Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya biography. Big hope. October Revolution. Communist education of youth
Paradoxically, 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 inconspicuous but powerful engine 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 voiceless, unloved wife of the "leader of the world proletariat", which 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 was most closely connected with the fate of V.I. Lenin. It is impossible to object to this.
It is customary to divide the entire biography of Nadezhda Konstantinovna into three, far from equal parts: before Lenin (1869-1898), with Lenin (1898-1924) and after Lenin (1924-1939). It turns out that most of his conscious life N.K. Krupskaya spent next to her famous husband. In exile, in exile, in Soviet Russia, they almost never parted. But just about the marital relationship of the Ulyanovs, so little is known that even today historians do not undertake to seriously deny or affirm anything. Of course, against the background of a stormy romance with Inessa Armand, Lenin's family life looks uninteresting and boring. And can a childless union of two fiery revolutionaries be called a family? Perhaps fate brought them together only to create a well-coordinated "tandem" of like-minded people, an excellent mechanism for reworking and putting Marxist theory into practice? Who knows?..
In Soviet times, Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya was not at all included in the "pantheon" of infallible leaders. Her true views on what was happening after the death of Lenin in the party apparatus and the country, as a rule, were carefully hushed up. Having made an untouchable symbol out of Lenin, 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 of the right to dispose of his own memory of him. In all 15 years of her life without Lenin, Krupskaya never "went beyond the limits." She did not say anything that could go against the already created and retouched image of “the most human 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 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, eyewitness accounts and clear Soviet myth-making. All this gives rise to the most ridiculous assumptions, accusations, historical mysteries and new myths of the already “post-Soviet” and “post-perestroika” era ...
Before Lenin
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Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya was born in St. Petersburg, in a poor noble family. Father - lieutenant Krupsky Konstantin Ignatievich (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. Mother - governess Elizaveta Vasilievna Tistrova (1843-1915) raised her daughter alone, lived on the pension she received, worked part-time with lessons.
Description early years Nadezhda Konstantinovna bears little resemblance to a human biography. Even in the memories of her childhood and youth friends, 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 peculiar way that none of the biographers even understood this. Back in the years of studying at the gymnasium, she was carried away by L.N. Tolstoy and his teachings, she was a consistent “hoody”. In 1889, Krupskaya entered the prestigious Higher Courses for Women in St. Petersburg, but she 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 of suitors, the noble young lady was engaged in propaganda work, memorized the German language 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, a rather pretty "Turgenev" girl. Maybe it was about total absence what is called charm and female attractiveness? How else can one explain that by the age of thirty all the interests of Nadezhda Konstantinovna were concentrated on Marxism? She never did housework, didn’t even try to start a family, and her mother was glad for any groom who suddenly crossed the threshold of their house ...
Life with Lenin
Nadya first saw Vladimir Ulyanov at her working school in 1894. Now biographers can only guess who struck whom then with the decisiveness and peremptory judgments. Vladimir Ilyich at that time was only a young provincial who probably wanted to make an acquaintance, and maybe even marry a resident of the capital. Historian Dmitry Volkogonov claims that young Ulyanov first "hit" Nadezhda Konstantinovna's girlfriend, also a teacher of a working school, Apollinaria Yakubova. But she politely rejected his marriage proposal. Then the "groom" already from prison sent a similar proposal to Nadezhda, and she accepted it.
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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. To take care of herself and her husband, to create family comfort, thirty-year-old Nadezhda Konstantinovna was not able to. 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. Nevertheless, the wife's helplessness in everyday life did not in any way affect the more important ideological union 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 about 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 future mother-in-law of the leader insisted that the marriage be concluded without delay, and “to the full Orthodox form". The fiery revolutionaries obeyed. The wedding ceremony was performed 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" for everyone until the end of her days.
Ilyich's family was not enthusiastic about his wife: in their view - a boring old maid. Lenin's older sister, Anna, was especially intransigent. Most of all, Anna Ilyinichna was annoyed by gossip about " tender friendship» Krupskaya with the exiled revolutionary Viktor Kurnatovsky, whom she met in the same Siberian exile. In the memoirs of Nadezhda Konstantinovna found short story about how they walked together: “Kurnatovsky showed me a sugar factory near Shushensky. But the way there was not close. On the way we walked through the forest and the field. Then it was green around - beauty. Today, historians and biographers of Krupskaya, following Lenin's "sharp-witted" sister, tend to interpret this fleeting description surrounding nature almost like an erotic memory. However, Shushenskoye is not Petersburg. AT rural settlement, where everything is in plain sight, it was absolutely impossible to hide Nadenka’s “romance” with Kurnatovsky, but this did not excite the newlywed Lenin. It is worth noting here that Vladimir Ilyich, unlike his revolutionary colleagues, adhered to rather conservative views on the family and willingly communicated with relatives. The opinion of his mother and older sister was always important to him. Only in the case of Krupskaya did Lenin unambiguously take her side and did not give rise to 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 it just a courtesy call? In 1912, Vladimir Ilyich took it that way.
Due to illness, Nadezhda Konstantinovna could not have children. The couple never publicly, even with loved ones, shared their pain about this. Krupskaya wanted to have a child, she even went to Ufa for treatment 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 she had to undergo an operation. In a letter to his mother, Ulyanov reported that Nadya "was very ill - the strongest fever and delirium, so I got pretty cowardly ...". However, the presence of children never stopped fiery revolutionaries. Even more rarely, it turned them away from the chosen path. Let's remember L.D. Trotsky, who left his wife and two young daughters in Siberia and rushed off to make the revolution of 1905...
Lenin, as we know, never left an ugly, barren, and, moreover, sick woman. On the contrary, he was always very afraid of losing her. Most likely, no matter how vulgar it sounds, the Ulyanov family union was based on the relationship of interests, on intellectual interaction and even complementing each other.
It was Nadezhda Konstantinovna who knew how to wisely and imperceptibly direct Lenin's hand, to change the course of his thoughts, pretending that she was only helping in his work. Ilyich did not tolerate objections, but Krupskaya, like any intelligent woman, was not in the habit of objecting. Gently, gradually, she forced to listen to herself, so much so that her opinion could not be ignored. So a loving mother imperceptibly directs the energy of a naughty child in the right direction.
