Krupskaya Nadezhda short biography. The story of a love triangle - V. and Lenin, Nadezhda Krupskaya and Inessa Armand. (photo)

Interesting facts about Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya!!!

Name of an outstanding politician Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya is always mentioned when we talk about the leader of the world proletariat V.I. Lenin. She was not only a faithful comrade in the struggle, but also a wife who shared bold ideas and brought people back to life after dangerous illnesses. But few people know that Nadezhda Konstantinovna was also a teacher, left a lot of work on educating the younger generation, and dealt with the development of literature. February 26, on the 145th anniversary of the birth of N.K. Krupskaya, I suggest you familiarize yourself with 20 interesting facts from her biography.

1. Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya was born on February 26, 1869 in St. Petersburg into a noble family. Her father, Konstantin Ignatievich, after graduating from the cadet corps, received the position of head of the district in the Polish Groets. Mother Elizaveta Vasilievna, a graduate of the Institute of Noble Maidens, worked as a governess. Her father died when Nadya Krupskaya was 14 years old, but it was he who captivated the girl with the ideas of the populists.

2. In 1887 N.K. Krupskaya graduated from the Obolenskaya private women’s gymnasium with a gold medal, was friends with A. Tyrkova-Williams, future wife P. B. Struve. She adhered to the views of L.N. Tolstoy. Having received a diploma as a home tutor, Nadezhda successfully teaches, preparing students of Princess Obolenskaya’s gymnasium for exams. In 1889, she entered the Bestuzhev courses, but after studying for only a year, she left this prestigious educational institution - she was fascinated by the Marxist environment.
3. Nadezhda studies the legacy of K. Marx and F. Engels, specially mastering the German language for these purposes; since August 1891, Krupskaya has been teaching at a men's evening and Sunday school, promoting social democratic ideas.
4. In January 1894, 24-year-old revolutionary Vladimir Ulyanov arrived in St. Petersburg, behind whom were the execution of his older brother Alexander, surveillance, arrest, and exile. Nadezhda met Vladimir Ilyich at a meeting of St. Petersburg Marxists in February 1894. They were introduced to each other by Lenin's longtime acquaintance Apollinaria Yakubova (a classmate of Ilyich's sister Olga). Vladimir flirts with both of them, and visits the Krupskys’ house. Despite the fact that Nadezhda was a year older than her chosen one, he had a more sober, adult outlook on life.

5. In 1895, Ilyich was arrested. “When they (the prisoners) were taken for a walk, from one window of the corridor a piece of the Shpalernaya sidewalk was visible for a minute. So he (Lenin) came up with the idea that we - me and Apollinaria Aleksandrovna Yakubova - would come at a certain hour and stand on this piece of sidewalk, then he would see us. For some reason Apollinaria couldn’t go, but I walked for several days and stood for a long time on this piece.”
Perhaps such devotion and responsiveness forced Ulyanov not only to have a comradely attitude towards Nadezhda, but when his relationship with Yakubova came to naught, Vladimir Ilyich, sentenced to exile in Siberia, in one of his notes invited Krupskaya to become his wife. According to another version, Nadezhda herself invited Lenin to formalize the marriage when Siberia loomed over him. Vladimir Ilyich hesitated for a long time, but was forced to give up - after all, the “lovers” could be settled nearby, which is what happened later. According to the third version, Krupskaya went to Shushenskoye not only as a bride, but also as a propagandist distributing revolutionary ideas and related literature. In 1898, Nadezhda Konstantinovna and Vladimir Ilyich got married, and got married, although they held the same views free love" Krupskaya’s mother insisted on holding a church ceremony.

N.K. Krupskaya(right) with mother on the eve of exile

6. Krupskaya’s party pseudonyms were Sablina, Lenina, N.K. Artamonova, Onegina, Ryba, Lamprey, Rybkina, Sharko, Katya, Frey, Galileo.

7. In 1899, N.K. Krupskaya wrote her first book, “Woman Worker,” where she described the living conditions of working women in Russia and, from a Marxist perspective, highlighted the issues of raising proletarian children.

After the end of her exile, N.K. Krupskaya went abroad, where Vladimir Ilyich was already living at that time, and accepted active participation in the process of creating Communist Party and preparation for the future revolution. Returning from V.I. Lenin in 1905 to Russia, Nadezhda Konstantinovna, on behalf of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party, carried out propaganda work, which she then continued abroad, where she emigrated again with V.I. Lenin in 1907. She was faithful assistant and secretary of her husband, participated in the work of the Bolshevik press.
8. During the years of forced emigration, Krupskaya had to survive Lenin’s infatuation with Inessa Armand. Already in those days, Nadezhda Konstantinovna suffered from Graves' disease (or, as the common people say, goiter) - her bulging eyes made the already unattractive person more frightening. Lenin called his wife a “herring.” A thyroid disease deprived Krupskaya of motherhood, and she devoted her entire life to the revolutionary struggle.

9. Nadezhda Konstantinovna had a fantastic ability to work: she shoveled through piles of literature, sorted out correspondence, answered a variety of questions, delving into the essence of problems, and wrote her own articles.
10. After the victory of the October Revolution, Nadezhda Konstantinovna, together with activists, stood at the origins of the Socialist Union working youth, Komsomol, pioneers, was a member of the State Commission on Education, issues of communist education of children.
11. When Lenin was seriously wounded, Krupskaya, using all her teaching talent, brought him back to life, re-teaching him to speak, read and write. She managed the almost impossible - to return her husband to active work again. But a new stroke brought all efforts to naught, making Vladimir Ilyich’s condition almost hopeless.

12. After the death of V.I. Lenina Krupskaya is a member of the board of the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR; together with Lunacharsky and M.N. Pokrovsky, she prepared the first decrees on public education, and is engaged in political and educational work. Nadezhda Konstantinovna organizes such voluntary societies as “Down with Illiteracy”, “Friend of Children”, and is the chairman of the society of Marxist teachers.
13. Since 1929 - Deputy People's Commissar of Education of the RSFSR. Made a major contribution to the development the most important problems Marxist pedagogy - defining the goals and objectives of communist education; connection between the school and the practice of social construction; labor and polytechnic education; determination of the content of education; issues of age-related pedagogy; basics organizational forms children's communist movement, education of collectivism, etc.

