Removing the damage to the curse yourself. Prayer for all curses: help to remove the curse yourself

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 Herbert Wells called Lenin, 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, a Bolshevik with experience, 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 times, and sometimes at the same time, her name was Elisabeth Pécheux d "Herbenville or Inessa Stéphane, and later Armand or Inès Elisabeth Armand. However, it was still not at all about the revolution. Just born in Paris on May 8 (April 26, old style) In 1874, the 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 her father, in order not to be a burden to her large 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 her new husband followed her. 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 became 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 "never could have loved a woman with whom he disagreed, who was not a workmate." 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 what he wrote English language- 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.

What do we know about Lenin today? The image of “the most humane person”, “grandfather Lenin”, a friend of all working people on Earth, has long since dissipated like a morning mist. In its place, the image of a cruel, merciless politician reigned, who believed everything with cynical calculation, ready to lay his soul to the devil and the devil, to cooperate with those with whom his country was at war, in order to achieve his goal - to come to power in this country. A maniac of power: Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov-Lenin, in fact, probably was like that.

But those same contemporaries testify that there was still love in Lenin's life. Soviet biographers erased her from the leader's biography - the extensive correspondence between Lenin and the Russian revolutionary of French origin Inessa Armand in Soviet times was only partially published, and even large denominations were made in the published letters. Few other people wrote so many letters. Of course, in this novel that lasted several years (it began in 1908), Lenin remained Lenin, interspersing in his letters reflections on the topics of the class struggle with purely personal passages, like: “Oh, I would like to kiss you a thousand times, greet you and wish you good luck: I am quite sure that you will win "...

This phrase is written in French and cuts into arguments about what unions should be like, or something like that. Inessa Armand in the manifestations of her feelings was much more lyrical: “At that time I was afraid of you more than fire. I would like to see you, but I think it would be better to die on the spot than to enter you, and when for some reason you entered N.K.'s room, I immediately became lost and stupid. I was always surprised and envied the courage of others who directly came to you, talked to you ... 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 watch, because at that time you did not notice it ”...

Inessa Armand was just a beautiful woman

In the midst of the turmoil of the civil war, busy with state affairs and the fate of the world revolution, a very modest person in everyday life is concerned about the number of galoshes for the woman he loves. “So what?” You ask. Actually, nothing special with one small exception. This man's name is Lenin, and he writes a note not to his wife, but to his mistress, Inessa Armand. 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 Herbert Wells called Lenin, 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.

Inessa Armand amazed with exquisite beauty

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.

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, in connection with 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 stay for a long time in a Parisian cafe at porte d "Orléans.

... And she is with the leader.

Or here: “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 still occupied here in Paris in my life, that almost all activity here in Paris was connected with a thousand threads with the thought of you. I wasn't in love with you then, but even then I loved you very much. I would still do without kisses, just to see you, sometimes talking to you would be a joy, and it could not hurt anyone. Why was it to deprive me of this? You ask me if I'm angry that you "spent" the breakup. No, I don't think you did it for yourself... Kiss you hard. Your Inessa "...

Krupskaya knew about their relationship, several times she was going to leave, but each time Lenin held her back. In 1915, she put the question point-blank: either she or Armand. The leader's choice is known. Apparently, he was more comfortable with the calm, balanced Krupskaya than with the ardent, romantic Armand. By the way, Krupskaya and Armand have established very good friendly relations- Knowing everything, Nadezhda Konstantinovna never showed this, except for a few, and, apparently, completely not scandalous explanations with her husband. And she never tried to "squeeze out" Armand from the circle of Lenin's close friends.

After 1915, the affair with Armand as such came to naught, although close human relations continued. They returned from emigration to Russia in the same sealed carriage, in the same compartment - Lenin, Krupskaya and Armand. After the revolution, Lenin was completely captivated by other concerns, although Armand did not forget about him, sending her notes in which he asked about the health of the children, fussing about providing her with an apartment, food, a telephone, and so on. What was her life like at that time? Judging by the diary entries of that time, her feelings for Lenin did not so much cool down as they burned her from the inside:
“...Now I am indifferent to everyone. 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, all his passion to V.I. and the cause of work, all sources of love, sympathy for the people with whom it used to be so rich were exhausted in him ... I am a living corpse, and this is terrible.

Sergo "arranged the sun"

Among other things, like an overseas bird, she apparently yearned in a completely foreign and alien to her Russia and dreamed of leaving home. But even then it was not so easy. In the autumn of 1920, when, probably, it became completely unbearable, she made up her mind and called Lenin. He was busy, he answered with a note in which he addressed to “you”, although all his life he was with her, one of the few, to “you”: “Dear friend! It was very sad to know that you were tired and dissatisfied with work and others (or work colleagues). Can I help you by arranging you in a sanatorium? With great pleasure I will help in every possible way ... If you don’t like going to a sanatorium, why not go south? To Sergo in the Caucasus? Sergo will arrange rest, the sun, he will probably arrange a good job. He is the power there ... Think about it? .. "

In addition to this “you”, the note is striking in its soulless, impersonal coldness, which does not even allow one to assume that its author is referring to his even former lover. So, not without courtesy, not in a boorish way, they get rid of the petitioner. He asks for one thing, and he is offered all kinds of assistance in obtaining something else, pretending that they do not understand what is at stake and that the proposed replacement is completely unequal.
It seems to me that Inessa understood everything. That is, about the feelings of "V.I." she probably had no illusions for a long time. But now she also understood that the cage was slammed shut, and the bird in it would be an abyss, the native French sun would never be seen again. Now only "Sergo" - the Bolshevik dictator of Transcaucasia Sergo Ordzhonikidze - will "arrange" the sun for her.

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 she did not leave voluntarily, they would resort to the help of the Red Army. She obeyed. The train was sent to Nalchik, but got stuck at the Beslan junction station: the roads were clogged with refugees. Finally, the train arrived, Inessa looked around the city, was at a meeting of local communists, and at night she became ill. Not wanting to disturb the neighbors, she endured until morning. She spent two days in the hospital. At midnight on September 23, Inessa lost consciousness and died by morning. The stop in Beslan turned out to be fatal: she contracted cholera.

“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.

On October 1, 1920, a zinc coffin with the body of Armand was delivered from the Kazansky railway station to the center of Moscow on a hearse harnessed by two white horses. They say that no one else has ever, either before or since, seen Lenin crying. He sent a wreath of living white flowers to the coffin with an inscription on mourning ribbon: "To Comrade Inessa from V. I. Lenin." The secretary of the Third International, Anzhelika Balabanova, described him on the day of the funeral: “Not only Lenin's face, his whole appearance expressed such sadness that no one even dared to nod to him. It was clear that he wanted to be alone with his grief. He seemed smaller, his face was covered with a cap, his eyes seemed to disappear in painfully suppressed tears ... "

Somewhere behind him is buried in the wall and she ...

