Armand and Lenin: finest hour and death. Comrade Inessa or the most revolutionary mistress

The cult of Vladimir Lenin, created after his death in the USSR, turned his body into a mummy, and his personality into a static image of the leader of the proletariat, who had no other interests in life except revolution. During Perestroika, when they were suddenly allowed to talk loudly and about everything, belated gossip began to circulate about Ilyich’s personal life: from numerous affairs with female party comrades to anecdotes involving Maxim Gorky. It is noteworthy that the people did not show such emphasized attention to other revolutionary figures. Perhaps there really was something curious in Lenin’s fate.

Vladimir Ilyich was in fact very passionate about the revolution. Part of the reason for this was a family tragedy: his older brother Alexander Ulyanov was executed at the age of 21 for trying to kill the Tsar. Alexandra III. But the reason was also that those people who pushed the young idealist Narodnaya Volya to crime and martyrdom, did not leave his family alone and took on the gifted, but rather simple-minded Volodya.

First love

Vladimir looked older than his age, by the way, and began to go bald early. But he had a lively character, charm and the attentive gaze of a connoisseur female beauty. One of his first crushes was Apollinaria Yakubova, a bright and intelligent girl who made an impression. Vladimir was a little timid in front of her, and in order to get closer, he used her plain-looking friend Nadezhda as an intermediary. Both belonged to an underground revolutionary circle.

It is unknown to what extent the relationship between Ulyanov and Yakubova reached, but he proposed to her. However, Nadezhda had her own plans for young man, and apparently she took advantage of her function as an intermediary. Apollinaria disappeared from Vladimir's life. Krupskaya writes rather vaguely that “for some reason Apollinaria could not come” to the prison, where once again Ulyanov was sitting. Eight years later, Yakubova died of tuberculosis.

Marriage to Krupskaya

Then Ulyanov was exiled to Shushenskoye, and Nadezhda went to the Ufa province. She applied for a transfer to him under the pretext that she was going to marry him. In Shushenskoye, Vladimir and Nadezhda got married in a church.

The landlady from Nadya was unimportant. Therefore, worrying about family well-being daughter, her mother Elizabeth also came into exile. She most likely understood that there was no particular strength in their relationship, and did her best to support the young family, wandering around exile and safe houses as a housewife. In addition, Nadezhda had a very lethargic temperament. In the revolutionary circle she even had the nickname Fish.

"Casual acquaintance"

In Paris, Lenin lived under the name William Frey with an English passport. He was a lover of expensive restaurants, and in one of them he met the beautiful Elizabeth. This woman “quite by chance” found herself alone at the next table and also “by chance” was acquainted with Lenin’s dining companion Rumyantsev, who immediately introduced them to each other.

This was a lady just like him: a flamboyant adventurer. Through the mediation of Rumyantsev, her apartment was turned into a safehouse, and often Vladimir and Elizaveta were left there alone.

They separated because Elizabeth's interests were not limited to revolutionary activities. However, they remained friends.

Love and Death

When the Frenchwoman Inessa Armand appeared in the leader’s life, Lenin seriously fell in love. Curly hair, regular facial features, big eyes with shine, graceful figure. And in addition, a rebellious character. She taught French in the family of the richest manufacturer Armand and married his eldest son Alexander. They had four children, but then Inessa went to his 18-year-old brother Vladimir, who was ten years younger than her. They had a child. Soon Vladimir Armand died of tuberculosis.

Vladimir Lenin met Inessa Armand, née Elisabeth Pecheux d'Herbanville, when she was 35 years old and he himself was 39. By this time, Nadezhda Krupskaya had already developed Graves' disease: hyperfunction of the thyroid gland, leading to bulging eyes and causing tremors, sweating and diarrhea.

Inessa was also absorbed in revolutionary work. She had extraordinary intelligence and unconventional thinking and was quite emotional. From these positions, the beautiful widow highly appreciated the charm of her new friend.

Krupskaya claimed in her memoirs that upon learning about their affair, she proposed a divorce, but Lenin did not agree. According to the surviving correspondence, a classic love triangle developed.