14. Great value Nadezhda Konstantinovna attached importance to the fight against child homelessness and neglect, the work of orphanages, preschool education, and did not share the views of A.S. Makarenko. She edited the magazine “People's Education”, “ People's teacher", "On the way to new school”, “About our children”, “Help for self-education”, “Red Librarian”, “School for Adults”, “Communist Education”, “Reading Hut”, etc. She was a delegate to the VII-XVII party congresses. The author of numerous books about Lenin, she contributed to the development of Leninism in the country, in particular, she helped with the publication of the book by M. Shaginyan.

15. Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya was awarded the Order of Lenin (1935) and the Order of the Red Banner of Labor. For more than 20 years she led public education, was the secretary of the Glavpolitprosvet, was the leader of the women's movement in the country, the organizer of teachers' trade unions, movements for the socialization of the disabled and for the education of all peoples of the country in their native language, and many newspapers and magazines in Russia that still exist today. Her direct merit was the social orientation of Soviet education at all levels: kindergarten, school, library, children's art house, recreation camp, school site. And although her cherished ideas of labor high school were never fully implemented, the USSR became the first state in the world with a widely developed network of vocational education institutions. Krupskaya was not only the first doctor of pedagogical sciences in the history of Russia, but also the permanent and uncomplaining deputy of three people's commissars of education.
16. Krupskaya played a very unseemly role in the creative fate of K.I. Chukovsky, she considered his poems to be disrespectful to the child’s personality. Her article “About Chukovsky’s Crocodile” ended with the words that these poems “You don’t need to give it to our boys...” The speech of the leader's widow in the press at that time actually meant a ban on the profession. In order to remain in children's literature, Chukovsky had to publicly “renounce” fairy tales for some time (until 1942).

17. Krupskaya was disliked by Stalin because she was going to publish Lenin’s posthumous letter, which said that another candidate should be considered for the role of leader. In addition, she opposed the policy of terror, although she defended Kamenev, Bukharin, Trotsky and Zinoviev to no avail, and protested against the persecution of children by “enemies of the people.”

18. Joseph Vissarionovich, in retaliation against the old Bolshevik, threatened that in history textbooks he would present a completely different person as Lenin’s wife (for example, E.D. Stasova), and showed disrespect for Nadezhda Konstantinovna in every possible way.
19. On February 26, 1939, Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya celebrated her 70th birthday. Old Bolsheviks gathered to celebrate with her. Stalin sent a cake as a gift - everyone knew that Lenin’s comrade-in-arms loved sweets. A few hours after the celebration, Krupskaya became ill. Nadezhda Konstantinovna was diagnosed with purulent appendicitis, which soon turned into peritonitis. She was taken to the hospital, but could not be saved. The day after the anniversary, Krupskaya died.
20. Her body was cremated. The urn with the ashes is placed in the Kremlin wall.

All historians clearly agree that Nadezhda Krupskaya loved her husband very much, from her youth and to the end. But whether Lenin loved her, or rather, how much he loved her, is an ambiguous question.

Revolutionary youth of the leader

Lenin was indeed quite sincerely “turned” on revolutionary ideology. At the same time he was passionate and emotional person, receptive to everything bright and unusual. He treated women the same way. The first of his sympathies, as recorded by history, was the young activist of the Marxist circle, Apollinaria Yakubova. In order to get closer and unobtrusively to the subject of his interest, Vladimir undertook the tactics of communicating with the three of them, and the third was Apollinaria’s friend Nadezhda Krupskaya.

Nadezhda immediately and madly fell in love with the charming young revolutionary, but hid this fact, realizing that against the background of her friend’s bright beauty, she had little chance. She took on the role of mediator in their relationship and tried to invite Vladimir Ilyich to visit her. Her mother Elizaveta Vasilievna cooked well and attracted the young Marxist with delicious home-cooked food. Nadezhda herself never learned to cook, but she was an intelligent and wise woman, little dependent on other people’s opinions. She was quite capable of single-handedly building a plan to “capture” Ilyich.

History is silent about how exactly Vladimir proposed to Yakubova, but when he once again was arrested, only Nadezhda came to the window of his prison: relations with Apollinaria Yakubova were no longer renewed.

Marriage in Shushenskoye

Lenin was sent into exile in the village of Shushenskoye, and Nadezhda followed him. The circumstances of this trip exist different versions, but Krupskaya herself said that Lenin proposed to her in correspondence, and she agreed: “Get married like that.”

It is possible that Lenin, firstly, got used to the constant presence of a party comrade in his life, and secondly, he realized that in his work he could not do without such an intelligent adviser as Nadezhda. Gleb Krzhizhanovsky wrote about Krzhizhanovsky: “Vladimir Ilyich could find a more beautiful woman, so my Zina was beautiful, but we didn’t have anyone smarter than Nadezhda Konstantinovna, more dedicated to her work than her...”

Peasants from the village were invited to the wedding, as well as exiled friends: Krzhizhanovsky, Starkov and others. The guests were so noisy that the owners of the house where the wedding was held came asking them to be quieter.

In none of the surviving photographs do Lenin and Krupskaya show sympathy for each other - they are captured dispassionately and purposefully: as befits the leaders of the revolution. But later Krupskaya wrote in her memoirs: “We were newlyweds,” and this brightened up the exile. The fact that I don’t write about this in my memoirs does not mean at all that there was no poetry or young passion in our lives...”

Everyday life of revolutionary married life

Nadezhda became a faithful assistant to her revolutionary husband. She processed correspondence, taught at the party school, was an editor, and a copyist of articles. Lenin found in Nadezhda Konstantinovna not only a comrade-in-arms in the revolution. He passionately loved to wander through the forests - picking mushrooms or just like that, and his wife kept him company. Subsequently, Krupskaya said that they found untouched corners of nature even in Munich and London.

Mother-in-law Elizaveta Vasilievna traveled with the spouses until her death in 1915. It was she who took upon herself to “provide the rear” - all the kitchen and housework. According to V. Pokhlebkin, a professor of history and a famous culinary expert, the signature dish of the life partner of the leader of the world proletariat was a fried egg of 4 eggs - Pokhlebkin suggests that it was the abuse of this dish that subsequently caused cerebral atherosclerosis in Lenin.

When Elizaveta Vasilievna died, the couple preferred to eat in cheap canteens. Nadezhda Konstantinovna admitted: after the death of her mother, “our family life became even more student-like.”