According to Armand's friend, Alexandra Kollontai, her death knocked Lenin down: “He could not survive Inessa Armand. The death of Inessa hastened his illness, which became fatal ... ”The sensitive Krupskaya, who, apparently, loved her husband very much, understood this. In order to somehow support him, already sick, morally, she fulfilled his will: in 1922, the children of Inessa Armand were brought to Gorki from France. True, they were not allowed to see Lenin.
And when Lenin died, she turned to the government with a request to bury his remains along with the ashes of Inessa Armand. It was indeed a beautiful, generous gesture, which the pharisaic morality of the Bolsheviks could not accept. Stalin rejected this proposal. And not only rejected. He later blackmailed poor Krupskaya with it. When she dared to express some dissenting opinion, he threatened that she would be “demoted” from the widows of Lenin, and Armand would be “appointed” in her place.

Thus, symbolically and meaningfully, this novel ended. Lenin even managed to destroy his love, refusing to save her and actually sending her to death. Dark story.

He also lost power. But for his brother, he certainly avenged ..

“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.
I wasn't in love with you then, but even then I loved you very much. I would still do without kisses, just to see you, sometimes talking to you would be a joy - and this could not hurt anyone. Why was it to deprive me of this?
You ask me if I'm angry that you "spent" the breakup. No, I don't think you did it for yourself."

This is the only surviving personal letter from Inessa Fedorovna Armand to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. She destroyed the rest of the letters. That was Lenin's request. He was already the leader of the party and thought about his reputation. And she thought about him and continued to love him.

“At that time I was afraid of you more than fire. I would like to see you, but I think it would be better to die on the spot than to enter you, and when for some reason you went to Nadezhda Konstantinovna, I immediately became lost and stupid. I was always surprised and envied the courage of others who directly came to you, talked to you. Only then, in connection with translations 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 ... "

Lenin was one of the most famous people era. People went to their deaths for him, mountains were turned and governments were overthrown, pushing each other apart just to see him with one eye. Probably, having become so popular, women also liked him. But only one of them loved him so strongly, ardently and disinterestedly, so obeyed him in everything. And so she died.

“Well, dear, that’s enough for today. Yesterday there was no letter from you! I am so afraid that my letters do not reach you - I sent you three letters (this is the fourth) and a telegram. Haven't you received them? On this occasion, the most incredible thoughts come to mind.
I kiss you hard.
I also wrote to Nadezhda Konstantinovna.

And this is perhaps the most interesting passage in the letter. It turns out that the wife, Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya, knew about her husband's affair with Armand and did not break not only with him, but also with her?

Krupskaya was, saying modern language, “absentee”, that is, a woman in the wild, to whom the prisoners write extensive and compassionate messages. Lenin corresponded with her while sitting in a St. Petersburg prison. As is customary among prisoners, he began to call her the bride. Usually, absentee students are promised, when they are released, to marry them. But Krupskaya herself was arrested. She received three years of exile and asked to go to the village of Shushenskoye, Minusinsk district, to her fiancé.

Reproduction of the painting by artist Ivan Ivanovich Tyutikov (1893-1973) “V. I. Lenin and N. K. Krupskaya in exile in the village of Shushenskoye, 1937

They probably wanted to enter into something like a fictitious marriage in order to make life easier for themselves, but united forever. The administratively exiled Krupskaya came to Lenin with her mother, Elizaveta Vasilievna, a pious woman, a pupil of the Institute for Noble Maidens. Nadezhda Konstantinovna did not part with her mother. The mother-in-law got a golden one. It was she who established the young life.

Police photograph of V. I. Ulyanov
December 1895

Krupskaya recalled: “In the summer there was no one to help with the housework. And my mother and I fought with the Russian stove. At first, it happened that I knocked over the soup with dumplings, which crumbled on the bottom. Then I got used to it. In October, an assistant appeared, thirteen-year-old Pasha, thin, with sharp elbows, who quickly took over the entire household ... "

Do not be a mother-in-law, do not see Lenin's home comfort. Krupskaya did not know how to run a household. When the mother-in-law died, they didn’t even cook dinner, they went to the dining room. And Lenin suffered from a stomach from his youth; sitting down at the table, he anxiously asked: “Can I eat this?” Although the food was unpretentious. In exile in Paris, Grigory Evssevich Zinoviev, the future owner of Leningrad and chairman of the Executive Committee of the Comintern, lived with him, Zinoviev later told how in Paris Lenin “ran to the crossroads” in the evenings for latest release evening newspapers, and in the morning - for hot buns:

His wife preferred, between us, brioche, but the old man was a little stingy...

The girl Nadezhda Konstantinovna was quite pretty. According to her friend, “Nadya had white, thin skin, and the blush that spread from her cheeks to her ears, to her chin, to her forehead was pale pink ... She had neither vanity nor pride. In her girlish life there was no place for a love game.

On July 10, 1898, Vladimir Ilyich and Nadezhda Konstantinovna got married, although wedding rings did not wear. The marriage was not early. Both under thirty. There is no reason to doubt that Lenin was the first man for Krupskaya.

In her youth, she moved in a circle of radical young people who supplied her with illegal literature. Among them was the once famous revolutionary Ivan Babushkin. Now few people remember him; most Muscovites hardly suspect that the Babushkinskaya metro station is named after him. Krupskaya and Babushkin read Marx together and argued. But things did not go beyond talk about Marx. In those days, premarital intimate relationships were strongly condemned.

Just as little is known about the male experience of Vladimir Ilyich, although a young man from a noble family was quite allowed to have certain entertainment and pranks. There would be interest...

Lenin's biographer, an emigrant, told the following story:

“A certain lady came to Geneva with the special purpose of getting to know Lenin. She had a letter from Kalmykova (she gave money for the publication of Iskra) to Lenin. She was sure that he would be received with due attention and respect.
After the meeting, the lady complained to everyone that Lenin received her with "incredible rudeness", almost "kicked her out". When Lenin was told about her complaints, he became extremely irritated:
- This fool sat with me for two hours, took me away from work, brought me to a headache with her questions and conversations. And she's still complaining! Did she really think that I would look after her? I was engaged in courtship when I was a schoolboy, but now there is neither time nor desire for this.

Yes, was this courtship in the gymnasium years? Was young Ulyanov interested in girls, did he fall in love with madness, did he suffer from unrequited love? Was he capable of passion, of tenderness?

“Lenin's eyes were brown, a thought always slipped into them,” recalled Alexandra Kollontai. - A slyly mocking light often played. It seemed that he was reading your thought, that nothing could be hidden from him. But I didn’t see Lenin’s “affectionate” eyes, even when he laughed.”

After Lenin's death, Nadezhda Konstantinovna wrote: “Vladimir Ilyich is portrayed as some kind of ascetic, a virtuous philistine family man. Somehow his image is distorted. He wasn't like that. He was a man to whom nothing human is alien. He loved life in all its versatility, eagerly absorbed it into himself.

No, it seems that women played a very insignificant role in the life of the revolutionary Lenin. Even the young wife, apparently, did not cause a special surge of joy. Newlyweds filmed new apartment but slept in different rooms. Unusual for newly married young people. It seems that both of them viewed their union as purely businesslike, as the creation of a revolutionary cell in the struggle against the autocracy.

