality, her temperament, which, in all likelihood, was very similar to them. Inessa certainly did not suffer from infertility.
Love story.
At the end of December 1909, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin) and Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya moved to Paris. Krupskaya wrote that "... the most difficult years of emigration had to be spent in Paris." They were difficult morally: it was here that Lenin and Armand met for the first time . It was evident from everything that the leader of the Bolsheviks liked Inessa not only as a party comrade, but, above all, as a charming woman.
Of course, the clever Krupskaya saw that her husband was imbued with "comrade Inessa" by no means friendly feelings. Alexander Kollontai wrote about this. It turns out that Krupskaya knew about the mutual sympathy of her husband and Inessa Armand, repeatedly tried to leave.
Writer Michael Pearson considers it beyond doubt that Armand and Lenin were more than comradely. It turns out that Inessa was the only woman besides Krupskaya , in reference to which Lenin used the intimate "you".
Inessa Armand was the third side of the triangle. But you have to give credit to both. Krupskaya did not make scandals, and Armand treated her in a friendly way. Inessa followed the Ulyanovs everywhere.
And yet, the relationship had to be resolved somehow. Krupskaya delivered an ultimatum: either she or Inessa. And Lenin chose Krupskaya! Nadezhda Konstantinovna was a comfortable and faithful wife.
The archives contain letters that Armand wrote to Lenin, begging him to return: "No one will be worse off if we are all three of us (meaning Krupskaya) together again." In response, Lenin first asked her to forward all her correspondence, and then ... returned to Inessa again! Outwardly, it looked like this: under the leadership of Armand Ilyich he gave the Women's Department of the Central Committee of the Party.
Whoever experienced a feeling of love understands that such an act could be committed by a person who, of course, loves. The power of the flesh takes its toll. You must always keep your woman with you! Krupskaya was shocked! She constantly ran into her husband's lover. But Nadezhda Konstantinovna, as always, turned out to be wise, far-sighted and imperturbable: she undertook a series of voyages away from Moscow and Petrograd - in the Volga region. And it turned out to be right - time has done its indestructible work.
Lenin no longer belonged to himself, he belonged to the great cause of the revolution. Meetings with Armand became rare. True, Vladimir Ilyich wrote notes to Armand quite often, inquired about the health of her and her children, sent food, bought her galoshes, sent his personal doctor to the Arbat to treat the sick Inessa.
Letters.
About intimateexperiences lovers eloquently speak letters.
Armand 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 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 still do without kisses, 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. To few people Lenin wrote as many letters as Inessa. Sometimes these were multi-page messages.

What calmed the heart.
As you know, Krupskaya outlived her husband by 15 years and died a natural death at the age of 70. Even by our standards, a very respectable age.
Armand died in 1920. On the advice of the same Lenin, she went south, "to Sergo in the Caucasus." A month later, a telegram arrived: “Out of any queue. 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 point ended on September 24. The body will be transferred to Moscow Nazarov.
Lenin was deeply shocked. According to the memoirs of Alexandra Kollontai: “We followed her coffin, it was impossible to recognize Lenin. He walked with his eyes closed and it seemed that he was about to fall. Kollontai believed that the death of Inessa Armand hastened the death of Lenin: he, loving Inessa, could not survive her departure.
Lenin's last will was to bring the children of Inessa Armand from France. And Krupskaya did it. But they were not allowed to see the sick Lenin.
In February 1924, Krupskaya offered to bury the remains of her husband together with the ashes of Inessa Armand. It was a posthumous declaration of their love. But Stalin rejected the offer.
This is how the love triangle ended, my friends. And if Lenin had chosen not the cold Krupskaya, but the sexy Armand, would he have produced children? Maybe the story would have turned out differently. As a rule, people who have and love children care about their future, so they reject bloodshed!

Inessa Armand is an important figure in Soviet history, and more as a symbol of what could be than in accordance with what she really managed to achieve. In a short period of time, from the revolution of 1917 until her death in 1920, she was able to raise the issue of women's rights and play an active role in promoting the interests of Bolshevik women's organizations. In addition, she promoted measures such as the establishment of communal kitchens, which allowed women to play a more active role in society. Not the last role here was played by her personal influence on Lenin, with whom she repeatedly entered into discussions on political issues. There are suggestions that their relationship went beyond just companionship.