The Ulyanov-Krupskaya marriage turned out to be childless, and the reason was Nadezhda’s illness. Vladimir Ilyich, in one of his letters to his mother, said: “Nadya must be lying down: the doctor found that her illness requires persistent treatment, that she should lie down for 2-6 weeks.” Vladimir Ilyich did not spare money for her treatment, he looked for the best doctors. Later, already abroad, Krupskaya fell ill with Graves' disease and had to undergo surgery. In a letter to his mother, Ulyanov reported that Nadya “was very bad - extreme fever and delirium, so I was pretty scared...”.

Love-party triangle

The relationship between Vladimir Ilyich and Nadezhda was reliable, logical and calm, and Lenin, by his nature, was drawn to adventure. After 11 years of marriage, while in Paris, Vladimir Ilyich met Inessa Armand, the widow of a manufacturer, an ardent revolutionary and mother of five children. It was very beautiful woman adventurous warehouse. Being a governess in the family of a wealthy industrialist Armand, Inessa married his eldest son Vladimir, but after giving birth to four children, she ran away with his 17-year-old younger brother, who later died of tuberculosis.

The woman is fire - and passion flared up between her and Lenin. She was 35, he was 39. But he could not refuse Nadezhda, although she tried to leave. As A. Kollontai said: “in general, Krupskaya was in the know. She knew that Lenin was very attached to Inessa, and more than once expressed her intention to leave. Lenin held her back." For some time, a love triangle formed in which, contrary to all the ideals of communism, Vladimir Ilyich needed both such contrasting women for happiness...

In the Ulyanovs' house, Inessa Armand became indispensable: housekeeper, translator, secretary. Friendly relations were established between the two women.

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

Inessa Armand became the organizer of the first international conference female communists, wrote dozens of articles in which she called the traditional family a relic of antiquity.

In the 2000s, an interview with Alexander Steffen, who was born in 1913 and called himself the son of Vladimir Ulyanov and Armand, appeared in the media. The German citizen claims that 7 months after his birth, Vladimir Ulyanov placed him in the family of Austrian comrades.

Hostages of the revolution

After the revolution, Lenin was forced to decide on his personal life, and he chose Krupskaya. The ardent Frenchwoman returned to Paris and wrote letters from there full of love for Lenin and sympathy for his wife:

“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. There were a lot of good things in Paris and in relations with N.K. In one of our last conversations, she told me that I had become especially dear and close to her only recently. And I fell in love with her almost from the first time I met her...

In 1920, Inessa Armand died of typhus while returning to Moscow from Kislovodsk, where she had gone to improve her health. Lenin personally met the coffin with her body at the Kursk station.

Among the many wreaths on the fresh grave, one of the white flowers with a black ribbon stood out: “Comrade Inesse from V.I. Lenin.”

Even during this period, Vladimir Ilyich did not lose his affection for his wife. He watched for her quiet steps and went out to meet her on the stairs. When Stalin, who already considered himself the head of state, was rude to Nadezhda Konstantinovna, Lenin stood up for his wife and was so nervous that this excess accelerated his death.

Lenin outlived Inessa Armand by only 4 years. And Nadezhda outlived her husband by 15 years. Lenin and Krupskaya did not have their own children, and Nadezhda Konstantinovna looked after strangers until the end of her life. Including the children of Inessa Armand, and her daughter became the closest person to Krupskaya.

Nadezhda Konstantinovna died in 1939, the day after her birthday, which was celebrated on a grand scale. Suddenly appendicitis with peritonitis opened, and the doctor arrived only three hours later.

Krupskaya and Armand are even buried nearby. On Red Square near the Kremlin wall.

It’s paradoxical, but in modern Russian historiography and historical journalism dedicated to N.K. Krupskaya, there were two directly opposite, even mutually exclusive opinions. Some researchers consider this woman to be perhaps the main culprit, an invisible but powerful driver of events that turned the history of Russia in the 20th century. Others, on the contrary, tend to assign Krupskaya the modest role of the silent, unloved wife of the “leader of the world proletariat,” whom no one would ever remember if she were not his only official wife. However, N.K. Krupskaya went down in history only due to the fact that her fate turned out to be most closely connected with the fate of V.I. Lenin. It is impossible to argue against this.

The entire biography of Nadezhda Konstantinovna is usually divided into three parts, far from equal in importance: before Lenin (1869-1898), with Lenin (1898-1924) and after Lenin (1924-1939). It turns out that for most of his adult life N.K. Krupskaya held next to her famous husband. In exile, in exile, in Soviet Russia, they almost never separated. But so little is known about the marital relations of the Ulyanov couple that even today historians do not undertake to seriously deny or affirm anything. Of course, against the backdrop of a stormy romance with Inessa Armand, Lenin’s family life looks uninteresting and boring. And is it possible to call a childless union of two fiery revolutionaries a family? Perhaps fate brought them together only to create a well-coordinated “tandem” of like-minded people, an excellent mechanism for reworking and implementing Marxist theory? Who knows?..

In Soviet times, Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya was not at all counted among the “pantheon” of infallible leaders. Her true views on what was happening after Lenin’s death in the party apparatus and the country, as a rule, were carefully hushed up. Having made Lenin an untouchable symbol, the Stalinist leadership deprived the person closest to him (his wife) not only of the right to dispose of the body of the deceased, but also the right to dispose of his own memory of him. For all 15 years of life without Lenin, Krupskaya never “went beyond the bounds.” She did not say anything that could contradict the already created and retouched image of “the most humane of people”; she did not allow herself to recall a single intimate detail or weakness of her husband in order to break the revered idol carefully molded by her descendants. Krupskaya knew how to keep secrets? Yes.

Therefore, speaking about her life, even today we are forced to be content with only brief biographical information, memories of eyewitnesses and obvious Soviet myth-making. All this gives rise to the most ridiculous assumptions, accusations, historical mysteries and new myths of the “post-Soviet” and “post-perestroika” era...

Before Lenin

Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya was born in St. Petersburg, into a poor noble family. Father - Lieutenant Konstantin Ignatievich Krupsky (1838-1883) participated in the suppression of the Polish uprising, was no stranger to the revolutionary democratic movement and did not leave any fortune to the family. Her mother, governess Elizaveta Vasilievna Tistrova (1843-1915), raised her daughter alone, lived on the pension she received, and worked part-time by teaching lessons.