However, Nadezhda Konstantinovna objected to this version: “We were newlyweds. They loved each other deeply. At first, nothing existed for us ... The fact that I do not write about it in my memoirs does not mean at all that there was neither poetry nor young passion in our life.

The mother-in-law liked that the son-in-law got a non-drinker and even a non-smoker. But Vladimir Ilyich was not easy in personal communication. He had a fantastic sense of purpose and an iron will, but a fragile nervous system, historians write. From nervous outbursts, a rash appeared on the body. He quickly got tired and needed constant rest in nature. He was very quick-tempered, irritable, easily fell into anger and rage. He suffered from insomnia, headache, fell asleep late and did not sleep well. His mornings were always bad. His maniacal concern for cleanliness was striking, he polished his shoes to a shine, could not stand dirt and stains.

Krupskaya herself confessed to the daughters of Inessa Armand in 1923:

So I wanted to have a baby...

If you knew how much I dream of babysitting my grandson...

And why, in fact, did they not have children? They did not do the usual analyzes in our era, so an exact answer is impossible. Two years after the wedding, on April 6, 1900, Lenin wrote to his mother: “Nadya must be lying: the doctor found (as she wrote a week ago) that her illness (female) requires persistent treatment.”

Women's diseases, known business, dangerous complications - infertility. One of the modern historians discovered a note made by the Ufa doctor Fedotov after examining Krupskaya: "Genital infantilism."

It is not possible to verify this diagnosis.

On March 10, 1900, the hereditary nobleman Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov petitioned the director of the police department: “Having completed this year the period of public supervision, I was forced to choose the city of Pskov for myself from the few cities allowed to me, because only there I found it possible to continue my experience , being listed in the class of attorneys at law. In other cities, I would not have had any opportunity to be assigned to any barrister and be accepted into the estate by the local district court, and this would be tantamount to me losing all hope of a lawyer's career.

Nadezhda Konstantinovna served her term of public supervision in the Ufa province with her mother. Find a job - teaching - Krupskaya could not.

“Consequently, I will have to support her from my earnings, and now I can count on the meager earnings (and even then not immediately, but after a while) due to the almost complete loss of all my previous connections and the difficulty of starting an independent legal practice ... Necessity Keeping my wife and children in another city puts me in a hopeless situation and forces me to enter into unpayable debts. Finally, for many years I have been suffering from catarrh of the intestines, which has become even worse due to life in Siberia, and now I am in dire need of a proper family life.

Based on the foregoing, I have the honor to humbly ask to allow my wife, Nadezhda Ulyanova, to serve the remaining period of public supervision not in the Ufa province, but together with her husband in the city of Pskov.

The police department refused.

Lenin's whole life from his youth was devoted to the revolution. If he did not think about her twenty-four hours a day, there would be no October. back side such an all-consuming purposefulness - a weakened interest in opposite sex, decreased attraction. As if nature itself helped him to concentrate on one thing. This is a common occurrence in political history.

He just didn't care about women. It took an incredibly strong impulse to awaken a vivid feeling in him. In 1910, a young revolutionary Inessa Armand arrived in Paris, elegant, cheerful, unusual.

“Those who happened to see her,” said a contemporary, “for a long time remembered her somewhat strange, nervous, as if asymmetrical face, very strong-willed, with large hypnotizing eyes.”

It surprisingly combined the thirst for revolution with the thirst for life. This attracted Lenin! Just beautiful ladies did not bother him. He didn't have any friends either. And it was like a lightning strike. He was thirty-nine, she was thirty-five. Witnesses recalled: “Lenin literally did not take his Mongolian eyes off this little Frenchwoman ...”

Lenin had vision problems. Poets sang of his famous Leninist squint, and his left eye was very short-sighted (four - four and a half diopters), so he squinted, trying to see something. He read with his left eye and looked into the distance with his right. But Armand saw Inessa right away - a beautiful temperamental revolutionary and a complete like-minded person in business ...

Inessa, 1882

Frenchwoman Inessa Feodorovna Armand was born in Paris as Elizabeth Steffen. She was brought to Moscow as a girl. Here she married Alexander Armand, whose ancestors settled in Russia during the Napoleonic Wars.

They had three children. But the marriage quickly fell apart. Inessa fell in love with her husband's younger brother, Vladimir Armand, who was eleven years younger than her. They were connected, among other things, by an interest in socialist ideas. In those times, which seem puritanical to us, Inessa was not at all embarrassed by adultery. She did not consider herself a depraved woman, she believed that she had the right to happiness.

Inessa gave birth to a son and from her lover, she named him Andrei. This is the same future captain Armand, who is considered the son of Lenin. In reality, by the time Inessa met Vladimir Ilyich, the boy was already five years old. Inessa's husband turned out to be an extremely noble person, he accepted her child as his own, gave his middle name. The novel was short-lived. Her lover fell ill with tuberculosis and died.

With husband Alexander Armand. 1895

Inessa Armand was concerned not only with personal freedom, but also with public freedom. In Russia, this is the shortest way to jail. Inessa was imprisoned three times. From the exile she was serving in Arkhangelsk, she fled abroad. Here she met Lenin.

Krupskaya recalled:

“Arrested in September 1912, Inessa was sitting on someone else’s passport in very difficult conditions, which undermined her health in order - she had signs of tuberculosis, but her energy did not decrease, she treated all issues of party life with even greater passion. We were all terribly glad to see her coming...
There was a lot of some kind of cheerfulness and ardor in her. It became cozier, more fun when Inessa came.

Having lost a loved one, Armand was open to new love. Passionate and experienced, she opened to Lenin a new world of pleasures for him. It turned out to be almost as exciting as doing a revolution. Krupskaya, as usual, was the last to know about their passion: “Ilyich, Inessa and I went for a lot of walks. Zinoviev and Kamenev called us the "party of truants". Inessa was a good musician, she persuaded everyone to go to Beethoven's concerts, she herself played Beethoven very well. Ilyich especially loved the Pathetic Sonata, asked her to constantly play - he loved music ... My mother became very attached to Inessa, whom Inessa often came to talk to, sit with her for a smoke.

Lenin's mother-in-law was the first to understand everything. Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya tried several times to leave, but Lenin held her back. Nadezhda Konstantinovna remained, but she again went to sleep in her mother's room.

Krupskaya lost terribly against the background of Armand. She has already lost her feminine attractiveness, has grown stout and ugly. Her eyes were bulging, she was evilly called a herring. Krupskaya suffered from Graves' disease. In the medical books of that time they wrote: “Symptoms: strong heartbeat, irritability, sweating, swelling of the thyroid gland (that is, the appearance of a goiter) and protrusion of the eyeballs. The reason is the paralytic condition of the vasomotor nerves of the head and neck. Treatment is limited to a strengthening diet, iron, quinine, climate change and the use of galvanization of the sympathetic cervical plexus.

Krupskaya used this treatment.

Nadezhda Konstantinovna wrote to her mother-in-law in May 1913: “I am in an invalid position and get tired very quickly. I went to get electrified for a whole month, my neck did not become smaller, but my eyes became more normal, and my heart beats less. Here in the clinics of nervous diseases, treatment costs nothing, and the doctors are very attentive.”