Armand wrote to Lenin from Paris to Krakow: “We have parted, we have parted, dear, you and I! And it hurts so much. I know, I feel, you will never come here! Looking at familiar places, I was clearly aware, as never before, of what great place You occupied such a place in my life that almost all activities here in Paris were connected by a thousand threads with the thought of you. I wasn’t in love with you at all then, but even then I loved you very much. Even now I would do without kisses, and just to see you, sometimes talking to you would be a joy - and it would not hurt anyone<…>. I've gotten a little used to you. I loved not only listening, but also looking at you when you spoke. Firstly, your face perks up, and, secondly, it was convenient to watch, because you didn’t notice it at the time... I kiss you deeply. Yours, Armand."

Lenin was so in love that, according to researchers, he was ready to give up even the cause of the revolution. “Oh, these “deeds” are similarities to deeds, surrogates of deeds, an obstacle to the deed, how I hate vanity, hassle, deeds and how I am inextricably and forever connected with them!!” - Lenin wrote to Inessa.

Inessa Armand died suddenly: according to the official version, from cholera, in Kislovodsk, where she had gone to improve her health. Lenin plunged into deep despair. Soon he had his first stroke.

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

Daughter of a singer and chorus girl

Inessa Armand was born Elisabeth Pecheux d'Herbainville in France. She was the eldest daughter in the family of opera tenor Theodor Steffen and chorus singer of Russian citizenship of English-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 rich family textile industrialist Evgeny Armand.

The trading house "Evgeniy Armand and Sons" owned a large factory in Pushkin, where 1,200 workers produced wool fabrics by 900 thousand rubles per year.

At that time the income was very respectable. So Inessa ended up in the house of a real Russian oligarch.

As Krupskaya later said, Inessa was raised in the Armand family “in the English spirit, requiring great endurance from her.” She quickly added German to her three native languages ​​and learned to play the piano, which would be very useful to her later - Vladimir Lenin loved music and, according to Krupskaya’s recollections, he constantly asked Inessa to play the piano.

At the age of 19, Inessa, who was without a dowry, married the eldest of Eugene’s sons, 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 a married woman, found their correspondence and, in fact, blackmailed Alexander.

From family to socialism

Having gotten married, Inessa realized that her husband belonged to her only formally. Inessa understood how to bring her husband closer to her. In 5 years she gave birth to four children. The tactic was successful. Alexander began writing 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 Lot of Women, which fought against prostitution. In 1900, she was appointed chairman of its Moscow branch; she wanted to publish press organ society, but was never able to obtain permission from the authorities.

And then Inessa became interested in the ideas of socialism. Back in 1897, one of the home teachers of the Armand house, 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 to her husband’s younger brother, Vladimir (who, as she knew, was also partial to the ideas of socialism), and offered to come and improve the lives of the Eldiginsky peasants together.

Vladimir decided to open a Sunday school, a hospital and a reading hut in Eldigino. He gave Inessa the book “The Development of Capitalism in Russia” to read, saying that the author’s name is classified, he is hiding in Europe from persecution by the tsarist police and writes 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.

The 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, enclosing photographs of growing children. Congratulating Inessa on the New Year 1904, Alexander wrote: “I had a good time with you, my friend, and so now I appreciate and love your friendship. After all, is it really possible to love friendship? It seems to me that this is a completely correct and clear expression.” They did not file for divorce.

Vladimir and Inessa were actively involved in revolutionary work, spending all their evenings at meetings. In 1904, Inessa joined the RSDLP.

Link

In 1907 she was arrested. The court sentenced her to two years of exile in the Arkhangelsk province. In exile, Armand was not at a loss. She managed to establish good relationship with the warden. For a month and a half before being sent to 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 forged documents, she managed to escape to Switzerland, where her husband Vladimir died in her arms.

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

In Lenin's family

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

In Lenin's Parisian house, Armand became a secretary, translator, and housekeeper. She worked at the party school of propagandists in Longjumeau, where she became head teacher and conducted agitation among French workers. Inessa translated Lenin's works and publications of the Party Central Committee. 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 to travel to Russia in order to establish revolutionary work. However, immediately after her return she was arrested. Her ex-husband, Alexander Armand, came to Inessa’s aid. He paid a fabulous deposit for those times - 5,400 rubles, and asked Inessa to return to him.

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

Lenin's muse

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

In 1915-1916, Inessa participated in 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).

Historians reconstruct the relationship between Lenin and Armand from memoirs and the remains of their correspondence.