Description early years Nadezhda Konstantinovna bears little resemblance to a human biography. Even in the memories of the friends of her childhood and youth, warm, with a twist, non-standard details rarely slip through; there are no interesting cases: everything is smooth, boring, calm, as if we are talking about a robot. Meanwhile, young Nadenka also asserted herself and was original, but in such a unique way that none of the biographers even understood it. Even during her years at the gymnasium, she became interested in Leo Tolstoy and his teachings, and was a consistent “sweatshirt.” In 1889, Krupskaya entered the prestigious Higher Women's Courses in St. Petersburg, but studied there for only a year. In 1890, while attending courses, she joined a Marxist circle and from 1891 to 1896 taught at a workers' school. Instead of thinking about outfits and dreaming about grooms, the noble young lady was engaged in propaganda work, memorized German, in order to enjoy Marx in the original. Many noted the external unattractiveness of Nadezhda Konstantinovna, but if you look closely at her youthful photographs, there is nothing repulsive in them. On the contrary, she is a rather pretty “Turgenev” girl. Maybe it was a complete lack of what is called charm and feminine attractiveness? How else can we explain that by the age of thirty, all of Nadezhda Konstantinovna’s interests were focused on Marxism? She never did housework, didn’t even try to start a family, and her mother was happy with any groom who would suddenly cross the threshold of their house...

Life with Lenin

Nadya first saw Vladimir Ulyanov at her workers’ school in 1894. Now biographers can only guess who struck whom then with decisiveness and categorical judgments. Vladimir Ilyich at that time was only a young provincial who probably wanted to make acquaintance, and perhaps even marry, a resident of the capital. Historian Dmitry Volkogonov claims that young Ulyanov first “hit” Nadezhda Konstantinovna’s friend, also a workers’ school teacher, Apollinaria Yakubova. But she politely rejected his marriage proposal. Then the “groom” sent a similar proposal to Nadezhda from prison, and she accepted it.

As you know, the bride came to Shushenskoye accompanied by her mother. Elizaveta Vasilievna followed the Ulyanovs for the rest of her life, playing the role of housekeeper and domestic servant. Thirty-year-old Nadezhda Konstantinovna was unable to take care of herself and her husband, or create family comfort. After the death of their mother (1915) until their return to Russia, Lenin and Krupskaya ate in cheap canteens. “Our family life has become even more student-like,” Nadezhda Konstantinovna admitted in her memoirs. However, the wife’s helplessness in everyday life did not in any way affect the ideological union that was more important for Vladimir Ilyich. Krupskaya wrote that the main thing for them was the opportunity to “talk heart to heart about schools, about the labor movement.” And at night in Shushenskoye they dreamed of how they would participate in mass demonstrations of workers...

Initially, the marriage was supposed to be fictitious - “comrade woman” and “comrade man” supported each other in a difficult situation, but the leader’s future mother-in-law insisted that the marriage be concluded without delay, and “in full Orthodox form.” The fiery revolutionaries obeyed. The wedding ceremony took place on July 10, 1898 in the Peter and Paul Church in the village of Shushenskoye. Officially, Nadezhda took her husband’s surname, but almost never used it, remaining “Comrade Krupskaya” to everyone until the end of her days.

Ilyich’s family was not happy with his wife: in their minds, she was a boring old maid. Lenin's older sister, Anna, was particularly intransigent. Most of all, Anna Ilyinichna was irritated by gossip about Krupskaya’s “tender friendship” with the exiled revolutionary Viktor Kurnatovsky, whom she met in the same Siberian exile. Found in the memoirs of Nadezhda Konstantinovna short story about how they walked together: “Kurnatovsky showed me a sugar factory not far from Shushenskoye. But the way there was not close. During the journey we walked through a forest and a field. Then it was green all around - beautiful.” Today, historians and biographers of Krupskaya, following Lenin’s “insightful” sister, tend to interpret this fleeting description of the surrounding nature almost as an erotic memory. However, Shushenskoye is not St. Petersburg. IN rural settlement, where everything is in plain sight, it was absolutely impossible to hide Nadenka’s “romance” with Kurnatovsky, but this did not bother the newlywed Lenin. It is worth noting here that Vladimir Ilyich, unlike his fellow revolutionaries, held rather conservative views on the family and willingly communicated with relatives. Mother's opinion and older sister it was always important to him. Only in the case of Krupskaya did Lenin clearly take her side and did not give rise to the development of a family conflict. It is known that in 1912 Nadezhda Konstantinovna visited the already terminally ill Kurnatovsky in Paris, brought newspapers and food, and talked with him for a long time. Was this just a courtesy visit? In 1912, Vladimir Ilyich perceived it this way.

Due to illness, Nadezhda Konstantinovna could not have children. The couple never publicly, even with close people, shared their pain about this. Krupskaya wanted to have a child, she even went for treatment to Ufa for this purpose, where she was finally diagnosed with infertility. Documents confirming this fact were discovered quite recently. Later, already abroad, Krupskaya fell ill with Graves' disease and had to undergo surgery. In a letter to his mother, Ulyanov reported that Nadya “was very bad - extreme fever and delirium, so I was pretty scared...”. However, the presence of children never stopped fiery revolutionaries. Even less often did it turn them away from their chosen path. Let's remember L.D. Trotsky, who left his wife and two little daughters in Siberia and rushed to make the revolution of 1905...

Lenin, as we know, never left the ugly, barren, and, moreover, sick woman. On the contrary, I was always very afraid of losing her. Most likely, no matter how cheesy it sounds, the Ulyanov family union was based on kinship of interests, on intellectual interaction and even complementing each other.

It was Nadezhda Konstantinovna who knew how to wisely and imperceptibly guide Lenin’s hand, change the course of his thoughts, pretending that she was only helping in his work. Ilyich did not tolerate objections, but Krupskaya, like any smart woman, was not in the habit of objecting. Gently, gradually, she forced people to listen to herself, so much so that her opinion could not be ignored. So loving mother imperceptibly directs the energy of a naughty child in the right direction.

One of Lenin's comrades G.I. Petrovsky recalled:

Isn't it a nice picture, more like a well-directed scene? “Darlings scold - they just amuse themselves.” No, Krupskaya was neither a “mother hen” nor a “darling”. She didn't need fame or cheap self-affirmation. Vladimir Ilyich became her Galatea, and she successfully coped with the role of Pygmalion.