Lenin informed his comrade in exile Grigory Lvovich Shklovsky, with whom he became very close: “We came to a village near Zakopane to treat Nadezhda Konstantinovna with mountain air from Graves' disease ... The disease is due to nerves. He was treated with electricity for three weeks. Success equals zero. Everything is the same: swelling of the eyes, swelling of the neck, and palpitations, all symptoms of Graves' disease.

She was treated incorrectly. They did not know then that Graves' disease is one of the most common endocrinological diseases and consists in strengthening the function of the thyroid gland. Now they would help her, but then Lenin's wife was actually left without medical care. Graves' disease affected both the character and appearance of Nadezhda Konstantinovna: a disproportionately thick neck, bulging eyes, plus fussiness, irritability, tearfulness.

Lenin wrote to Grigory Shklovsky: “Another personal request: I would very much ask you to try not to send Nadia any more papers on the Mokhov case, because it rattles her nerves, and her nerves are bad, Graves' disease is returning again. And don’t write anything to me on this point (so that Nadya doesn’t know what I wrote to you, otherwise she will worry) ... "

But what was not, was not: no passion, no love. He found all this in the arms of Inessa. Although there were hugs, or did the relationship develop as platonic? .. One way or another, Inessa Armand became Lenin's real and only love.

But here's what's important. Lenin did not move away from his wife even in the midst of an affair with Inessa Armand. But these were the happiest days of his short life. And yet, this love he neglected. Considered love a transient matter, less significant than strong friendly relations with Krupskaya?

Having no children, Krupskaya devoted her life to him. They were united by common ideals and mutual respect. This is not to say that their marriage was unsuccessful. Vladimir Ilyich valued his wife and sympathized with her suffering.

He understood how important for him the devotion and reliability of Nadezhda Konstantinovna, a well-educated and versatile woman. She, without complaining, helped him in everything. Conducted his extensive correspondence. Encrypting and deciphering correspondence with comrades is a dreary and time-consuming task. They joked that the practical Lenin married Nadezhda Konstantinovna for the sake of her calligraphic handwriting.

We must pay tribute to Nadezhda Konstantinovna. She and Inessa did not sort things out because of the man. They even became friends. Inessa, a sexually liberated woman, would have been quite satisfied with a life of three. In fact, it was Inessa who suggested to Lenin: “There were many good things in relations with Nadezhda Konstantinovna. She told me that I became dear to her and close only recently. And I fell in love with her almost from the first meeting for her softness and charm.

They say that Krupskaya, having learned about the novel, was ready to leave, give him a divorce so that he would be happy. But Lenin said: stay. Appreciated her devotion? Didn't want to leave a not-so-healthy wife after so many years of marriage? Care about your reputation? Armand embarrassed him with the freedom of views on intimate life. She believed that a woman herself has the right to choose her partner, and in this sense, the revolutionary Lenin was extremely old-fashioned ...

Inessa Armand with children

In the end, Inessa left. Lenin tried to explain himself to her: “I hope we will see each other after the congress. Please bring all our letters when you arrive (that is, bring them with you) (it is inconvenient to send them by registered letter here: a registered letter can be opened very easily by friends) ... "

Lenin asked Inessa to return his letters in order to destroy them. Vladimir Ilyich was very frank with her:

“How I hate fuss, hassle, affairs, and how I am inextricably and forever connected with them! This is yet another sign that I am lazy, tired and in a bad mood. In general, I love my profession, but now I often almost hate it. If possible, don't be angry with me. I caused you a lot of pain, I know it ... "

The affair with Inessa, one way or another, lasted for five years, until Lenin broke off the love relationship, leaving only business. And yet gentle notes constantly erupted:

"Dear friend!
Just sent you a business letter, so to speak. But besides the business letter, I wanted to say a few friendly words to you and shake your hand warmly. You write that even your hands and feet swell from the cold. This is, uh, terrible. After all, your hands have always been chilly. Why even bring it to this? ..
Your last letters were so full of melancholy and such sad thoughts aroused in me and awoke such frenzied pangs of conscience that I can never come to my senses...
Oh, I would like to kiss you a thousand times, greet you and wish you success.

Lenin used the love of both women to the fullest. Nadezhda Konstantinovna managed his office and corresponded. Inessa translated for him from French. No matter how much Vladimir Ilyich loved Inessa, he calmly sent her on a party assignment to Russia, realizing how dangerous this journey was. And she was indeed arrested. But politics and the struggle for power were most important to him.

The February Revolution broke out. On March 6, 1917, Lenin, terribly excited by the news from Russia, wrote to Inessa:

“In my opinion, everyone should now have one thought: to jump. And people are waiting for something. Of course, my nerves are overwhelmed. Yes, even! Be patient, sit here...
I am sure that I will be arrested or simply detained if I go under my own name ... At such moments as now, one must be able to be resourceful and adventurous ... There are many Russian rich and poor Russian fools, social patriots, etc. who should ask the Germans for passes - a carriage to Copenhagen for various revolutionaries.
Why not?..
You will say, perhaps, that the Germans will not give a wagon. Let's bet that they will!

Menshevik Julius Martov, very scrupulous in matters of morality, offered to exchange Russian emigrants from Switzerland for civilian Germans and Austrians interned in Russia. The German representatives agreed.

The Executive Commission of the Central Emigrant Committee sent a telegram to the Minister of Justice of the Provisional Government Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky with a request to allow passage through Germany. Lenin did not want to wait for an answer. Together with Krupskaya, Armand and a group of emigrants, he went to Russia through Germany and Sweden. There was nothing secret about this trip. They drafted a detailed press document, which they sent to the newspapers.

Lenin returned to Russia in the spring of the seventeenth, middle-aged and unhealthy. One of those who met him at the station recalled: “When I saw Lenin getting out of the carriage, it involuntarily flashed through me:“ How old he is! apartment in Geneva and in 1905 in St. Petersburg. He was a pale, worn-out man with a mark of obvious fatigue.

The return home through the territory of hostile Germany was not in vain. Boris Vladimirovich Nikitin, head of counterintelligence for the Petrograd Military District, considered the Bolshevik leaders to be paid German agents. On July 1, 1917, he signed twenty-eight arrest warrants. The list opened with the name of Lenin.

Nikitin took with him an assistant prosecutor, fifteen soldiers and went to Lenin's apartment. Vladimir Ilyich, fleeing arrest, disappeared. Many accused him of cowardice, that he fled at a decisive moment. The execution of the older brother, Alexander Ulyanov, may have left an indelible imprint on the psyche of Vladimir Ilyich. But Krupskaya, judging by Nikitin's recollections, was not at all frightened. “Leaving two outposts on the street, we went up the stairs with three soldiers. In the apartment we found Lenin's wife Krupskaya. There was no limit to the arrogance of this woman. Do not beat her with rifle butts. She greeted us with shouts: “Gendarmes! Just like under the old regime! “- and she did not stop releasing her remarks on the same topic throughout the entire search ... As one might expect, we did not find anything significant in Lenin’s apartment ... ”

Today, many historians have no doubt that Lenin made the October Revolution with German money, willingly plunged the country into chaos and devastation, because he hated Russia. They say that there was too little Russian blood in him and therefore he was not a patriot.