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

Even now I would do without kisses, just to see you, sometimes talking to you would be a joy - and it would not hurt anyone. Why was I deprived of this?

You're asking if I'm angry that you "handled" the breakup. No, I don’t think you did it for yourself.”

It must be taken into account that Lenin’s letters to Armand are full of abbreviations made 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 from the leader to them to the archives of the Central Committee. But only in May 1939, after Krupskaya’s death, eldest daughter Inessa, Inna Armand, decided to archive Lenin’s letters to her mother.

Letters published in different years, even with banknotes, indicate that Lenin and Inessa were very close. Recently an interview appeared in the press with youngest son Inessa, the elderly Alexander Steffen, living in Germany, who claims that he is Lenin’s son. He was born in 1913, and 7 months after 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. There she was arrested by the French authorities for subversive activities, but was released due to 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, and took part in the struggle of revolutionary women against the traditional family.

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

Doctors suspected 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. Died in Nalchik on September 24, 1920

Shortly before her death, Inessa wrote in her diary:

“Before, I used to approach every person with a warm feeling. Now I'm indifferent to everyone. And most importantly, I miss almost everyone. The warm feeling remained only for the children and for V.I. In all other respects, the heart seemed to have died out. It was as if, having given all his strength, his passion to V.I. and the work of his work, the sources of love and sympathy for people with which he had previously been so rich were exhausted. I no longer have, with the exception of V.I. and my children, 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:

Let the enemies perish, let him fall soon
The curtain of future happiness!
Together, comrades, keep up - forward!
Sleep in peace, comrade Inessa...

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

When it comes to the women of Vladimir Lenin, the imagination immediately draws the image of Nadezhda Krupskaya, who became famous for her fantastic performance and all kinds of assistance to her husband in the cause of the revolution. But in the life of the leader of the world proletariat there was another woman, whom historians often call his “muse” -. She lived in the house of Lenin and Krupskaya, and the relations of all participants in this “triple” alliance were very specific...

Speaking about Inessa Armand (née Elisabeth Pecheux d'Herbinville), it is worth noting that she lived a very difficult life and was always devoted to the cause of the revolution. Her personal life was not easy: first there was a marriage with Alexander Armand, the son of the largest Russian textile industrialist. Four children were born to this union. However, everyday worries could not captivate her completely; Inessa was actively engaged in social activities, was an active defender of women's rights and freedoms. Inessa was well educated and intelligent; she soon became interested in the ideas of socialism. Found support in younger brother Alexandra - Vladimir.

Vladimir introduced Inessa to the works of Lenin. She was so imbued with what she read that she even started a correspondence with Ilyich. Communication in letters lasted several years, during these years Inessa experienced a lot - she was arrested, managed to escape, buried Vladimir... After leaving Russia, she received an economic education in Brussels, and here Inessa personally met Lenin.

Vladimir Ilyich offered Inessa a job as a housekeeper in their house in Paris. In addition to economic affairs, she was involved in translations, publishing the works of the Central Committee of the Party, and prepared her own works. It is precisely this that Lenin sends to Russia in 1912 to establish propaganda activities (the St. Petersburg propaganda cell was arrested). Inessa also faces re-arrest. This time she is released on bail left by her husband Alexander (Inessa immediately flees to Paris again).

As for relations with Nadezhda Krupskaya, there is an opinion that the leader’s wife knew about the connection between Lenin and Armand, but did not interfere. Krupskaya even offered her husband a divorce, but Lenin did not agree to such a step. According to some reports, Lenin and Armand even had illegitimate son, but this information has not been confirmed.

Inessa Armand died in 1920 from cholera. This was a real blow for Lenin; many are inclined to believe that this catalyzed his own illness (Ilyich outlived his muse by only 3 years). After tragic event Krupskaya took Armand's children to raise, and until the end of her life she maintained contact with them and took care of them. After the death of her husband, Krupskaya even wanted to bury him next to Inessa (the ashes of the revolutionary rest in the Kremlin wall), but her idea was not approved.

Inessa Armand went down in history, first of all, as outstanding figure revolutionary movement. Women occupied a prominent place in Soviet politics. For example, revolutionary Alexandra Kollontai became famous as.

In the midst of the turmoil civil war busy 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 they were silent about this for many years. They bashfully hushed up the absence of children from Lenin and his wife Nadezhda Krupskaya. It was an absolute taboo Jewish roots in the genealogy of the leader of the proletariat and his personal life.