In the story with Inessa, Armand Krupskaya also behaved like a wise woman: “Whatever the child amuses himself with...”. She knew that she was in no danger. Feelings are feelings, the most “armored” person is not immune from their explosion, and the bond between the two accomplices turned out to be much stronger. They said that Krupskaya suggested that Lenin divorce immediately after returning to Russia, but Vladimir Ilyich did not let his devoted girlfriend go one step away. Of course: it was good to relax with Inessa, but in Russia there was a important work. The inconspicuous old woman Krupskaya could calmly watch over his shoulder, talk to people, assess the situation and the mood of the masses much more soberly than the Bolshevik leader, always busy at revolutionary rallies. She was his "eyes and ears" faithful assistant, permanent secretary, muse, critic, part of himself. In the spring and summer of 1917, everything was at stake in Lenin’s life. Love, in this case, could wait.

No matter what they said, the couple were sincerely attached to each other. Everyone knows the memories of the cadet sentry who was on duty at the Ulyanovs’ apartment in the Kremlin. Vladimir Ilyich, like to a devoted dog, learned about Nadezhda Konstantinovna’s approach long before her steps were heard on the stairs, ran to meet her, shared his thoughts as he went, and often asked her opinion or advice.

In 1919, when a lot had already been done together, Krupskaya unexpectedly left for the Urals. She asks her husband to leave her to work on her own, perhaps again hinting at a necessary divorce, but immediately receives a letter full of hysterics: “...and how could you come up with such a thing? Stay in the Urals?! Sorry, but I was shocked.".

Krupskaya is returned from the Urals almost by force. Armand soon dies. Alexandra Kollontai recalled:

Lenin needed support, and Nadezhda Konstantinovna again lent her shoulder. Her husband’s unexpected illness frightened her, but did not throw her off balance: at this stage, Lenin needed Krupskaya more than ever. She fulfilled her duty with honor and to the end.

Life without Lenin

All “post-Soviet” biographers of Krupskaya, to one degree or another, ask the question: why did Stalin hate Nadezhda Konstantinovna so much? If she were only an unhappy widow, a harmless old woman, as she looks in all the photographs of the 20s and 30s, then what danger could such a woman pose to his emerging power?

The confrontation between the emerging dictator and Nadezhda Konstantinovna, as we know, began even before the death of Vladimir Ilyich. The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks instructed its General Secretary I.V. Stalin to monitor compliance with the regime prescribed to Lenin by doctors. Stalin took advantage of this in order to completely isolate the patient from political life, but Krupskaya understood: complete inactivity for Ilyich was tantamount to death. Thanks to Krupskaya, in 1922-23 Lenin was partly aware of what was happening in the Central Committee. During the “Georgian incident,” completely sharing her husband’s point of view on the “great-power chauvinism” of Stalin and Dzerzhinsky, Krupskaya tried to win over Trotsky, Stalin’s main political opponent. In December 1922, Lenin, with the permission of his doctors, dictated to Nadezhda Konstantinovna a letter to Trotsky regarding the monopoly of foreign trade. Having learned about this, Stalin rudely scolded Krupskaya over the phone, threatening her with proceedings at the level of the Control Commission. The content of this letter is quite innocent: Lenin expressed in it his satisfaction with the way the issue of monopoly was resolved at the Plenum and expressed his thoughts on the raising of this issue at the congress. Stalin himself fully agreed with Lenin’s position, but, firstly, the letter was addressed not to him, but to Trotsky (!), and, secondly, it meant preserving political activity Lenin was a fact of his continued participation in the life of the party and state. All this greatly worried Stalin. Otherwise, it is hardly possible to explain the outright breakdown that the Secretary General allowed himself in relation to the wife of the sick leader. The content and intonation of this reprimand can be judged from Krupskaya’s letter to Kamenev, sent on December 23:

Lenin learned about Stalin's trick only on March 5, 1923. And he immediately dictated a note to the secretary:

Gritting his teeth, Stalin apologized, but the “quarrel” ended with a significant deterioration in Vladimir Ilyich’s health. By insulting Krupskaya, Stalin achieved more than all Lenin’s enemies combined: the head of state was completely paralyzed, he could neither move nor speak. In the "Letter to the Congress", which for a long time was usually called the political testament of the leader, Lenin wrote about rudeness Secretary General Central Committee with the wish for his resignation.

Stalin could not forgive this. Even when Lenin was sick, he tried to remove the “old woman” from the political scene, and when the leader died, Stalin entered into a fierce struggle with Krupskaya. He had no intention of sharing his power with anyone, especially with Lenin’s widow. Nadezhda Konstantinovna begged to bury her husband, but his body was turned into an embalmed mummy and put on public display. Krupskaya was offered a chair next to the coffin, on which she was supposed to spend the hours prescribed by Stalin. It seemed impossible to imagine a more sophisticated torture, but the always restrained, calm Nadezhda Konstantinovna withstood this test.

Krupskaya outlived Lenin by fifteen years. A long-standing illness tormented and exhausted her. She did not give up: she worked every day, wrote reviews, articles, gave instructions, taught how to live, but the “tandem” of like-minded people, alas, fell apart. Krupskaya theorized, but there was no one to give her thoughts a go and insist on the right to express them.

Nadezhda Konstantinovna’s natural kindness still coexisted quite peacefully with harsh revolutionary ideas. At the XIV Party Congress, Krupskaya supported the “new opposition” of G. E. Zinoviev and L. B. Kamenev in their struggle against I. V. Stalin, but later recognized this position as erroneous. Scared? Hardly. Most likely, she was just tired of knocking on empty space.

Until the end of her life, Comrade Krupskaya appeared in print and remained a member of the Central Committee, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. In 1926-1927, she spoke at plenums and quite voluntarily voted for bringing N.I. to trial. Bukharin, for the expulsion from the party of L.D. Trotsky, G.E. Zinovieva, L.B. Kameneva. Sometimes Lenin's widow interceded on behalf of the repressed, but mostly to no avail. Gradually, the woman who had never had children “slipped” exclusively to the problems of pedagogy and public education. In 1929, Krupskaya took the post of Deputy People's Commissar of Education of the RSFSR and became one of the creators of the Soviet public education system, formulating the main task of the new education: “The school should not only teach, it should be the center of communist education”. Glavpolitprosvet, headed by Krupskaya, dealt with the old system of humanities education back in the early 1920s. Philosophical, philological and historical faculties were abolished in universities. A special government decree introduced a mandatory scientific minimum, requiring the study of such disciplines as historical materialism, proletarian revolution etc. The general elimination of illiteracy among the population was carried out by the new government with a purely utilitarian goal: every proletarian must independently be able to read the decrees and resolutions of the Soviet government.