Vladimir Ilyich himself spoke very little about his family. Filling out questionnaires, he wrote briefly to questions about his grandfathers; Don't know. Really did not know or did not want to remember?

Lenin's maternal grandfather - Abel Blanc

Already after his death, in the twenties, Ilyich's admirers began to restore his family tree. Archival documents showed that Lenin's maternal grandfather, Alexander Dmitrievich Blank, was a Jew. He converted to Orthodoxy, worked as a doctor and received the rank of court counselor, which gave him the right to hereditary nobility. Alexander Blank acquired an estate in the Kazan province and was included in the 3rd part of the provincial noble genealogy book.

In 1932, Lenin’s sister Anna Ilyinichna turned to Stalin: “A study of the grandfather’s origin showed that he comes from a poor Jewish family, was, as the document on his baptism says, the son of the Zhytomyr tradesman Blank ... It is hardly correct to hide this from the masses. a fact which, due to the respect that Vladimir Ilyich enjoys among them, can be of great service in the fight against anti-Semitism, but cannot harm anything.

But Stalin ordered the documents on the origin of Alexander Blank from the archives to be withdrawn and transferred to the Central Committee for storage. But historical research continued. Instead of a Jewish grandfather, a Kalmyk grandmother appeared - through the efforts of the writer Marietta Shaginyan, who wrote a novel about Lenin. She decided, based on one not very reliable study, that Lenin's paternal grandmother, Anna Alekseevna Smirnova, who married Nikolai Vasilyevich Ulyanov, was a Kalmyk. Many found Tatar features in Lenin's cheeky face.

Stalin was extremely dissatisfied. On August 5, 1938, a devastating resolution of the Politburo of the Central Committee appeared: "The first book of Marietta Shaginyan's novel about the life of the Ulyanov family, as well as about Lenin's childhood and youth, is a politically harmful, ideologically hostile work."

The blame for this "gross political mistake" was laid on Lenin's widow, Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya.

“Consider Krupskaya’s behavior,” Stalin dictated, “all the more unacceptable and tactless, since Comrade Krupskaya did it without the knowledge and consent of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, behind the back of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, thereby turning the whole party business of compiling works about Lenin into private and family business and acting as a monopoly interpreter of the circumstances of the social and personal life and work of Lenin and his family, to which the Central Committee never gave anyone any rights.

Why did Marietta Shaginyan's novel cause such rejection from Stalin? The answer can be found in the decision of the Presidium of the Union of Soviet Writers, which was instructed to deal with the author: "Shaginyan gives a distorted idea of the national face of Lenin, the greatest proletarian revolutionary, the genius of mankind, put forward by the Russian people and being their national pride."

In other words, Lenin could only be Russian. It was forbidden to say that Lenin could have had non-Russian ancestors. By the way, Marietta Shaginyan's assumption about Kalmyk relatives was not confirmed. Vladimir Ilyich's father was a Russian man. Those who are concerned about the purity of blood have no complaints about him. All claims to Lenin's mother, Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova.

The writer Vladimir Soloukhin wrote that it was not by chance that Maria Alexandrovna "trained her children for revolutionary activities, for hatred of the Russian Empire and - in the future - for its destruction."

For Soloukhin, the reason for Maria Alexandrovna’s hatred of Russia was obvious: “In the event that Anna Ivanovna Groshopf was Swedish, Lenin’s mother had fifty percent Jewish and Swedish blood. If Anna Ivanovna was a Jewish Swede, then Maria Alexandrovna, it turns out, is a purebred, 100% Jew.”

In reality, Lenin's grandmother, Anna Groshopf, had German and Swedish roots. Vladimir Ilyich himself was unaware of his non-Russian ancestors. IN old Russia did not engage in racial research, did not calculate the percentage of “foreign” blood. Religious differences mattered. The one who converted to Orthodoxy was considered a Russian person.

Lenin had pro-German sentiments, but rather not of a political nature. Doctors, engineers, businessmen were valued mainly by German ones - such were Russian traditions. In February 1922, Vladimir Ilyich wrote to his deputy in the government, Lev Kamenev: “In my opinion, it is necessary not only to preach: “Learn from the Germans, lousy Russian communist Oblomovism!”, But also to take the Germans as teachers. Otherwise, just words.

But what about the story of the return of the Bolshevik emigrants to Russia in the spring of the seventeenth through the territory of Germany, an enemy state? Isn't this proof of a criminal conspiracy with the enemy?

Preparations for the return of the Russian emigration from Switzerland in March and April of the 17th took place publicly and were discussed in the press. The British and French (Russia's allies) refused to let the Russian socialists - opponents of the war - through their territory. The German authorities agreed. Not because German intelligence managed to spy Russian emigrants - one should not overestimate the success of German intelligence officers. The return to Russia of obvious opponents of the war was in the hands of Germany. The Germans did not even need to recruit anyone!

“I never considered the Bolsheviks ‘corrupt agents of the German government,’ as they were called by the right-wing and liberal press,” wrote the philosopher Fyodor Stepun, a prominent figure in the Provisional Government. “They always seemed to me as honest and ideologically steadfast as they were extremely immoral revolutionaries who, even with German money, continued to do their own thing.”

Lenin realized that if anything could attract soldiers to the side of the Bolsheviks, then only a promise to end the war, demobilize the army and let the peasants dressed in gray overcoats go home - to their families and land. No matter how much he was accused of lack of patriotism, of defeatism and outright betrayal, at rallies Lenin repeated again and again what they wanted to hear from him:

Comrade soldiers, stop fighting, go home. Establish a truce with the Germans and declare war on the rich!

That is why the Bolsheviks took power and won the Civil War.

After the October Revolution, Inesse Armand found a place in the system of the new government. Especially for her, a department for work among women was formed in the apparatus of the Central Committee of the party.

The moment came when the relationship between Lenin and Armand resumed. This happened after Lenin was shot on August 30, 1918.

The maniacal passion of the Soviet government for secrecy led, in particular, to the fact that the most insane rumors were circulating. In 1970, on the eve of the centenary of the birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Soviet leaders expected the appearance in the West of a libelous book about the causes of the death of the leader of the revolution. It was rumored that he died of untreated syphilis.

The Minister of Health, Academician Petrovsky, was instructed to draw up a true conclusion on the causes of Vladimir Ilyich's death. He was allowed to get acquainted with two secret histories of Lenin's illness. The first was brought in in connection with the injury, the second was carried out in the course of the development of his main illness, from 1921 until his death. The libelous book never appeared in the West. Yes, and there was no reason for the libel. An autopsy in January 1924 confirmed that Lenin did not suffer from syphilis. The basis for the rumors was the habit of the Soviet government to hide everything.

Vladimir Ilyich died because his body wore out prematurely. His physical and neuro-emotional systems could not withstand the load. For the first forty-six years of his life, that is, until returning to Russia from emigration in 1917, he lived relatively calmly, without any problems, doing literary work. He was not ready to take over the leadership of a country plunged into chaos.