One of Lenin's associates G.I. Petrovsky recalled:
Isn't it a pretty picture, more like a well-directed scene? "Lovely scold - only amuse." No, Krupskaya was neither a mother hen nor a darling. She did not need fame or cheap self-assertion. 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 is amused by…”. She knew that nothing threatened her. Feelings are feelings, the most “armored” person is not immune from their explosion, and the spike of two accomplices turned out to be much stronger. It was said that Krupskaya offered Lenin a divorce immediately after returning to Russia, but Vladimir Ilyich never let go of his devoted girlfriend. Still: it was good to have a rest with Inessa, but in Russia it was 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 leader of the Bolsheviks, who was always busy at revolutionary rallies. She was his "eyes and ears", a faithful assistant, a permanent secretary, a muse, a critic, a part of himself. In the spring and summer of 1917, everything was at stake in Lenin's life. Love, in that case, could wait.
Whatever they say, the couple were sincerely attached to each other. Everyone knows the memories of a sentry cadet who was on duty at the Ulyanovs' apartment in the Kremlin. Vladimir Ilyich, like a devoted dog, found out about the approach of Nadezhda Konstantinovna long before her steps were heard on the stairs, ran to meet her, shared his thoughts on the go, 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 hysteria: “…and how could you come up with such a thing? Stay in the Urals?! I'm sorry, but I was shocked".
Krupskaya is returned from the Urals almost by force. Soon Armand dies. Alexandra Kollontai recalled:
Lenin needed support, and Nadezhda Konstantinovna again lent her shoulder. The unexpected illness of her husband 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 the “post-Soviet” biographers of Krupskaya, to one degree or another, slip the question: why did Stalin hate Nadezhda Konstantinovna so much? If she were only an unfortunate widow, a harmless old woman, which she looks like in all the photographs of the 20s and 30s, then what kind of danger could such a woman represent for his emerging power?
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The confrontation between the nascent 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 supervise the observance of the regime assigned 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, to her side. In December 1922, with the permission of the doctors, Lenin dictated to Nadezhda Konstantinovna a letter to Trotsky about the monopoly of foreign trade. Upon learning of this, Stalin rudely cursed 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 question of monopoly was resolved at the Plenum and expressed his views on raising this question at the congress. Stalin himself was in complete agreement with Lenin's position, but, firstly, the letter was addressed not to him, but to Trotsky (!), and, secondly, it meant the preservation of Lenin's political activity, was a fact of his continued participation in the life of the party and the state . All this greatly disturbed Stalin. Otherwise, it is hardly possible to explain the frank 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 immediately dictated a note to the secretary:
Gritting his teeth, Stalin apologized, but the "quarrel" ended in a significant deterioration in the health of Vladimir Ilyich. By insulting Krupskaya, Stalin achieved more than all of Lenin's enemies put together: 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 called political testament leader, Lenin wrote about rudeness Secretary General Central Committee with the wish of his resignation.
Stalin could not forgive such a thing. Even under the sick Lenin, 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 was not going to share 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 set by Stalin. More sophisticated torture, it seemed impossible to think of, but always restrained, calm Nadezhda Konstantinovna withstood this test.
Krupskaya outlived Lenin by fifteen years. An old illness tormented and exhausted her. She did not give up: every day she worked, wrote reviews, articles, gave instructions, taught how to live, but the “tandem” of like-minded people, alas, fell apart. Krupskaya was theorizing, but there was no one to set her thoughts in motion and insist on the right to express them.
The natural kindness of Nadezhda Konstantinovna 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? Unlikely. Most likely, she was just tired of knocking on the void.
Until the end of her life, Comrade Krupskaya spoke in the press 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 N.I. Bukharin, for the exclusion from the party of L.D. Trotsky, G.E. Zinoviev, L.B. Kamenev. Sometimes Lenin's widow interceded for the repressed, but for the most part to no avail. Gradually, a woman who had never had children "slid" 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 system of public education, 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 in the early 1920s cracked down on old system humanitarian education. 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, the proletarian revolution, and so on. The general liquidation of illiteracy of 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 abruptly turned the course towards the industrialization and collectivization of the country, N.K. Krupskaya could not remain silent. She became, perhaps, the only person in the Central Committee who dared to openly oppose the inhuman methods of speeding up socialist construction.
“In the summer of 1930, district party conferences were held in Moscow before the 16th Party Congress,” historian Roy Medvedev writes in his book They Surrounded Stalin. - The widow V.I. spoke at the Bauman conference. Lenina N.K. Krupskaya and criticized the methods of Stalinist collectivization, saying that this collectivization had nothing to do with the Leninist cooperative plan. Krupskaya accused the Central Committee of the party of ignorance of the mood of the peasantry and of refusing to consult with the people. “There is no need to blame the local authorities,” said Nadezhda Konstantinovna, “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 it, and he immediately left for the conference. Rising to the podium after Krupskaya, Kaganovich subjected her speech to a rude scolding. Rejecting her criticism on the merits, he also stated that, as a member of the Central Committee, she had no right to bring her criticisms to the rostrum of the district party conference. “Let N.K. not think. Krupskaya,” Kaganovich declared, “that if she was Lenin’s wife, then she has a monopoly on Leninism.”
These words could not but offend Nadezhda Konstantinovna. On the other hand, if someone else had come forward with such criticism, the case would hardly have been limited to the usual censure. Krupskaya was left alone: she was not expelled from the party, she was not declared an "enemy of the people", but they began to treat her like a crazy old woman. In the 1930s, she continued to engage in public education. Krupskaya is credited with campaigning against the "legacy of the tsarist regime": the works of Dostoevsky, Krylov, La Fontaine, Merezhkovsky and other authors "harmful" to the education of youth. According to the signed Krupskaya instruction of the Glavpolitprosveta, children's publications, fairy tales of Russian writers were withdrawn from libraries and reading rooms. Either Nadezhda Konstantinovna herself was deprived of something in her childhood, or she tried in this way to compensate for her failed motherhood, but in one of the articles, the “all-Union grandmother” Krupskaya wrote quite seriously: “We stand up 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, to impose too stringent requirements on children's literature, which should not entertain, but educate fighters. Numerous works of Nadezhda Konstantinovna on pedagogy today have only historical meaning for those who are interested in the views of the Bolsheviks on the problem of raising children. The true meaning of Krupskaya is in the works of Lenin, her idol and colleague.