When Stalin sharply turned his course towards industrialization and collectivization of the country, N.K. Krupskaya could not remain silent. She probably became the only person in the Central Committee, who decided to openly oppose the inhumane methods of speeding up socialist construction.

“In the summer of 1930, before the 16th Party Congress, district party conferences were held in Moscow,” historian Roy Medvedev writes in his book “They Surrounded Stalin.” – The widow of V.I. spoke at the Bauman conference. Lenina N.K. Krupskaya criticized the methods of Stalinist collectivization, saying that this collectivization had nothing to do with Lenin’s cooperative plan. Krupskaya accused the Party Central Committee of ignorance of the mood of the peasantry and refusal to consult with the people. “There is no need to blame the local authorities,” said Nadezhda Konstantinovna, “for the mistakes that were made by the Central Committee itself.”

When Krupskaya was still making her speech, the leaders of the district committee let Kaganovich know about this, and he immediately went to the conference. Having risen to the podium after Krupskaya, Kaganovich subjected her speech to rude criticism. Rejecting her criticism on the merits, he also stated that she, as a member of the Central Committee, did not have the right to bring her critical remarks to the podium of the district party conference. “Let N.K. not think. Krupskaya,” said Kaganovich, “that if she was Lenin’s wife, then she has a monopoly on Leninism.”

These words could not help but offend Nadezhda Konstantinovna. On the other hand, if someone else had made such criticism, it is unlikely that the matter would have been limited to ordinary censure. Krupskaya was left alone: ​​they were not expelled from the party, they were not declared an “enemy of the people,” but they began to treat her like a crazy old woman. In the 1930s, she continued to be involved in public education. Krupskaya is credited with a campaign to combat the “legacy of the tsarist regime”: the works of Dostoevsky, Krylov, La Fontaine, Merezhkovsky and other authors “harmful” for the education of youth. According to the instructions of the Glavpolitprosvet signed by Krupskaya, children's publications and fairy tales by Russian writers were confiscated from libraries and reading rooms. Either Nadezhda Konstantinovna herself was not given something in childhood, or she was trying to compensate for her failed motherhood in this way, but in one of the articles, the “all-Union grandmother” Krupskaya wrote quite seriously: “We stand against fairy tales... After all, this is mysticism”(“Selected articles and speeches.” M., 1969, p. 107). The fight against “fairy tales” prompted her in the late 1930s to launch a campaign against the works of Chukovsky, to ban some of A. Gaidar’s books, and to impose too stringent demands on children’s literature, which should not entertain, but educate fighters. Numerous works of Nadezhda Konstantinovna on pedagogy today have only historical significance for those who are interested in the views of the Bolsheviks on the problem of raising children. The true significance of Krupskaya lies in the works of Lenin, her idol and comrade-in-arms.

In 1938, writer Marietta Shaginyan approached Krupskaya about reviewing and supporting her novel about Lenin, Ticket to History. Nadezhda Konstantinovna responded to her with a detailed letter, which caused Stalin’s terrible indignation. A scandal broke out and became the subject of discussion by the Party Central Committee.

“To condemn the behavior of Krupskaya, who, having received the manuscript of Shaginyan’s novel, not only did not prevent the birth of the novel, but, on the contrary, encouraged Shaginyan in every possible way, gave positive reviews about the manuscript and advised Shaginyan on various aspects of the life of the Ulyanovs and thereby bore full responsibility for this book. Consider Krupskaya’s behavior all the more unacceptable and tactless because Comrade Krupskaya did all this without the knowledge and consent of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, thereby turning the all-party matter of compiling works about Lenin into a private and family matter and acting as a monopolist and interpreter of public and personal life and work of Lenin and his family, which the Central Committee never gave anyone the right to do..."

The document is, of course, absurd. But on the other hand, wasn’t it Nadezhda Konstantinovna herself who once launched the flywheel of this machine, giving the party bodies the predominant right to mental activity? The ideal in its implementation turned out to be much more absurd than she could have imagined...

Krupskaya left life suddenly. Almost all modern biographers and historians point to some mystery associated with the death of an already middle-aged and sickly woman. In our opinion, the biggest mystery is what she was going to talk about at the 18th Party Congress. She shared her decision to speak to the delegates with many of her colleagues. It is possible that the speech could have been directed against Stalin, but no drafts or theses of the alleged speech were found in Krupskaya’s papers. On Sunday, February 24, 1939, friends came to Nadezhda Konstantinovna to celebrate her approaching seventieth birthday. There were two days left before her birthday, but Krupskaya did not want to spend a regular working day receiving congratulations. The table was modest - dumplings, jelly. Krupskaya drank several sips of champagne, was cheerful and chatted animatedly with friends. In the evening I felt very bad. They called a doctor, but for some reason he arrived three and a half hours later. The diagnosis was made immediately: “acute appendicitis-peritonitis-thrombosis.” An urgent operation was needed, but it was not performed. Obviously, the Kremlin doctors understood that anesthesia would simply kill the elderly woman, and they would be blamed for her death. There was already a precedent: in 1925, M.V. died under anesthesia. Frunze, and in 1926 B. Pilnyak wrote his “The Tale of the Unextinguished Moon.” In 1939, Stalin would hardly have limited himself to the story...

Krupskaya turned out to be probably the most mysterious character in Russian history over the last century. She herself wrote about her life. IN Soviet times her biography was edited to be glossy and perfect. After the 1990s, this gloss began to be thrown into the mud, and as thoroughly as it was previously bleached. So who was this woman?

Biography of Lenin's wife

Born on February 14 (26), 1869 in a family of poor nobles. Father - Konstantin Ignatievich Krupsky - lawyer. Mother - Elizaveta Vasilyevna Tistrova - governess.

For a long time they wrote about my father that he was a revolutionary; in his youth he supported the participants in the Polish uprising of 1863. Perhaps this was the case, if not for a nuance: he became the head of the district in Groetz (Poland) after graduating from the St. Petersburg Military Law Academy. It is difficult to reconcile such views with the type of profession. True, they say, because of his worldview, he received his resignation and trial. But it is not known for certain.

There was no big money in the family, although they took care of their only daughter and sent her to a gymnasium, about which there is great disagreement between former and current historians.