During an assassination attempt on him in August 1919 at the Michelson factory, he was hit by two bullets. They were not poisoned. And in general, Lenin was relatively lucky: the injury did not affect the development of his main disease - atherosclerosis. He had a narrowing of the arteries that feed the brain.

Among the few people he wished to see when he was brought from the Michelson factory was Inessa Fyodorovna. Perhaps, facing death, he rethought a lot, wanted to see a person dear to him next to him.

Vladimir Ilyich, generally speaking, was a sharp and, apparently, malicious person. He treated with contempt all his associates, including those whom he himself elevated to high positions and brought closer. Vladimir Ilyich generally had a low opinion of his relatives. About his older sister, Anna Ilyinichna, he said:

Well, it's a brainy woman. You know how they say in the village - "man-woman" or "king-woman" ... But she did an unforgivable stupidity by marrying this "clunk" Mark, who, of course, is under her shoe.

Anna Ilyinichna Ulyanova-Elizarova (1864-1935)

Indeed, Anna Ilyinichna - this could not hide from outsiders - treated her husband, Mark Elizarov, not just with condescension, but with undisguised contempt. She was definitely ashamed of the fact that he was a member of their family and her husband. Meanwhile, according to contemporaries, Mark Timofeevich Elizarov was very sincere and direct, alien to phrases, did not like any poses ... He did not hide that he did not share Lenin's ideas, and was very sensible and critical of him.

In May 1919, in the Crimea liberated from the White Army, the Soviet Provisional Workers' and Peasants' Government was formed. Lenin's younger brother, Dmitry Ilyich Ulyanov, who had lived in Sevastopol since 1914, was appointed People's Commissar of Health and Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars.

Dmitry Ilyich Ulyanov in the form of a military doctor

Lenin contemptuously said to People's Commissar for Foreign Trade Leonid Krasin:

These idiots, apparently, wanted to please me by appointing Mitya ... They did not notice that although he and I have the same last name, he is just an ordinary fool, who only fit to chew printed gingerbread ...

Lenin's younger sister, Maria Ilyinichna, who for a long time served as secretary of the communist Pravda, was considered a "fool" in the family, they treated her with condescending, but gentle contempt. Lenin spoke of her quite definitely:

Well, as for Manya, she won’t invent gunpowder, she ... remember how in the fairy tale “The Little Humpbacked Horse” Yershov says about the second and third brothers:

The average was this way and that.
The younger one was an idiot.

Maria Ilyinichna Ulyanova

Lenin, in his articles and letters, cursed like a draft cab driver. That was his style. He was not shy about being bold and rude in a dispute. But the people he scolded remained his closest associates and assistants. He had admirers - there were a lot of them, who idolized him and forgave him everything. But there were no close, bosom, intimate friends. Except Inessa Armand.

She was suspected of hidden omnipotence - they say, "the night cuckoo will overtake the daytime cuckoo." At the Congress of Soviets, one of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries said:

Emperor Nicholas had an evil genius - his wife Alice of Hesse. Probably, Lenin also has his own genius.

For this statement, the Left Social Revolutionary was immediately deprived of the floor, seeing in his words an insult to the Council of People's Commissars.

After work, Lenin often called on Inessa, since her apartment is nearby.

Inessa Armand, 1916

On December 16, 1918, Lenin instructed the commandant of the Kremlin Malkov: “The giver is comrade. Inessa Armand, member of the CEC. She needs an apartment for four people. As we talked to you today, show her what you have, that is, show the apartments that you had in mind.

She was given a large apartment on Neglinnaya, and a turntable, highly valued by Soviet officials, was installed - a direct government communications apparatus. If Lenin could not call, he wrote a note. Some have survived.

February 16, 1920:
"Dear friend!
Today after 4 you will have a good doctor. Do you have firewood? Can you cook at home? Are you being fed?

Just sent this note and almost immediately writes a new one:

"Tov. Inessa!
I called to you to find out the number of galoshes for you. Hope to get it. Was there a doctor?

Concerned about her health, he constantly thinks of her:

"Dear friend!
After the temperature drops, you need to wait a few days. Otherwise, pneumonia. The Spanish flu is fierce now. Write, do they send products?

As a result, his relations with Nadezhda Konstantinovna worsened again. And she already had every reason to be offended. Her husband neglected her both at home and in politics. After so many years of active struggle for the cause of the Bolsheviks, Krupskaya got the insignificant post of deputy people's commissar of public education.

The main rival of Inessa Armand Alexandra Kollontai was even more offended. She considered herself the grand dame of the revolution. But Inessa became the most influential woman in Soviet Russia. This was a blow to the proud Kollontai, who believed that the choice in favor of Inessa was dictated by her love relationship with Lenin.

In August 1920, Lenin wrote to Inessa, wishing to save her from disagreements with Kollontai:

"Dear friend!
It was very sad to know that you were overtired and dissatisfied with work and others (or work colleagues). Can I help you by arranging in a sanatorium? If you don't like the sanatorium, why not go south? To Sergo in the Caucasus? Sergo will arrange rest, the sun. He is the power there. Think about it.
Strongly, firmly shake hands.

Saving Inessa from women's squabbles in the corridors of the Central Committee and wanting to please her, Lenin persuaded her to rest in Kislovodsk. Inessa went with her son. The leader of the world proletariat took care of her rest himself, having already made sure that the Soviet apparatus created by him would fail any business. The trip proved fatal.

"T. Sergo!
Inessa Armand is leaving today. I ask you not to forget your promise. It is necessary that you telegraph to Kislovodsk, give the order to arrange for her and her son to be properly arranged and to follow up the execution. Nothing will be done without verification of performance ... "

“I used to approach every person with a warm feeling. Now I'm indifferent to everyone. And most importantly, I miss almost everyone. A warm feeling remained only for the children and for Vladimir Ilyich. In all other respects, the heart seemed to have died out. As if, having given all his strength, all his passion to Vladimir Ilyich and the cause of work, all the sources of work with which it used to be so rich were exhausted in him ...
And people feel this deadness in me, and they pay with the same coin of indifference or even antipathy (but before they loved me). And now - the hot attitude to business dries up also. I am a person whose heart is gradually dying ... "

Relations with Lenin, warm and cordial, were limited by certain limits, which he himself established. And she wanted true love, ordinary female happiness. Who knows how her life would have turned out, but she was no longer destined to meet another man: Lenin was worried and reminded Ordzhonikidze: “I beg you, in view of the dangerous situation in the Kuban, to establish contact with Inessa Armand so that she and her son can be evacuated if necessary ..."

So in vain they plucked it from the safe Kislovodsk. They were afraid of one, and trouble lay in wait on the other side. In the Caucasus, in Beslan, Inessa contracted cholera and died.

The local telegraph operator tapped out a telegram:

“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.

Transport was a big problem. For eight days her body lay in the morgue in Nalchik, while they searched for a galvanized coffin and a special wagon.