In 1938, the writer Marietta Shaginyan approached Krupskaya for a review and support for her novel about Lenin, A Ticket to History. Nadezhda Konstantinovna answered her with a detailed letter, which caused Stalin's terrible indignation. A scandal broke out, which became the subject of discussion of the Central Committee of the party.
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“To condemn the behavior of Krupskaya, who, having received the manuscript of Shaginyan’s novel, not only did not prevent the novel from being born, but, on the contrary, encouraged Shaginyan in every possible way, gave about the manuscript positive reviews and advised Shaginyan on various aspects of the life of the Ulyanovs and thus bore full responsibility for this book. To consider Krupskaya's behavior all the more unacceptable and tactless, since 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 business of compiling works about Lenin into a private and family affair and acting as a monopolist and interpreter of public and personal the life and work of Lenin and his family, to which the Central Committee never gave anyone the rights ... " |
The document is, of course, absurd. But on the other hand, did not Nadezhda Konstantinovna herself once set the flywheel of this machine in motion, giving the organs of the Party the pre-emptive right to intellectual activity? The ideal in its implementation turned out to be much more ridiculous than she could have imagined ...
From life Krupskaya left suddenly. Almost all modern biographers and historians point to some mystery associated with the death of an elderly 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 address the delegates with many 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 seventieth birthday. There were two days left before her birthday, but Krupskaya did not want to spend an ordinary working day receiving congratulations. The table was modest - dumplings, jelly. Krupskaya drank a few sips of champagne, was cheerful and talked animatedly with her friends. In the evening I felt very bad. They called a doctor, but for some reason he arrived after three and a half hours. The diagnosis was made immediately: "acute appendicitis-peritonitis-thrombosis". An urgent operation was needed, but it was not done. Obviously, the Kremlin doctors understood that anesthesia would simply kill an 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 Tale of the Unextinguished Moon. In 1939, Stalin would hardly have limited himself to a story ...
Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya is perceived by many as the wife and faithful companion of the leader of the revolution, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Meanwhile, she was in itself a rather extraordinary person, and in her biography there are many facts that may surprise.
girl with ideals
Nadezhda was born on February 14 (26), 1869 in St. Petersburg. Her father, an impoverished nobleman and former lieutenant Konstantin Ignatievich Krupsky, was one of the ideologists of the Polish uprising of 1863. He died in 1883, leaving the family no means. Despite this, the mother, Elizaveta Vasilievna, managed to give her daughter an education at the prestigious gymnasium of Princess Obolenskaya. After graduating from the pedagogical class with a gold medal, Nadya entered the Bestuzhev women's courses, but studied there for only a year.
From her youth, the girl was fond of the ideas of Tolstoyism, and then Marxism and revolution. To earn money, she gave private lessons and at the same time taught free classes at the St. Petersburg Sunday evening school for adults beyond the Nevskaya Zastava, participated in a Marxist circle, and joined the Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class.
Wedding with copper rings
Acquaintance with the young Vladimir Ulyanov took place in February 1894. At first, Volodya was interested in another girl - Apollinaria Yakubova, even proposed to her, but was refused.
Soon Ulyanov really became close to Nadia Krupskaya, although she was a year older than him. But their romance was interrupted by the arrest of Nadezhda. In 1897, together with several other members of the union, she was expelled from St. Petersburg for three years. In the end, both Vladimir and Nadezhda ended up in exile in the Siberian village of Shushenskoye. There, in July 1898, they played a modest wedding. Despite their atheistic views, the young people got married in the church, exchanging rings made from melted copper nickels - Krupskaya's mother insisted on the wedding.
At first, Ulyanov's relatives did not react too warmly to the daughter-in-law. She seemed to them ugly and too dry, "insensitive". Moreover, her health was undermined by the damp Petersburg weather and prisons, as well as Graves' disease, which at that time could not be cured and which, apparently, deprived her of the opportunity to become a mother. But Krupskaya loved Lenin very much and took care of him in every possible way, so relations with his family gradually began to improve. True, Nadenka did not differ in special housekeeping, she did not shine with culinary abilities, and Elizaveta Vasilievna was in charge of the housekeeping, with a 15-year-old teenage girl hired to help.
Was Lenin the only man in Krupskaya's life? They say that in her youth, a member of the revolutionary circle she led, Ivan Babushkin, courted her. And in exile, when Lenin was not around, she became interested in another revolutionary - the handsome Viktor Kurnatovsky ...
Krupskaya and the Armand family
In 1909, in France, Lenin first met Inessa Armand, who not only shared revolutionary views, but was also a real beauty. And Krupskaya, because of Graves' disease, looked unattractive, because of her bulging eyes, Lenin jokingly called her "herring" ...
It is known that in 1911 Krupskaya even offered Vladimir Ilyich a divorce - apparently, the reason was his love affair with Armand. But instead, Lenin decided to break with Inessa.
The death of Armand in 1920 was a real blow to Lenin. He asked his wife to take care of the younger children ex-lover remaining in France. Nadezhda Konstantinovna kept her word, younger daughters Armand even lived in Gorki for some time, but then they were again sent abroad. All her life, Krupskaya corresponded with them, and even called the son of one of them, Inessa, “granddaughter.”
After Lenin
Krupskaya's career did not end with the death of her husband. She worked in the People's Committee of Education, stood at the origins of the creation pioneer organization, has written many books and articles, including literature and pedagogy. Despite the fact that she herself never had children, Nadezhda Konstantinovna devoted the rest of her life to the problems of the younger generation, she struggled with child homelessness and neglect. But at the same time, she criticized Makarenko's pedagogical methods, believed that Chukovsky's fairy tales were harmful to children ... As a result, the poet had to publicly renounce his "ideologically harmful" works for some time.
Cake from Stalin
The relationship between Lenin's widow and Stalin was not easy. Nadezhda Konstantinovna did not approve of the policy of terror pursued in the country, she even spoke in defense of the "new opposition" - Kamenev, Bukharin, Trotsky and Zinoviev, protested against the persecution of children by "enemies of the people". There were rumors that at the 18th Party Congress she was going to publish Lenin's dying letter, in which he proposes a candidate other than Stalin for the role of leader.