And suddenly, like a thunderbolt from a clear sky, it sounded: Lenin had a mistress. Celestials do not have mistresses. And the “Kremlin dreamer,” as he called Lenin English writer H.G. Wells, and seemed to be some kind of Olympian 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 chosen ones were well aware of the relationship between Vladimir Ilyich and Inessa Armand. An experienced Bolshevik, the world’s first female ambassador, Alexandra Kollontai, after the death of Ulyanov-Lenin, astutely remarked: “He could not survive Inessa Armand. Inessa’s death accelerated his illness, which became fatal.”

Some journalists nicknamed Inessa Armand “the leader’s muse.” It’s somehow awkward to imagine the leader of the world revolution in the guise of a kind of Apollo Musagete, that is, the “lord of the muses.”

That's how romantic she was

Muses, for the most part, are also drawn to artistic natures, to creators and creators, and not to destroyers, albeit of the “old world.” However, Inessa had her reasons for receiving such an epithet.

Like many professional revolutionaries, Inessa Feodorovna Armand also had several names, not counting pseudonyms. IN different times, and sometimes at the same time she was called Elisabeth Pécheux d "Herbenville or Inessa Stéphane, and later Armand or Inès Elisabeth Armand. The point, however, was not at all about the revolution. It was just that she was born in Paris on May 8 (April 26, old style) 1874 years, Inessa’s 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 a successful French opera singer Théodore Stéphane, his real name was Théodore Pécheux d'Herbenville, and his mother was the French actress Nathalie Wild. This married couple, besides Inessa, had two more girls. Because early death 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 Armand family of merchants and textile manufacturers.

She was charming even as a child...

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 Tolstoyanism 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 went 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 exiled to the Arkhangelsk province, where she was followed by new husband. Vladimir Armand died of consumption in one of the Swiss private clinics.

Feminists and revolutionaries avoided wearing makeup, jewelry, and 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.

She and her husband...

Lenin met Inessa Armand in her hometown, Paris, in 1909 or 1910. Exact date made no difference to either of them as it was pure friendship. “At that time I was afraid of you more than fire,” Armand wrote to Lenin in 1913. “I’d like to see you, but it would be better, it seems, to die on the spot than to come into your place, and when for some reason you came into N.K.’s room (to Nadezhda Krupskaya), I immediately got lost and became stupid. I was always surprised and envious of the courage of others who came straight to you and talked to you. Only in Longiumeau (Longjumeau) and then the following autumn in connection with translations, etc., did I get used to you a little. I loved not only listening, but also looking at you when you spoke. Firstly, your face becomes so animated, and secondly, it was convenient to watch, because you didn’t notice it at that time...”

They began to spend a long time in a Parisian cafe near the porte d'Orléans...

Two years after they met, Lenin lamented in his letter to Armand: “Oh, these “deeds” are similar to deeds, surrogates of deeds, an obstacle to the deed, how I hate vanity, 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 am 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 business of the world revolution to hell and indulge in all the delights of Eros with his beloved woman. 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, the fatigue...

...And with the leader of the world revolution

However, observant contemporaries noticed that the leader of the Russian revolutionaries was not indifferent to the lively Frenchwoman. French socialist Charles Rapoport said: “Lenin did not take his Mongolian eyes off this little French girl.” The apogee of their relationship came in 1913. Lenin was then 43 years old, Inessa was 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.

Nadezhda Konstantinovna, who had faded over the years, treated her husband’s feelings with understanding. She wrote that Lenin “could never fall in love with a woman with whom he differed in views, who was not a workmate.” The subjunctive mood with the triple particle “would” clearly reveals how difficult such forgiveness was for an unloved woman.

“There must be a connection between the will to power and sexual impotence. I like Marx: it feels like he and his Jenny made love with enthusiasm. This can be felt in the serenity of his style and his constant 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 the person will write something terrible, like “Materialism and empirio-criticism,” our contemporary Italian writer and medievalist wrote at the end of the twentieth century Umberto Eco in his bestseller "Foucault's Pendulum".

Nadezhda Krupskaya, you see, is not a competitor...

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 the kisses in July 1914 became exclusively friendly. Although his addresses to her in letters always remained emphatically friendly. Yes, that's what he wrote on English- Dear friend! How contrasted against this background were her letters with the constant address “dear” and with the ending: “I kiss you deeply. Your Inessa”...