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They once wrote that Krupskaya was an excellent student at the gymnasium and graduated in 1887 with a gold medal. But Nadezhda Konstantinovna herself writes in the book “My Life” that studying was always difficult, they taught in the gymnasium was boring, it was difficult to understand, etc. And no one has ever seen her gold medal, and there are no gymnasium friends who would later (in Moscow or in exile) talk about studying together. Therefore, the fact that she graduated from the gymnasium, and Nadezhda Konstantinovna later worked there as a teacher, is fair, but there is no evidence of a medal.

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Next, Bestuzhev courses in St. Petersburg. The girl stayed there for two months, but for some reason she considered the Marxist circle and teaching at an evening school for workers more important than higher education. I did this work for 5 years, until my first arrest.

A friend from the circle introduced her. His passion for Marx's ideas and ability to convince others impressed me. And he paid attention to her, although she was not a beauty. Still, we believe that Nadezhda Konstantinovna had high intelligence, despite his incomplete education.

Revolutionary

1896 Arrest and exile to Ufa. At the same time, Vladimir Ulyanov was also exiled to Shushenskoye. He and Krupskaya’s mother, with whom the girl went to Siberia, wrote many letters to the authorities so that she would be allowed to serve exile in Shushenskoye in connection with the wedding. By the way, the plot where my father’s grave was located was sold to raise money. The Ulyanovs got married in a church marriage in 1898. In the same year she joined the RSDLP.

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In 1917, having returned to Russia, Krupskaya was actively preparing October Revolution. Later she stood at the origins of the Komsomol and pioneer organization(having studied scout movement in Europe, considered that it would fit perfectly into Russian reality, having changed to suit the interests of the Bolsheviks).

Her next concern was education. In 1917, Krupskaya became a member of the State Education Commission. In 1924 - a member of the Central Committee of the Party, since 1929 - Deputy People's Commissar of Education of the RSFSR, one of the creators of the Soviet public education system.

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However, it is difficult to evaluate this activity only with a plus or a minus. Not having her own children, Krupskaya spent her love and energy on children in general, regardless of origin and nationality. She cared about their lives and how to make their mothers' lives easier. At the same time, she criticized Makarenko’s system, based on education through labor, arguing that communist ideology is more important. She was outraged by fairy tales, not understanding the importance of magic and fantasy for children.

Social activities

After Lenin’s death, Krupskaya tried to somehow resist the decisions, but gave up quite quickly. She supported Zinoviev and Kamenev, and then considered her opinion erroneous. She tried to ask for Lenin’s repressed comrades, but there was no result, but it cannot be said that she had no influence, no will to achieve her goal - perhaps so.

| Komsomolskaya Pravda

In the 1930s, she saw how persecution began not only against “enemies of the people”, but also against their children, she tried to resist, but she was removed from work and sent to library work, which is what she did, and again wrote about her husband, reviewed films about him.

N.K. Krupskaya contributed a lot to the opening of museums, for example Lermontov in Tarkhany. She was elected to committees related to childhood. In 1937, a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 1st convocation, received a doctorate pedagogical sciences.

Nadezhda Krupskaya in recent years| Everything for you

She died at an old age in 1939, but her death happened strangely: immediately after her birthday, which was celebrated on a grand scale. Suddenly peritonitis developed, but for some reason the operation was not performed.

And if she had known in advance where she would be buried, she would also have been indignant: Krupskaya’s ashes were placed in the Kremlin wall on Red Square, but she was even against Lenin being in the Mausoleum, and more than once turned to Stalin with a request to bury her husband in the cemetery, "humanly".

Krupskaya's career

Be that as it may, Nadezhda Konstantinovna gained fame because she was married to a man who managed to shift the centuries-old Russian world order. And Lenin’s wife is her main advantage.

Tradition

Krupskaya’s political career is her ability to be everything to her husband: a friend, an assistant, an adviser, support, a “stone wall.” However, it should still be noted that Krupskaya herself was quite a wise woman.

She did not completely dissolve into a man, as most wives of geniuses do, as the Kremlin wives behaved, but she forced those around her to reckon with herself. By the way, Vladimir Ilyich himself understood this very well.

Komsomolskaya Pravda

When Krupskaya realized that her personal life was not going well, there would be no children, her husband had a mistress, Inessa Armand, she did not do any harm, create scenes, offered to break up and even remained on friendly terms with Armand, then babysat her grandson. Here, after weighing all the pros and cons, Lenin (a great analyst, by the way) refused to get a divorce and preferred Krupskaya, breaking up with Inessa, although he loved Armand and was very shocked by her death.

Personal life

We are used to seeing Krupskaya in numerous photos as a rather scary, plump woman with bulging eyes. Graves' disease spoiled her appearance and, as modern doctors believe, did not allow her to have children. But this was not always the case.

Young Krupskaya was a sweet girl, quite determined and purposeful. The quiet life of a high school teacher or governess did not suit her at all. She wanted to remake the world, just as Marx wanted.

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A friend of A. Yakubova introduced her to her future husband, to whom, by the way, Ulyanov proposed, but was refused. Nadezhda could not help but know about this, but she chose him as her husband and was not mistaken. And she acted very wisely, like a woman: she showed him her passion for Marxism (much like a smart wife today enthusiastically watches football with her husband or goes ice fishing with him), and then “fed” her mother some pickles. Krupskaya herself never knew how to cook and did not want to learn, except for omelets and scrambled eggs, she did nothing. And Elizaveta Vasilievna tried! And this continued until her death.

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Another girl would worry about her appearance. Perhaps Nadezhda was also worried, and probably cried when future husband he came up with secret nicknames for her: “Fish”, “Lamprey”, and his relatives generally said that she had a “herring appearance” due to her bulging eyes due to a disease. But in real life no one found out about this!

She married him and became the “first lady” of the new state, taking upon herself important function– education of the younger generation in the spirit of communism, i.e. she thought broadly and looked far ahead, even if the gymnasium gold medal did not exist at all. And you never know what else interesting facts History has hidden from us about Krupskaya.

In Soviet historiography, Nadezhda Krupskaya was mentioned exclusively in the status of “wife and comrade-in-arms” of Vladimir Lenin. In the post-Soviet period, because of this same status, she was subjected to mockery and insults from all kinds of “accusers” and “subverters.”

It seems that neither one nor the other was interested in the personality of this extraordinary woman, whose whole life was painted in tragic tones...
Poor noblewoman
She was born on February 26, 1869 in St. Petersburg into an impoverished noble family. Nadenka graduated from the pedagogical class of the gymnasium with a gold medal and entered the Higher Women's Courses, but studied there for only a year.
Nadya’s father was close to participants in the Narodnaya Volya movement, so it is not surprising that the girl was infected with left-wing ideas from her youth, which is why she very quickly found herself on the list of “unreliables.”