Two weeks later, in the early morning of September 11, 1920, the coffin was delivered to Moscow. At the Kazan station, the train was met by Lenin and Krupskaya. The coffin was placed on a hearse and taken to the House of the Unions.

Funeral of Inessa Armand. Moscow, 1920

The daughter of a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic of Sergei Ivanovich Gusev, Elizaveta Drabkina, recalled:

“We saw a moving towards us funeral procession. We saw Vladimir Ilyich, and next to him was Nadezhda Konstantinovna, who supported him by the arm. There was something inexpressibly mournful about his slumped shoulders and bowed head.”

Vladimir Ilyich followed the coffin through the whole city. What was he thinking during those hours? About the fact that in vain he refused the love of Inessa Armand and cruelly deprived himself? Did you feel your loneliness? Did you feel an incurable disease inevitably approaching, which would soon, very soon turn him into a complete invalid?

“It was impossible to recognize Lenin at the funeral,” wrote Alexandra Kollontai. - He was crushed with grief. It seemed to us that at any moment he could lose consciousness.

Lenin and N. K. Krupskaya in Gorki, autumn 1922

The death of Inessa Armand did not bring relief to anyone. There was no question of getting rid of a happy rival. Jealousy is a thing of the past. Lenin's illness progressed rapidly, and for Krupskaya the worst was yet to come. What she did for her husband last years his life is a feat. Only those who have gone through this themselves understand what kind of torment and suffering it is to see what the disease does to a loved one.

Her own strength was at an end. Upon learning that she was giving Lenin's notes to Leon Trotsky, Stalin attacked Nadezhda Konstantinovna with rude abuse. He threatened that the party inquisition, the Central Control Commission, would deal with it.

No one dared to talk to the chief's wife like that. Lenin’s sister, Maria Ilyinichna, in notes found after her death, recalled: “Nadezhna Konstantinovna was extremely excited by this conversation: she was completely unlike herself, sobbed, rolled on the floor and so on.”

Such a painful reaction meant that the nervous system of the unfortunate Nadezhda Konstantinovna was exhausted. She herself needed treatment and care. But her own husband could no longer protect Nadezhda Konstantinovna. Lenin's condition rapidly deteriorated. On the night of December 23, 1922, he became paralyzed. right hand and right leg. And on March 10, 1923, he was smashed by a blow from which Vladimir Ilyich never recovered. He lived for another year with full consciousness and understanding of his plight, but he could no longer influence the political life of the country. Stalin's hands were untied...

In May 1923, Lenin experienced a slight improvement. In the second half of June, a new exacerbation, which was accompanied by strong excitement and insomnia. He completely stopped sleeping. Since the end of July, there has been improvement again. He began to walk, spoke some simple words- “here”, “what”, “go”, tried to read newspapers.

Lenin in Gorki, summer 1923

December 18, 1923 Lenin in last time brought to the Kremlin, he visited his apartment. His life ended after a painful agony. His death throes were terrible. Perhaps the suffering was aggravated by the fact that during periods of enlightenment he saw that he had failed. He lost to Stalin, who would take full advantage of his death.

January 21, 1924, on Monday, Vladimir Ilyich died. Fed up, as they said before. An autopsy revealed that the vertebral and carotid arteries were severely constricted. The left internal carotid artery had no lumen at all. Due to insufficient blood flow, softening of the brain tissue occurred. The immediate cause of death was cerebral hemorrhage.

Lenin's funeral, no matter what we think of him now, was then an event of great significance. In the notes of my grandfather, Vladimir Mikhailovich Mlechin, who was then studying in Moscow at the Higher Technical School, I found a description of this day:

“On January 27, I came to Red Square, where bonfires were blazing. Policemen were warming themselves around the fires, there were very few of them, Red Army soldiers, also not numerous, and people who came to say goodbye to Lenin.
Who guessed in those days to bring fuel and make fires in different places? He was a man worthy of a memorial. And not only because he saved hundreds, and maybe thousands and thousands of people from frostbite. He clearly showed what he should do even at such moments when everything current, everyday, everyday seems unimportant, transient, third-rate.
There were a lot of people, but no crush, no disorder. And the police were few. The order took shape somehow by itself. They were not crowds, thousands and thousands of citizens were walking, and everyone instinctively knew his place, not pushing, not pressing on others, not trying to slip forward.
After that, I never saw such an order, as if organized by no one, naturally preserved - neither at parades, nor during demonstrations, which amazed everyone every year. a large number guardians of order and less and less internal discipline and self-organization of the masses. People with cruel persistence were weaned from moving independently through life ... And along the street too.

N.K. Krupskaya at the funeral of V.I. Lenin

After his death, Lenin became a political symbol, a trademark, which was cleverly used by his heirs in the party, most of whom did not read or understand Lenin. Vladimir Ilyich has become a curiosity, a Moscow attraction. People come to the capital, go to Red Square, go to GUM, and look into the Mausoleum. Where else in the world can you see such a mummy for free?

Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya is not to be envied. At first, Vladimir Ilyich was dying heavily in her arms, then almost all of his associates, who were also her friends, were destroyed before her eyes. She was silent, sat in the presidium and approved of everything. She ventured to support her friends Zinoviev and Kamenev against Stalin, but was frightened by her own boldness. Both were shot.

Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya at the Bolshoi Theater after the meeting of the 16th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks

“Outwardly,” Lev Trotsky recalled, “she showed signs of respect, or rather, half honor. But inside the apparatus she was systematically compromised, blackened, humiliated, and in the ranks of the Komsomol the most ridiculous and rude gossip spread about her. What was left for the unfortunate, crushed woman to do? Absolutely isolated, with a heavy stone on her heart, insecure, in the grip of illness, she lived out a hard life.

In her declining years, Nadezhda Konstantinovna no longer saw Inessa Armand as a successful rival, she took care of her children, often recalled this bright and temperamental woman. But how many happy days and months in her life? Very little. As in the life of Lenin.

Who knows, if he has a loving and beloved wife, a full-fledged family, children - a revolution? Civil War, Soviet authority wouldn't they be so bloody?

However, perhaps if he had a desire to spend time with his family, take care of his wife and children, the revolution would not have happened at all ...

From the book of Leonid Mlechin "15 women of Leonid Mlechin"

via: liveinternet

Inessa Armand was for Vladimir Lenin and Nadezhda Krupskaya a housekeeper, secretary, translator and friend. Their "triple alliance" still causes gossip among historians.

Daughter of a singer and chorus girl

Inessa Armand, born Elisabeth Pechot d'Herbainville, was born in France. She was the eldest daughter in the family of the operatic tenor Theodor Steffen and the chorus girl of Russian citizenship of Anglo-French origin Natalie Wild.

Her father died when the girl was five years old. Her mother was unable to support her family and sent Inessa and her sister to Moscow to live with her aunt, who worked in the wealthy family of the textile industrialist Yevgeny 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.

In those days, the income is very solid. So Inessa ended up in the house of a real Russian oligarch.