Downplaying Inessa Armand in the political life of Bolshevik Russia is partly due to the desire to hush up the details of her personal life with Lenin. For example, Stalin threatened Krupskaya, which will assign Inessa Armand"official widow" Lenin, if the first one does not behave prudently enough. Naturally, while Stalin pursued his political goals. Our time in this respect is more sentimental, we are interested in the details of the private lives of great people. It is important for a biographer to know what, when, where and with whom they did or did not do.

Michael Pearson(Michael Pearson) considers it certain, as the title of his book shows, that Armand and Lenin connected more than comradely relations, although he does not give any arguments in favor of his point of view. He ignores arguments. R.S. Elwood(R.C. Elwood), cited by him in his biography Inessa Armand and showing that the relationship between Armand and Lenin did not include a sexual component. Pearson names the book Elwood"student", which naturally testifies to his own ambitions. By Pearson, Inessa was the only woman except Krupskaya, in reference to which Lenin used the intimate "you". She became his lover in France, at the Bolshevik party school in Longjumeau in 1911. Then, since he has nothing to add, the event is touched upon from afar, half denied ("they may have ceased to be lovers that autumn"). Then it is retrospectively treated as a fact, until, describing the relationship between Inessa and Lenin in 1915, he informs us that there is no evidence of "the resumption of their sexual relations."

We may never know the truth. They were taken over by other passions. Inessa, the daughter of a French opera singer, who became an orphan at an early age, was raised in a Russian family, in which her aunt worked as a governess. She later married Alexandra Armanda, the eldest son. However, education in the circles of the upper bourgeoisie, and Armand had factories for the production of textiles in Pushkino, did not contribute to her transformation into an ordinary wife and mother. She gave birth to one of her children with Vladimir, her brother-in-law, who became interested in radical political ideas while studying at Moscow University. Perhaps it was thanks to Vladimir, with whom she lived for some time, that Inessa joined politics. She later attributed her interest in politics to her acquaintance with the book. Lenin"The Development of Capitalism in Russia", which she read in Switzerland in 1903. Two years later, during the revolutionary events of 1905, she first went to prison.

Inessa was not the first woman of her class to go to prison. Many prominent female revolutionaries belonged to the middle classes, and there were even more such women than male revolutionaries. Inessa, how Krupskaya and Alexandra Kollontai, received an excellent education and opportunities for personal growth that members of other classes could not even dream of. This experience gave her a sense of social belonging ( Armand were exemplary patriarchal producers) and self-confidence, which became the basis for breaking with social environment. Inessa entered into discussions with Lenin on many issues in which she demonstrated her more radical views, especially on the issue of free love.

Separation from children was one of the most severe trials in jail and exile. In this sense, since 1905, life Inessa Armand is an example of the difficulties faced by women who became revolutionaries. Despite the presence of tuberculosis, her husband Vladimir gallantly accompanied her to exile in the cold north, from where she later eventually fled abroad, he turned out to be a remarkably tolerant person. In 1909, in Paris, Inessa met for the first time Lenin and was delighted with it. In the intra-Party struggle in the depths of the socialist movement, she became one of his most trusted supporters and joined a small group of Bolsheviks who undertook a journey with him in the famous sealed carriage to Finland.

Pearson, one of the last books of which was devoted to a trip in a sealed wagon, gives detailed description those revolutionary years until the death of Inessa from cholera, which followed at the age of 47 years. Even more vivid evidence of her life is the beautiful selection of photographs that the book is provided with. Shown here are characteristic studio photographs taken at the end of the 19th century. From these photographs, she looks at the reader in a half-smile with her big eyes. There are also some less formal photos of her reading, fooling around and playing with children. In her last photograph, taken in 1920 shortly before her death, she is still beautiful, but strict. Her absent gaze accurately reflects the desperation that her diaries of the time testify to. It is felt that before us is a woman who was not only someone's mistress.

The materials of InoSMI contain only assessments of foreign media and do not reflect the position of the editors of InoSMI.

In the post-Soviet period, on the contrary, they began to pay too much attention to this. A large number of publications, videos, films about the personal life of V.I. Lenin, N.K. Krupskaya, I.F. Armand, and in most of these materials, the emphasis in the relations of V.I. Lenin and N.K. Krupskaya argues that Nadezhda Konstantinovna was a faithful party comrade, friend, comrade-in-arms, like-minded leader, was necessary and convenient for Vladimir Ilyich precisely in this capacity.