Her father died in 1883, after which Nadya and her mother had a particularly difficult time. The girl made a living by giving private lessons, while simultaneously teaching at the St. Petersburg Sunday evening school for adults behind the Nevskaya Zastava.
Nadezhda’s already not very good health suffered greatly during the years when she ran from student to student through the damp and cold streets of St. Petersburg. Subsequently, this will affect the fate of the girl in a tragic way.
Party beauty
Since 1890, Nadezhda Krupskaya was a member of the Marxist circle. In 1894, in a circle, she met “The Old Man” - this was the party nickname of the young and energetic socialist Vladimir Ulyanov.
A sharp mind, a brilliant sense of humor, excellent oratory skills - many revolutionary-minded young ladies fell in love with Ulyanov. Later they would write that the future leader of the revolution was not attracted to Krupskaya female beauty, which did not exist, but exclusively ideological closeness.

This is not entirely true. Of course, the main unifying principle for Krupskaya and Ulyanov was the political struggle. However, it is also true that Vladimir was attracted to Nadya by female beauty.
She was very attractive in her youth, but this beauty was taken away from her by a terrible autoimmune disease - Graves' disease, which affects women eight times more often than men, and is also known by another name - diffuse toxic goiter. One of its most striking manifestations is bulging eyes.
Nadezhda inherited the disease and already in her youth it manifested itself in lethargy and regular ailments. Frequent colds in St. Petersburg, and then prison and exile led to an exacerbation of the disease.
IN late XIX– early 20th century effective ways There has not yet been a fight against this disease. Nadezhda Krupskaya's disease crippled her entire life.
Work instead of children
In 1896, Nadezhda Krupskaya was imprisoned as an activist of the Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class created by Ulyanov. The leader of the “Union” himself was already in prison by that time, from where he asked for Nadezhda’s hand in marriage. She agreed, but her own arrest postponed the wedding.
They got married in Siberia, in Shushenskoye, in July 1898. Ulyanov and Krupskaya did not have children, which is why speculation arose - Nadezhda was frigid, Vladimir was not attracted to her, etc.
This is all nonsense. The relationship between the spouses, at least in the first years, was full-fledged, and they thought about children. But a progressive illness deprived Nadezhda of the opportunity to become a mother.

She tightly closed this pain in her heart, concentrating on political activities, becoming her husband’s main and most reliable assistant.
Companions noted Nadezhda’s fantastic performance - all the years, next to Vladimir, she processed a huge volume of correspondence and materials, delving into completely different issues and at the same time managing to write her own articles.
She was next to her husband both in exile and in exile, helping him in the most difficult moments. Meanwhile her own strength was undermined by an illness, due to which her appearance became more and more ugly. What it was like for Nadezhda to experience all this, only she knew.
Love-party triangle
Nadezhda was aware that Vladimir might become interested in other women. And so it happened - he began an affair with another fellow fighter, Inessa Armand.
These relations continued after the political emigrant Vladimir Ulyanov became the leader of the Soviet state, Vladimir Lenin, in 1917.

Inessa Armand - muse of Vladimir Lenin
The story that Krupskaya allegedly hated her rival and her entire family is a fiction. Nadezhda understood everything and repeatedly offered her husband freedom, even being ready to leave herself, seeing his hesitation.
But Vladimir Ilyich, making a difficult life choice rather than a political one, stayed with his wife.
This is difficult to understand from the point of view of simple everyday relationships, but Inessa and Nadezhda remained on good terms. Their political struggle came before personal happiness.
Inessa Armand died of cholera in 1920. For Lenin, this death was a heavy blow, and Nadezhda helped him survive.
In 1921, Lenin himself was struck down by a serious illness. Nadezhda brought her semi-paralyzed husband back to life, using all her pedagogical talent, re-teaching him to speak, read and write.


She managed the almost impossible - to return Lenin to active work again. But a new stroke brought all efforts to naught, making Vladimir Ilyich’s condition almost hopeless.
Life after Lenin
After the death of her husband in January 1924, work became the only meaning of Nadezhda Krupskaya’s life. She did a lot for the development of the pioneer organization, women's movement, journalism and literature in the USSR. At the same time, she believed Chukovsky’s fairy tales were harmful to children and spoke critically of Anton Makarenko’s pedagogical system.
In a word, Nadezhda Konstantinovna, like all major political and statesmen, was a contradictory and ambiguous person.
The trouble was that Krupskaya, a talented, intelligent, self-sufficient person, was perceived by many in the USSR exclusively as “Lenin’s wife.” This status, on the one hand, evoked universal respect, and on the other, sometimes disdain for Nadezhda Krupskaya’s personal political position.


Nadezhda Krupskaya Krupskaya among the pioneers 1936
The significance of the confrontation between Stalin and Krupskaya in the 1930s is clearly exaggerated. Nadezhda Konstantinovna did not have sufficient leverage to pose a threat to Joseph Vissarionovich in the political struggle.
“The Party loves Nadezhda Konstantinovna not because she great man, but because she close person our great Lenin,” this phrase once said from a high rostrum very accurately defined Krupskaya’s position in the USSR in the 1930s.
Death at the Jubilee
She continued to work, wrote articles on pedagogy, memories of Lenin, and warmly communicated with Inessa's daughter Armand. She considered Inessa's grandson her grandson. In her declining years, this lonely woman clearly lacked simple family happiness, which was deprived of her by a serious illness and political struggle.
On February 26, 1939, Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya celebrated her 70th birthday. Old Bolsheviks gathered to celebrate with her. Stalin sent a cake as a gift - everyone knew that Lenin’s comrade-in-arms loved sweets.


This cake will later become the reason for accusations against Stalin of the murder of Krupskaya. But in fact, not only Nadezhda Konstantinovna ate the cake, and such a plot itself looks somehow too unrealistic.
A few hours after the celebration, Krupskaya became ill. Nadezhda Konstantinovna was diagnosed with acute appendicitis, which soon turned into peritonitis. She was taken to the hospital, but could not be saved.
The resting place of Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya was a niche in the Kremlin wall.
She devoted her entire life to her husband, the revolution and the building of a new society, never complaining about the fate that deprived her of simple female happiness.