On February 26, 1939, Nadezhda Konstantinovna celebrated her 70th birthday in Arkhangelsk and invited guests. Stalin sent a cake for the anniversary - everyone knew that Lenin's widow was not indifferent to sweets. And in the evening she became ill. The doctor arrived only three and a half hours later, diagnosed with acute peritonitis. Krupskaya was taken to the hospital too late. On the night of February 27, 1939, she died.
Already today, a version has been put forward that Stalin's cake was poisoned. They say that Iosif Vissarionovich often did this with people who were objectionable to him - he sent a poisoned treat as a gift. But, on the other hand, after all, the rest ate the delicacy! Maybe just a plentiful feast provoked appendicitis, and medical care was not provided on time?
One way or another, the urn with the ashes of Krupskaya was buried in a place of honor - in a niche of the Kremlin wall. Although she herself, of course, would prefer to lie next to her husband, who still rests in the Mausoleum ...
Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya (after Ulyanov's husband), (February 14 (26), 1869, St. Petersburg - February 27, 1939, Moscow) - Russian revolutionary, Soviet party, public and cultural figure. Honorary Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences (02/01/1931). Wife of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin).
Elizaveta Vasilievna Krupskaya, nee Tistrova, was very worried that her only daughter was not at all pretty and did not look like a handsome father. The former governess, who had successfully married lieutenant Konstantin Ignatievich, was afraid that Nadenka would not be able to find someone who would covet her exceptional mental abilities and forgive her ordinary appearance.
However, it is possible to consider marriage with Krupsky luck only conditionally. Having met during his service in Kielce (Poland), young people fell in love with each other at first sight. There was nothing surprising in this: orphans from impoverished noble families, raised at public expense, she was in the Pavlovsk military orphanage institute for noble maidens, he was in the Konstantinovsky Cadet Corps, they were similar in their views on life, in relation to the world , in their aspirations and had common system values.
The maiden Tistrova was distinguished by a cheerful disposition, playfulness and domesticity. Krupsky, with his intelligence and literary abilities, was known as the soul of the company. In general, many members of this family were distinguished by their literary abilities. Here is an extract from a petition written by Krupsky to the authorities, in which he insists on his transfer from rebellious Poland. He, a member of the First International, was disgusted by the service, which obliges him to suppress the national liberation uprising: “From the age of nine, the conduct separated me from everyone close to my heart, and together with my dear native land, leaving in my soul sweet memories of the happy years of childhood, the picturesque places of my native nest !. About everything that is so dear to everyone! From such circumstances of life, some unbearable longing crushes my soul - my whole body, and the desire to serve in my native land day by day takes possession of my feelings more strongly, paralyzes my thoughts. Not a formal note, but a poem! Elizaveta Vasilievna, in 1874, published the book "Children's Day". She devoted 12 quatrains with pictures to reasoning about the benefits of labor, never mentioning God.
He managed to escape from Poland by entering the St. Petersburg Military Law Academy. Here, on February 26, 1869, the Krupskys had a daughter, Nadezhda. After graduating from the academy, Krupsky received the post of head of the district in Groets (Poland). For three years the family lived in prosperity. But all this time the landowners-Latifundists were denunciations against the administrator known for his revolutionary democratic views. And the case ended sadly - resignation, trial, a ban on living in the capital. An appeal was filed, the consideration of which stretched right up to 1880. All this time, Nadenka was considered the daughter of a prisoner, and this greatly complicated her life: her father could not find a job, and her mother, in the sources of payment for her daughter’s education, wrote shameful for that time “from own funds Krupskaya E. V. ". And although Konstantin Ignatievich was acquitted, emotional stress led to a sharp deterioration in his health, weakened by tuberculosis. Yes, and the daughter, strongly attached to her father, came down with signs of a nervous breakdown. So for the first time her thyroid gland made itself felt.
Having moved to St. Petersburg, the parents sent their daughter to the most advanced educational institution for girls at that time - the Obolenskaya gymnasium, where brilliant representatives of the Russian intellectual elite taught: the physicist Kovalevsky, the mathematicians Litvinova and Bilibin, the collector of Russian folklore Smirnov. And here she was the best student.
The family lived hard - due to the deplorable state of health, the father practically did not work. Helped friends - participants in the revolutionary democratic movement. Nadia grew up under their talk about the great future of Russia, free from the oppression of tsarism.
On February 26, 1883, Krupsky died. On the birthday of the daughter who loved him so much.
To make ends meet, Elizaveta Vasilievna took off big apartment, and rented rooms to telephone operators, seamstresses, students, paramedics. They lived on the difference from this. 14-year-old Nadia gave math lessons. In 1887, she graduated from the 8th pedagogical class and received a diploma of "home tutor".
A prosperous life did not suit the young girl, she dreamed of continuing her father's work in the struggle for universal happiness and equality. She even wrote a letter to Leo Tolstoy. At this mirror of the future revolution, Nadenka asked what she should do with herself next, how to benefit the fatherland. I received the answer not from Himself, but from Tatyana Lvovna (interestingly, in just ten years she herself will play the same role in the light of the future revolution) - the volume of The Count of Monte Cristo. What did the writer's daughter want to say by this, into what depths to direct the young soul, thirsting for social achievement? Nadezhda Konstantinovna approached the matter in detail: she checked the text of the original with the abridged and simplified Sytin's edition for the people, corrected it, removed illogisms and sent the result of her efforts back to Tolstoy. However, there was no answer.
In 1889 she entered the Bestuzhev courses. She joined the Marxist circle of Mikhail Brusnev.
In spring and summer, mother and daughter Krupsky rented a hut in the Pskov region. They lived on what the peasants gave for the fact that Nadenka worked with their children during the field work.
Returning to St. Petersburg, she left her lucrative position as a gymnasium teacher and went to teach for free at a school for working youth beyond the Nevskaya Zastava.
At the end of February 1894, at Shrovetide pancakes at the engineer Robert Eduardovich Klasson, St. Petersburg workers met with a well-known Marxist nicknamed "The Old Man", the author of the pamphlet "What are "friends of the people" Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, which made a sensation in their circles. The teacher Nadia was also here. It was these girls who served as conductors of revolutionary ideas from the heated heads of the raznochinsk to the souls and hearts of the workers who attended charity classes.