...Inessa's death remains a mystery in some way. 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 “is where the power is” and was supposed to arrange for his mistress “rest, sun, good job" Soon comrade Sergo cheerfully reported to the leader: “Everything is fine with Inessa.” Probably this old acquaintance of hers, who once attended school in the Parisian suburb of Longjumeau, managed to arrange the “sun”!

And suddenly a telegram: “Out of line. Moscow. TsEKa RKP. Council of People's Commissars. Lenin. It was not possible to save my comrade Inessa Armand, who fell ill with cholera, period Ended on September 24, period We will transfer the body to Moscow Nazarov.” Historians were surprised by this telegram, signed not by Ordzhonikidze, but by the unknown Nazarov. It is quite possible that he was also a security officer. In two half days 46-year-old Inessa Armand unexpectedly fell ill with cholera and died...

There, somewhere, now behind him, she is buried

...On October 11, 1920, the zinc coffin with Armand’s body 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 Reed and the pediatrician Ivan Vasilyevich Rusakov. A few months later Lenin suffered his first stroke...

Activist of the revolutionary movement. Participant in the 1905 revolution. In 1911 she taught at the party scale in Longjumeau. In 1915 she represented the Bolsheviks at the International Conference. Since 1919, she headed the women's department of the Central Committee. Beloved of the Bolshevik leader V.I. Lenin.

At the end of December 1909, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin) and Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya, his faithful wife, moved to Paris. It was here that the great revolutionary was destined to meet Inessa Armand. This “Russian Frenchwoman” left a deep heart scar in the soul of the Bolshevik leader. Krupskaya could not help but know that her forty-year-old husband was possessed strong feelings. According to another fiery revolutionary, Alexandra Kollontai, Krupskaya was aware of their relationship and knew that Lenin was very attached to Inessa, and more than once expressed a desire to leave. Lenin held her back.

Inessa Armand was the daughter of French actors Nathalie Wilde and Theodore Stephane. At the age of fifteen, together with her sister, she came to Russia to visit her aunt, who gave music lessons and French in the wealthy Armand family. The head of the family, Evgeny Evgenievich Armand, was the owner of forests, estates, apartment buildings in Moscow, and factories in Pushkino. Coming from France, they warmly welcomed Inessa and Rene Stefan, who appeared in their family with their aunt and governess.

These girls from Paris - pretty, smart, graceful, wonderful musicians - seemed to be waiting for the three Armand brothers, young men ready to love with all the passion of romantic hearts.

Inessa married Alexander Armand, Rene married Boris.

Alexander's happy and prosperous wife Armanda was imbued with the ideas of her husband's brother, Vladimir, who in his revolutionary views went further than his older brother. Moreover, he turned out to be closer to Inessa not only in his views, but also in his feelings. They fell passionately in love with each other. Noble Alexander released his beloved wife with four children, and she settled with her new husband on Ostozhenka in Moscow. Soon they had another child - son Vladimir.

Vladimir Sr., having fallen under the revolutionary influence of his wife, blindly followed her. And he soon found himself in prison, then in exile and finally in exile.

Inessa fled from Mezen exile through Finland abroad, where she met her husband, who had already crossed there. Two weeks after her arrival, Vladimir Armand died. Inessa, having stoically survived the blow, moved to Paris, where she wanted to “get to know the French Socialist Party better.”

Inessa said that physical attraction is often not associated with heartfelt love. She said - this was in 1920 - that in her life only once did these two feelings coincide - in relation to Vladimir Armand...

So in 1910 she met Lenin. Perhaps that is why Krupskaya believed that “the most difficult years emigration." But, to Krupskaya’s credit, she did not create petty-bourgeois scenes of jealousy and was able to establish a relationship with a beautiful Frenchwoman friendly relations. She answered Krupskaya in the same way.

Armand, in the apt expression of A.I. Solzhenitsyna, having become “Lenin’s friend,” accepted the rules of the “three” game. She was able to show friendly feelings towards the wife of her loved one.