Soviet propaganda never officially called Krupskaya either his wife or his wife. Just a friend and ally. Did Lenin feel any love for her at all? The historian is still unknown. But it is known that Krupskaya herself was not a blue stocking, but an ordinary woman in love. It is also known that their marriage was not fictitious at all. They had family scandals and passionate nights .... Here is a quote from one of her letters:

“We were newlyweds, after all,” and this link brightened up. The fact that I do not write about this in my memoirs does not mean at all that there was neither poetry nor young passion in our life ... "

Nadezhda Krupskaya, who by the way came from a noble family, met the young Marxist Vladimir Ulyanov in 1894. At one of the illegal political gatherings. Nadezhda was 25 at that time, Vladimir Ilyich was a year younger, but according to the memoirs of his contemporaries, he always looked older than his years. And 4 years later they got married in the Siberian village of Shushenskoye, about which Soviet historians wrote so much. There Krupskaya and Lenin served their exile. Few people know that it was a church marriage. Moreover, after Krupskaya, the mother of Nadezhda Konstantinovna, Elizaveta Krupskaya, went to a remote Siberian village, and of her own free will.

Until her death, she lived with her daughter and son-in-law, accompanying them through exile, abroad and safe houses. It was she who did the housework: she cooked pies, washed clothes, cooked jam. Neither Lenin nor Krupskaya herself was engaged in farming. One was too busy, the other could not do anything ... Elizabeth Krupskaya's mother-in-law was the most ordinary, she grumbled at her son-in-law and often scolded the "young". Here is how Krupskaya writes about it in her letters.

“Volodya’s mother is unhappy: he recently mistook a grouse for a goose, ate and praised: a good goose, not fat”

Despite his grumpiness, Lenin loved his mother-in-law very much. She was an inveterate smoker... And if she suddenly ran out of cigarettes, he ran both at night and into the slush to get her a cigarette. Elizaveta Krupskaya, most likely, knew that her son-in-law is not an exemplary husband and turns love on the side. However, she never expressed a single reproach to Lenin.

The woman who for many years was Lenin's secret mistress is Elisabeth Pechot d'Herbinville. But in Russia she is known under a different name - Inessa Armand. For many years in the Soviet Union they did not even suspect that this was the long-term mistress of Vladimir Lenin. When they met, she was already 35 years old, he was 39, and he had been officially married to Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya for 11 years. Inessa Armand, by the time she met Vladimir Lenin, was a widow and mother of many children. She had 5 children from two different marriages.

The first husband of Inessa Armand was, as they would say today, the oligarch Alexander Armand, the eldest son of a wealthy manufacturer. Inessa lived with him for 9 years and bore him 4 children, but ... once a grandiose scandal erupted in the family. Inessa told her husband that she was taking the children and going to his own younger brother, who at that time was ... 17 years old and whom Inessa was 11 years older. In general, in modern terms, Armand was a femme fatale who attracted the attention of men.

Researchers say, having learned about Lenin’s romance with Inessa, like any normal woman, Krupskaya, threw a tantrum and offered a divorce. What arguments Lenin gave is not known, but since then a love triangle has formed. Nadezhda Krupskaya shared the daytime hours with Lenin, and he spent the nights with Inessa Armand.

However, in 1917, after moving to Petrograd and the victory of the Bolsheviks, there was no longer any talk of having two women in Lenin's life at once. The leader's reputation had to be impeccable. Lenin and Armand - moved away. In 1920, Inessa Armand died of typhus, returning to Moscow from Kislovodsk, where she went to improve her health. Lenin personally met the coffin with her body at the Kursk railway station.

Eyewitnesses recalled that it was terrible to look at him, he literally fainted from grief. Among the many wreaths on a fresh grave, one of the white flowers with a black ribbon stood out: "Comrade Inesse from V. I. Lenin."

Lenin outlived his mistress by only 4 years. And Krupskaya outlived her husband by 15 years. Lenin and Krupskaya did not have their own children, and Nadezhda Konstantinovna took care of strangers until the end of her life. Including the children of her rival - Inessa Armand. The daughter of a rival, who almost became a homeowner, who was named Inessa in honor of her mother, became the closest person for Krupskaya. The most amazing thing is that Krupskaya and Armand are even buried side by side. On Red Square near the Kremlin wall….