Ulyanov and Nadezhda began to meet. He asked in detail about the life of the working people, their way of life and customs. Once, in order to answer some of the questions, Nadya dressed up as a weaver and with her friend made a spy outing to a working hostel. The oldest member of the Union for the Emancipation of the Workers, which included Ulyanov and Krupskaya, Mikhail Silvin, assessed the role of Nadezhda Konstantinovna as follows: "She maintained and renewed ties, was the core of our organization." Ilyich greatly appreciated the information she provided.
When he fell ill, the girl took care of him. Her friends cooked, washed, cleaned for the young leader, while she sat by his bed, read aloud, told the latest news.
Three years have passed. Mom worried for nothing. Having received a turn at the gate during the matchmaking for Nadya's friend, also a socialist and teacher, Apollinaria Yakubova, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, in a letter from prison, asked for the hand of Nadya's faithful comrade. “Wife, so wife! "- the revolutionary girl happily agreed.
The matter did not have time to reach the wedding - Nadia was arrested. There were almost no materials for it, but one of the student workers laid the foundation for the entire team. Krupskaya received three years of exile in Ufa.
Her mother petitioned for her release, in the petition she wrote: “My daughter is generally in poor health, very nervous, suffers from catarrh of the stomach and anemia since childhood.” The deplorable state of the convict's body was also confirmed by the prison doctor, who found it "extremely unsatisfactory." But it had no consequences.
Ilyich and Krupskaya sent a petition asking them to serve their exile together, in Shushenskoye. In order to get money for a long journey, Elizaveta Vasilievna sold the land next to her husband's grave at the Novodevichy cemetery.
The bridegroom found the appearance of the bride to be "unsatisfactory", about which he wrote to his sister. Nadenka's mother was also worried about her unhealthy "pallor". The girl reassured: “Well, what are you, mom, I’m a match northern nature I don't have bright colors.
At the insistence of the mother-in-law, the wedding was played not according to revolutionary, but according to church canons on July 10, 1898.
Krupskaya recalled life in Shushenskoye as one of the most happy periods In my life. The mother, who took over all the household chores (and diligently performed them to death), hired a 15-year-old au pair. The funds received by the two exiles, and the pension of the widow of a collegiate assessor, were quite enough for a comfortable existence: books and Volodya's favorite mineral water were ordered from the capitals (which, by the way, he also received in prison). Nadenka worked in the morning - she corresponded with the comrades who remained at large, read newspapers, prepared excerpts for her husband's articles. Edited his translation of The Theory and Practice of English Trade Unionism by Sidney and Beatrice Webb (translation by order, from the publisher, paid). During the day we walked a lot, Ilyich taught his wife to gymnastics, rode boats, bicycles, swam. We went hunting, picking mushrooms and berries. From evening until late at night, my husband sat at his desk.
All of them life together he treated her with the same warmth, tenderness and care as his beloved sister Olga, who had suddenly died. There is a lot of evidence of this, especially in Lenin's correspondence with his relatives. The parents of Ilyich and Krupskaya, who adhered to Narodnaya Volya views, were supporters of the same system of education. It's no surprise that their children so quickly found mutual language and all their life together they understood each other from a half-look-half-word, no. Nadezhda was very friendly with Ilyich's mother, until last days was best friend his sister Mary.
Both of them were not people without passions. There is evidence that in her youth Krupskaya accepted the courtship of a member of her revolutionary circle of the worker Babushkin, in exile she was fond of the handsome revolutionary Viktor Konstantinovich Kurnatovsky. But when Lenin was informed about this, and even sister Anna wrote an indignant letter about this, he brushed it aside: “This is not the time, Annushka, to engage in all sorts of gossip. We are now faced with grandiose tasks of a revolutionary nature, and you come to me with some kind of womanish talk.
Ilyich himself once became seriously carried away by the beautiful Inessa Armand, the daughter of a French opera singer and the wife of a very rich man. Beauty, she was the complete opposite of Nadezhda Konstantinovna. It took place in Lanjumeau, at a school for revolutionary workers. It was a beautiful, passionate romance. Krupskaya offered Lenin a divorce. But he refused, rejected Armand and returned to his revolutionary girlfriend. Do not forget that the beauty had five children from two marriages, and Krupskaya had a mother with a pension from the widow of a collegiate assessor.
Rumor has it that the fruit of the love of Armand and Lenin, the boy Andrey, was secretly grown and lived his life in the Baltics. The relatives of the beauty reject even the very fact of the novel, but letters have been preserved that testify to the opposite. Already after the break, from Paris, Inessa wrote to Lenin: “We parted, we parted, dear, with you! And it hurts so much. I know, I feel, you will never come here! Looking at well-known places, I clearly realized, as never before, what a big place you still occupied here in Paris in my life, that almost all activity here in Paris was connected with the thought of you by a thousand threads. I wasn't in love with you then, but even then I loved you very much. I would do without kisses even now, just to see you, sometimes it would be a joy to talk to you - and this could not hurt anyone. Why did I have to take it away? You ask if I'm angry that you spent the breakup. No, I don’t think you did it for yourself…”
Only one thing is known for sure: supporting Inessa, who died in Beslan from cholera (Lenin, knowing her problems with tuberculosis, recommended to go to the Caucasus. So she went), losing consciousness in grief, Vladimir Ilyich, Nadezhda Konstantinovna vowed to take care of her young children. And she kept her oath: for some time the younger girls grew up in Gorki. Later they were sent abroad. Until her last day, Krupskaya was in a sincere correspondence with them. She especially loved the youngest, Inessa, and called her son "granddaughter."
In Shushenskoye, Krupskaya, at the insistence of Ilyich, wrote her first pamphlet: The Woman Worker. Here are the lines from it: "A working woman or a peasant woman almost does not have the opportunity to raise her children, leaving them to their fate for the whole day." Narodovovolka Vera Zasulich praised this work very much, telling Ilyich that it was written "with both paws." The book was published without the signature of the author. And in 1906 it was recognized as anti-state and publicly destroyed.
Nadezhda Konstantinovna believed: the problem is not to free women from the need to work on an equal footing with men, but to create a system in which maternal, family education replace public. She devoted a significant part of her pedagogical works to this, which by the end of her life accumulated 11 weighty volumes, and her efforts: after the revolution, being the Deputy People's Commissar of Education Lunacharsky, it was she who laid the foundations of the Soviet system of children's educational institutions: nurseries, kindergartens, camps, boarding schools , schools, workers' schools. She took a direct part in the creation of youth - pioneer and Komsomol - organizations. For the latter, by the way, I wrote a charter.