As Krupskaya later said, Inessa was brought up in the Armand family "in the English spirit, demanding great restraint from her." She quickly added German to her three native languages, learned to play the piano, which would later be very useful to her - Vladimir Lenin loved music and, according to Krupskaya's memoirs, constantly asked Inessa to play the piano.

At the age of 19, Inessa, who was a dowry, married the eldest of the sons of Eugene Armand Alexander. There were rumors about the history of their marriage that Inessa forced Alexander to marry herself. She found out about his relationship with married woman, found their correspondence and, in fact, blackmailed Alexander.

From family to socialism

Having married, Inessa realized that her husband only formally belongs to her. Inessa understood how to bring her husband closer to her. For 5 years she gave birth to four children. The tactic was successful. Alexander began to write romantic poems to Inessa and became an exemplary family man.

Inessa is bored. She wanted passions and new conquests.

In Eldygino, near Moscow, where they lived, Armand organized a school for peasant children. She also became an active member of the Society for the Improvement of the Plight of Women, which fought against prostitution. In 1900, she was appointed chairman of its Moscow branch, she wanted to issue a printed organ of the society, but she could not get permission from the authorities for this.

And then Inessa became interested in the ideas of socialism. Back in 1897, one of the home teachers of the Armand home, Boris Krammer, was arrested for distributing illegal literature. Inessa sympathized with him very much.

In 1902 she came into contact with several Social Democrats and Socialist Revolutionaries, wrote a letter younger brother husband, Vladimir (who, as she knew, was also not indifferent to the ideas of socialism), and offered to come and improve the life of the Eldigin peasants together.

Vladimir decided to open in Eldigino Sunday school, a hospital and a reading room. He gave Inessa the book “The Development of Capitalism in Russia” to read, saying that the author’s name was classified, he was hiding in Europe from persecution by the tsarist police and writing under the pseudonym Vladimir Ilyin. This is how Armand met Lenin in absentia.

Inessa liked the book. At her request, Vladimir found the address of the author of the book and Inessa started a correspondence with him. She became more and more distant from her husband and family.

Beginning of revolutionary activity

In 1902, Armand left with Vladimir Armand for Moscow and settled in his house on Ostozhenka. Alexander wrote almost daily ex-wife letters, including photographs of growing children. Congratulating Inessa on the new year 1904, Alexander wrote: “I felt good with you, my friend, and so now I appreciate and love your friendship. After all, is it possible to love friendship? It seems to me that this is an absolutely correct and clear expression. They did not file for divorce.

Vladimir and Inessa were actively engaged in revolutionary work, they spent all the evenings at meetings. In 1904, Inessa joined the RSDLP.

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In 1907 she was arrested. The court sentenced her to two years of exile in the Arkhangelsk province. In exile, Armand did not lose her head. She managed to establish a good relationship with the head of the prison. A month and a half before being sent to the place of exile in Mezen, she lived in his house and even used his postal address for correspondence with Vladimir Lenin.

On October 20, 1908, Armand was helped to escape. Using false documents, she managed to escape to Switzerland, where her husband Vladimir died in her arms.

“Irreparable loss,” she wrote in her diary. - All my personal happiness was connected with him. And without personal happiness, it is very difficult for a person to live.

In the Lenin family

After the death of Vladimir, Armand moved to Brussels, where she entered the university, completed a full course of the Faculty of Economics in a year and was awarded degree licentiate of economic sciences. Her acquaintance with Lenin took place in 1909. According to one version in Brussels, according to another - in Paris.

In the Parisian house of Lenin, Armand became a secretary, translator, housekeeper. She worked at the party school of propagandists in Longjumeau, where she became the head teacher, campaigned among the French workers. Inessa translated the works of Lenin, publications of the Central Committee of the party. In 1912, she wrote a pamphlet, "On the Women's Question," in which she advocated freedom from marriage.

Second arrest

In 1912, after the arrest of the entire St. Petersburg cell, Armand volunteered for a trip to Russia in order to organize revolutionary work. However, immediately after her return, she was arrested. Inessa came to the rescue ex-husband- Alexander Armand. He made a fabulous bail for those times - 5400 rubles, asked Inessa to return to him.

After Inessa left abroad (she fled to Paris through Finland), Alexander lost his bail and was prosecuted for aiding a state criminal.

Muse of Lenin

In Paris, Armand continued active propaganda work. So, in 1914, after the outbreak of the First World War, Armand engaged in agitation among the French workers, urging them to refuse to work in favor of the Entente countries.

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).

Relations between Lenin and Armand are reconstructed by historians from memoirs and from the remnants of their correspondence.

Here is a fragment from a letter to Armand Lenin dated December 1913: “I was not at all in love with you then, but even then I loved you very much.

I would do without kisses even now, just to see you, sometimes it would be a joy to talk to you - and this could not hurt anyone. Why was it to deprive me of this?

You ask me if I'm angry that you "spent" the breakup. No, I don't think you did it for yourself."

It must be borne in mind that Lenin's letters to Armand are full of abbreviations introduced by Soviet censors.

During the years of the First World War, Lenin did not send as many letters to anyone as to her.

After his death, the Politburo of the Central Committee adopted a resolution requiring all party members 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 son of Lenin. He was born in 1913, and 7 months after his birth, according to him, Lenin placed him in the family of an Austrian communist.

Death of Armand

In April 1917, Inessa Armand arrived in Russia in the same compartment of a sealed carriage with Lenin and Nadezhda Krupskaya.

In 1918, under the guise of the head of the Red Cross mission, Armand was sent by Lenin to France to take out several thousand soldiers of the Russian Expeditionary Force from there. There she was arrested by the French authorities for subversive activities, but released because of Lenin's threat to shoot the entire French mission in Moscow for her.

In 1918-1919, Armand headed the women's department of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party. She was the organizer and leader of the 1st International Women's Communist Conference in 1920, took part in the struggle of revolutionary women with a traditional family.

Revolutionary activity had a detrimental effect on Armand's health. Krupskaya wrote in her memoirs: “Inessa could hardly stand on her feet. Even her energy was not enough for the colossal work that she had to carry out.

Doctors suspected that Armand had tuberculosis, and she wanted to go to Paris to see a doctor she knew, but Lenin insisted that Inessa go to Kislovodsk. On the way, she contracted cholera. She died in Nalchik on September 24, 1920

Shortly before her death, Inessa wrote in her diary:

“I used to approach every person with a warm feeling. Now I'm indifferent to everyone. 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 and sympathy for the people with whom it used to be so rich were exhausted in him. With the exception of V.I. and my children, I no longer have any personal relationships with people, but only business ones ... I am a living corpse, and this is terrible.

Alexandra Kollontai wrote: “The death of Inessa Armand hastened the death of Lenin. He, loving Inessa, could not survive her departure.

After the death of Inessa Armand, Pravda published a poem authored by a certain "Bard". It ends like this:

May the enemies perish, but rather fall
Veil of future happiness!
Friendly, comrades, in step - forward!
Sleep in peace, Comrade Inessa...

In 1922, Inessa's children were brought to Gorki from France. In the winter of 1924, Nadezhda Krupskaya offered to bury the remains of her husband along with the ashes of Armand. Stalin rejected the offer.