Lenin was no stranger to passions, hobbies, and intimate experiences. This, for example, is evidenced by Armand’s letter to Lenin from Paris to Krakow: “... We parted, we parted, dear, with you! And it hurts so much. I know, I feel, you will never come here! Looking at well-known places , I was clearly aware, as never before, of what a big place you occupied in my life, that almost all my activities here in Paris were connected by a thousand threads with the thought of you. I was not at all in love with you then, but even then you were very much. I would still love you without kisses, and just to see you, sometimes talking to you would be a joy - and it wouldn’t hurt anyone.<...>. I've gotten a little used to you. I loved not only listening, but also looking at you when you spoke. Firstly, your face comes to life, and secondly, it was convenient to watch, because you didn’t notice it at the time... I kiss you deeply. Yours, Armand."

The letters (and there are many of them) more than eloquently testify to the true nature of the relationship between Inessa Armand and Vladimir Ulyanov.

Biographers consider the beginning of their romance to be the spring of 1911, when the socialists finally managed to set up a party school in the village of Longjumeau near Paris.

Krupskaya was a great conspirator. For the sake of the victory of the revolution, she was ready to do anything. If Lenin was destined to fall in love with Inessa Armand and this helped the cause of the revolution, Nadezhda Konstantinovna was ready to rise above philistine ideas about love, marital fidelity and her own feminine pride. Everything was subordinated to a great idea.

In the spring of 1912, the Ulyanov couple headed to Krakow, closer to Russia. Inessa also hurried to Poland. She became the shadow of the family...

When Armand was not around, Lenin wrote letters to her. Perhaps he wrote as many letters to few people as Inessa. Sometimes these were multi-page messages.

After arriving in Russia, “during the revolution” (Inessa, of course, was with the Ulyanov family in the famous “sealed carriage” in the same compartment), Lenin, caught up in the whirlwind of events, met with Armand less often than abroad.

But the revolution quickly strained the strength of not only Lenin, but also his beloved. Inessa eagerly took on any task that party leaders entrusted to her. In her diary entries, Inessa, very shortly before her death, wrote: “...Now I am indifferent to everything. And most importantly, I miss almost everyone. I only have a warm feeling for the children and for V.I. In all other respects, my heart is as if It’s as if, having given all my strength, my passion to V.I. and the work, the sources of love and sympathy for people that I had previously been so rich in have become depleted, with the exception of V.I. my children, any personal relationships with people, but only business ones."... I am a living corpse, and this is terrible."

Lenin met less and less often with the “Russian Frenchwoman”. He no longer belonged to himself, he belonged to the great cause of the revolution. True, Vladimir Ilyich wrote notes to Armand quite often... inquired about her health and her children, sent food, bought her galoshes, sent his personal doctor for the treatment of sick Inessa...

She wanted to go to her native France, at least for a short time to escape from the embrace of the revolution and restore her wasted strength. She called Lenin, but he was busy and responded with a note in which he feared that she would be arrested in Paris and advised her to go south, “to Sergo in the Caucasus.” Armand followed his advice.

Could Lenin have known that, having dissuaded Inessa from going to France, he would send her there where she would meet her death?

A month later, a telegram arrived: “Out of line. Moscow. Central Executive Committee of the Russian Communist Party, Council of People's Commissars. Lenin. It was not possible to save comrade Inessa Armand, who was sick with cholera, period Ended on September 24, period We will transfer the body to Moscow Nazarov.”

Armand, on the advice of Lenin, first went to Kislovodsk, but it was unsafe there - there were many gangs, and she moved to Nalchik. On the way, she contracted cholera. On September 24 she passed away.

Lenin probably endured agonizing hours after receiving the fateful news. Sergo Ordzhonikidze reported a couple of days ago that everything was fine with Inessa. Lenin's shock was enormous. Alexandra Kollontai said that when on October 12, 1920, “we walked behind her coffin, Lenin was impossible to recognize. He walked with eyes closed and it seemed like she was about to fall." She believed that the death of Inessa Armand accelerated the death of Lenin: he, loving Inessa, could not survive her departure.

Inessa made two triangles in her tangled and hectic life: loving and revolutionary. Result and summary love triangle she expressed in a letter ex-husband and her lifelong friend Alexander Armand: “I only now fully understood how spoiled I was by life, how I was used to being surrounded by people who are close to me, whom I love and who love me. And when I thought about how I became It was unbearably hard when I found myself completely alone, while so many people are lonely all their lives, I even felt embarrassed in front of myself.”