After exile, Lenin emigrated to Austria. Nadezhda Konstantinovna and her mother went to Ufa to serve out their term. Here she again ended up in the hospital, where the doctor diagnosed her with a “disease of the endocrine system”.
The first social-democratic newspaper Iskra began to appear. It was published abroad, but the money for this was collected in Russia. Records made by Ilyich's hand have been preserved: "Received 427 marks 88 pfenings from Russia (from Ufa)". This money was collected through the efforts of his wife, the treasurer of the local Social Democratic organization Krupskaya.
Living in Ufa, Nadezhda Konstantinovna prepared for life in exile. attended courses French(3 times a week for an hour, 6 rubles per month). For comparison, her own lessons students were paid much more expensive - for 6 hours she took 62 rubles.
The couple united in 1901, in London. The first period of emigration lasted until 1905, the second - from 1907 to 1917.
They lived in Geneva, Lausanne, Vienna, Munich, Longjumeau, Paris. We also spent some time in remote Russian territories - in Finland and Poland. All this time, Krupskaya played the role of a whole secretariat: she corresponded with compatriots, prepared and held congresses, conferences, edited printed publications, acted as a translator and personal referent of her husband. She lectured to French hat makers about the role of women in the revolution. Years later, speaking at an evening dedicated to the 50th anniversary of Ilyich, the famous revolutionary Olminsky assessed Krupskaya's performance as follows: “. She did all the work, so to speak, the rough work, she left him the cleanest work, and all secret communications, encryption, transport, communications with Russia, she conducted everything herself. And therefore, when we say that Lenin is a great organizer, I add that Lenin, with the help of Nadezhda Konstantinovna, is a great organizer.
As a rule, the spouses spent their summers in European mountain resorts: the Alps, the Tatras. This was required by Krupskaya's poor health: she was tormented by attacks of arrhythmia. In 1912, the situation escalated, the question arose about the operation. The funds made it possible to do this with the best European specialist - Dr. Kocher Berne. For a while, the disease receded.
In 1915, Krupskaya's mother died, and the family faced an acute financial issue. Long years it was her pension that served as the main source of livelihood. I had to look for lessons and translations. But in her letters, Krupskaya refutes rumors both about fattening at state expense and about a hungry existence: “We didn’t know the needs when you don’t know what to buy bread with.”
The Bolsheviks learned about the revolution that would bring them to power from the morning newspapers in Paris. The return to Russia was triumphant, but the holiday did not last long. And although a few months later the party took the leadership of the country into its own hands, all subsequent years were complicated not only by wars, famine and devastation, but also by intra-factional struggle.
The main problem for Krupskaya during these years was the health of Ilyich. Doctors, beginning in 1918, periodically forbade him to work at all - the general overwork of a weak body became more and more aggravated, affecting his intellectual abilities. And then ridiculous notes flew from him to the authorities. 1919: "Inform the Scientific and Food Institute that in 3 months they must provide accurate and complete data on the practical success of sugar production from sawdust." 1921, Lunacharsky: "I advise you to put all theaters in a coffin." Taking care of her husband, herself tormented by bouts of chronic illnesses, Nadezhda Konstantinovna foresaw the end and, at the last minute of her beloved comrade's life, held his hand in hers.
After Lenin's death, she devoted herself entirely to state work. The performance of this elderly unhealthy woman is amazing: in 1934 she wrote 90 articles, held 90 speeches and 178 meetings, looked through 225 letters, and answered them. One month was lost due to hospitalization, one due to restorative rest. The year 1939 came - the year of her 70th birthday. At the next party congress, she was preparing to speak out with a condemnation of the punitive policy of Stalinism.
She celebrated her birthday in Arkhangelsk. Stalin sent a cake - it was known that after the death of Ilyich, Nadezhda Konstantinovna stopped playing sports, did not pay much attention to her appearance and often indulged herself with cakes. There is a version that the cake was poisoned. But it is refuted by the fact that the old Bolsheviks in Arkhangelsk ate it together with the birthday girl.
At night, she became ill - her appendicitis worsened. Doctors were called, but enkavedeshniki arrived. Only a few hours later Krupskaya was examined by specialists and urgently hospitalized. Appendicitis was complicated by peritonitis, inflammation of the peritoneum. General health and age did not allow surgical intervention. On the night of February 26-27, on a fateful date for her fate, Nadezhda Konstantinovna died.
The urn with the ashes to the burial place - the Kremlin wall - was personally carried by Comrade Stalin.
Krupskaya Nadezhda Konstantinovna Every person knows this name. But most remember only that she was the wife of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Yes this is true. But Krupskaya herself was outstanding politician and teacher of his time.
Childhood
Her date of birth is February 14, 1869. The family of Nadezhda Konstantinovna belonged to the category of impoverished nobles. Father, Konstantin Ignatievich, former officer(lieutenant), was an adherent of revolutionary democratic concepts, shared the ideas of the organizers of the Polish uprising. But he did not particularly care about the well-being of the family, so the Krupskys lived simply, without frills. Father died in 1883, when Nadezhda was in adolescence. Konstantin Ignatievich did not leave a fortune after himself to his wife and daughter, but, despite the lack of funds, his mother, Elizaveta Vasilievna, always surrounded her daughter with love, tenderness and care.
Krupskaya Nadezhda Konstantinovna studied at the Gymnasium. A. Obolenskaya, where she received a prestigious education at that time. Her mother did not particularly restrict her freedom, believing that each person should choose their own path in life. Elizaveta Vasilievna herself was very pious, but, seeing that her daughter did not gravitate towards religion, she did not persuade her and force her to faith. The mother believed that only a husband who would love and take care of her daughter could be the key to happiness.
Youth
Krupskaya Nadezhda Konstantinovna in her youth, after graduating from high school, often thought about the injustice that reigned around. She was outraged by the arbitrariness of the royal power, which oppressed ordinary people bringing them poverty, pain and suffering.
She found associates in the Marxist circle. There, having studied the teachings of Marx, she realized that there was only one way to solve all the problems of the state - revolution and communism.
The biography of Krupskaya Nadezhda Konstantinovna, like her whole life, is now inextricably linked with the ideas of Marxism. It was they who determined her future life path.
She taught the proletariat for free in the evening Sunday school, where the workers came to get at least some knowledge. The school was far enough away, beyond the Nevskaya Zastava, but this did not frighten the desperate and courageous Nadezhda. There she not only taught the working people to write and count, but also promoted Marxism, actively participating in the unification of small circles into a single organization. V. I. Lenin, who arrived in St. Petersburg, completed this process. This is how the "Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class" was formed, where Krupskaya occupied one of the central places.
Acquaintance with V. I. Lenin
They met at the beginning of 1896 (February). But at first, Vladimir Ilyich showed no interest in Nadezhda. On the contrary, he became close to another activist, Apollinaria Yakubova. After talking with her for some time, he even decided to propose to Apollinaria, but was refused. Lenin did not have such a passion for women as he did for the ideas of the revolution. Therefore, because of the refusal, he was not upset at all. And Nadezhda, meanwhile, increasingly admired his loyalty to revolutionary ideas, his enthusiasm and leadership qualities. They began to communicate more often. The subject of their conversations were Marxist ideas, dreams of revolution and communism. But they also sometimes talked about personal and intimate things. So, for example, only Krupskaya Nadezhda Konstantinovna knew the nationality of Vladimir Ilyich's mother. From the majority of those around him, Lenin hid the Swedish-German and Jewish roots of his mother.
Arrest and exile
Krupskaya Nadezhda Konstantinovna was arrested in 1897 along with several other members of the union. She was expelled from St. Petersburg for three years. At first she was exiled to the village of Shushenskoye, located in Siberia. At the same time, V. I. Lenin was also in exile there.
They married in July 1898. The wedding ceremony was more than modest. Newlyweds exchanged wedding rings made from a copper penny. The groom's family was against this marriage. Relatives of Vladimir Ilyich immediately disliked his chosen one, believing that she was dry, ugly and unemotional. The situation was aggravated by the fact that Krupskaya and Lenin were never able to have children. But Nadezhda Konstantinovna put her whole soul into love for her husband, becoming his comrade, colleague and true friend. Together with Vladimir Ilyich, she stood at the origins of communism and took an active part in organizing party affairs, paving the way for revolution.
While in exile, Krupskaya Nadezhda Konstantinovna (see photo in her youth below) writes her first book. It was called "Woman Worker". This work, permeated with the ideas of Marxism, tells about a working woman, about how hard it is for her now, and how it would be if the autocracy could be overthrown. In the event of the victory of the proletariat, the woman was waiting for liberation from oppression. The author chose the pseudonym Sablina. The book was illegally published abroad.
Emigration
The link ended in the spring of 1901. Krupskaya Nadezhda Konstantinovna spent her last year in Ufa, from where she went to her husband. VI Lenin at that time was abroad. The wife followed him. Even abroad, party work did not stop. Krupskaya is active in campaigning, working as a secretary in the editorial offices of well-known Bolshevik publications (Forward, Proletary)
When the revolution of 1905-1907 began, the married couple returned to St. Petersburg, where Nadezhda Konstantinovna became the secretary of the Central Committee of the party.
Beginning in 1901, Vladimir Ilyich began to sign his printed works with the pseudonym Lenin. Even in the history of his pseudonym, as in all life, important role the wife played - Krupskaya Nadezhda Konstantinovna. Real surname"leader" - Ulyanov - at that time was already known in government circles. And when he needed to go abroad, then, in view of his political position, there were justified fears about the issuance of a foreign passport and exit from the country. The way out of the situation was found unexpectedly. Krupskaya's longtime friend Olga Nikolaevna Lenina responded to a request for help. She, driven by social democratic ideas, secretly took a passport from her father Nikolai Yegorovich Lenin, helped to forge some data (date of birth). It was with this name that Lenin went abroad. After this incident, the pseudonym stuck with him for life.
Life in Paris
In 1909 the couple decided to move to Paris. There was an acquaintance with Nadezhda and Inessa were a bit similar in character, both confidently followed the communist canons. But, unlike Krupskaya, Armand was also a bright personality, a mother of many children, an excellent hostess, the soul of the company and a dazzling beauty.
Krupskaya Nadezhda Konstantinovna is a revolutionary to the marrow of her bones. But she was also a wise and sensitive woman. And she realized that her husband's interest in Inessa went far beyond party activities. In agony, she found the strength to accept this fact. In 1911, having shown the maximum of female wisdom, she herself suggested that Vladimir Ilyich dissolve the marriage. But Lenin, on the contrary, unexpectedly ended relations with Armand.
Nadezhda Konstantinovna had so many party affairs that there was no time to worry. She threw herself into work. Her duties included exchanging data with underground party members in Russia. She secretly sent them books, helped organize revolutionary activities, pulled her comrades out of trouble, organized escapes. But at the same time, she devoted a lot of time to the study of pedagogy. She was interested in the ideas of Karl Marx in the field of education. She studied the organization of school affairs in such European countries, like France and Switzerland, got acquainted with the works of the great teachers of the past.
In 1915, Nadezhda Konstantinovna finished work on the book "People's Education and Democracy". For her, she received high praise from her husband. This first Marxist work, written by Krupskaya, talked about the need to create educational institutions where ordinary workers could receive a polytechnic education. For this book, Krupskaya Nadezhda Konstantinovna (her photo is presented in the article) received the title of Doctor of Pedagogical Sciences.
Return to Russia
The return to Russia took place in April 1917. There, in Petrograd, agitation and propaganda mass work occupied all her time. Performances at enterprises before the proletariat, participation in rallies with soldiers, organization of meetings of soldiers - these are the main activities of Nadezhda Konstantinovna. She propagated Lenin's slogans about the transfer of all power to the Soviets, talked about the desire of the Bolshevik Party to socialist revolution.
At that difficult time, when Vladimir Ilyich was forced to hide in Helsingorfs (Finland) from the persecution of the Provisional Government, Nadezhda Konstantinovna, posing as a housekeeper, came to visit him. Through her, the Central Committee of the party received instructions from its leader, and Lenin learned about the state of affairs in his homeland.
Krupskaya was one of the organizers and participants of the Great October Socialist Revolution, being directly involved in its preparation in the Vyborg region and Smolny.
Death of V. I. Lenin
Despite the fact that Armand Lenin broke off relations with Inessa a few years ago, his feelings for her never cooled down. But work for him has always been the most important priority in life, and relations with Armand dragged on and distracted from party activities, so he did not regret his decision.
When Inessa died of tuberculosis that suddenly appeared, Vladimir Ilyich was struck by this. For him, it was a real blow. His contemporaries claim that a mental wound greatly aggravated his health and brought the hour of death closer. Vladimir Ilyich loved this woman and could not come to terms with her departure. Armand's children remained in France, and Lenin asks his wife to bring them to Russia. Of course, she could not refuse her dying husband. He passed away in 1924. And after his death, Nadezhda Konstantinovna was no longer the same. Her "god" was no longer around, and life without him turned into existence. Nevertheless, she found the strength to carry on further work to promote public education.
People's Commissariat of Education
Nadezhda Konstantinovna worked in the People's Committee of Education immediately after the revolution. She continued the struggle for the creation of a labor polytechnic school. The upbringing of children in the spirit of communism became the central link of her whole life.
Krupskaya Nadezhda Konstantinovna, whose photo, surrounded by pioneers, is located below, doted on children. She sincerely tried to make their lives happier.
Krupskaya also made a great contribution to the education of the female half of the population. Actively attracted women to participate in socialist construction.
Pioneer
Nadezhda Konstantinovna stood at the origins of the creation and made a great contribution to its development. But at the same time, she not only coordinated the activities of the organization, but also participated in direct work with children. It was the pioneers who asked her to write her autobiography. Krupskaya Nadezhda Konstantinovna, short biography which she herself described in the work “My Life”, was busy writing it with great excitement. She dedicated this work to all the pioneers of the country.
last years of life
Nadezhda Konstantinovna's books on pedagogy today are of historical value only for those few researchers who are interested in the views of the Bolsheviks on the issues of raising children. But the true contribution of Krupskaya to the history of our country is the support and assistance that she provided throughout her life to her husband Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. He was her idol and companion. He was her "god". After his death, Stalin, who came to power, tried with all his might to remove her from the political scene. Lenin's widow was for him from whom he tried in every way to get rid of. She was given a colossal psychological pressure. In a touching biography, made by Stalin's decree, many facts of her life, both political and personal, were distorted. But she herself could not change the situation. Nadezhda Konstantinovna begged everyone she could to bury her husband. But no one heard her. The realization that the body of a loved one will never find rest, and she herself will never rest next to him, broke her completely.
Her departure from life was strange and sudden. She announced her decision to speak at the 18th Party Congress. No one knew exactly what she wanted to talk about in her speech. Perhaps in her speech she could hurt Stalin's interests. But be that as it may, on February 27, 1939, she was gone. Three days before, everything was fine. She received guests on February 24. The closest friends came. We sat at a modest table. And in the evening of the same day, she suddenly became ill. The doctor, who arrived three and a half hours later, immediately made a diagnosis: "acute appendicitis, peritonitis, thrombosis." It was necessary to urgently operate, but for reasons that have not been clarified to this day, the operation was not performed.
Krupskaya turned out to be perhaps the most enigmatic character in Russian history in the last century. She herself wrote about her life. AT Soviet times her memoir was corrected to be glossy-perfect. After the 1990s, this gloss began to be poured with mud, and as thoroughly as it was previously bleached. So what was this woman?
Biography of Lenin's wife
She was born on February 14 (26), 1869 in a family of poor nobles. Father - Konstantin Ignatievich Krupsky - a lawyer. Mother - Elizaveta Vasilievna Tistrova - governess.
For a long time they wrote about his father that he was a revolutionary, in his youth he supported the participants in the Polish uprising of 1863. Perhaps it was so, if not for a nuance: he became the head of the district in Groets (Poland) after graduating from the St. Petersburg Military Law Academy. It is difficult to link such views with the type of profession. True, they say, because of his worldview, he received his resignation, the court. But it is not known for certain.
There was no big money in the family, although only daughter taken care of, they sent her to a gymnasium, about which there are big disagreements between former and current historians.
Large online library It was once written that Krupskaya studied well at the gymnasium and graduated from it in 1887 with a gold medal. But Nadezhda Konstantinovna herself writes in the book “My Life” that it was always difficult to study, teaching at 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 joint studies. Therefore, the fact that the gymnasium was completed, and Nadezhda Konstantinovna later worked as a teacher in it, is fair, but there is no evidence of a medal.
Everything is for you Further Bestuzhev courses in St. Petersburg. The girl stayed there for two months, but for some reason she considered the Marxist circle and teaching at the evening school for workers to be more important. higher education. 5 years engaged in this work, until the very first arrest.
A friend in a circle introduced her to her. His enthusiasm for the ideas of Marx, his ability to convince others impressed. And he drew attention to her, although she was not a beauty. Nevertheless, we believe that Nadezhda Konstantinovna had a high intellect, despite her incomplete education.
revolutionary
1896 Arrest and exile in Ufa. At the same time, Vladimir Ulyanov was also deported 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 her exile in Shushenskoye in connection with the wedding. By the way, the land where the father's grave was located was sold in order to get money. The Ulyanovs got married in a church marriage in 1898. In the same year she joined the RSDLP.
U.A. Modna In 1917, returning to Russia, Krupskaya actively prepared the October Revolution. Later, she stood at the origins of the Komsomol and the pioneer organization (having studied the scouting movement in Europe, she considered that it would fit perfectly into Russian reality, changing to the interests of the Bolsheviks).
Her next job was education. In 1917, Krupskaya was a member of the State Commission for Education. 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 system of public education.
However, this activity is difficult to evaluate only with a plus or a minus. Having no children of her own, Krupskaya spent her love and energy on children in general, regardless of origin and nationality. She cared about their lives and how to make life easier for their mothers. At the same time, she criticized the Makarenko system, based on education by labor, arguing that the communist ideology is more important. She resented fairy tales, not understanding the importance of magic and fantasy for kids.
Social activity
After the death of Lenin, Krupskaya tried to somehow resist the decisions, but gave up pretty quickly. She supported Zinoviev and Kamenev, and then considered her opinion erroneous. She tried to ask Lenin for the repressed comrades, but there was no result, and it cannot be said that she had no influence, there was no will to achieve the goal - perhaps so.
| TVNZ 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 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, she was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 1st convocation, received a doctorate in pedagogy.
Nadezhda Krupskaya in last years| Everything is for you Died in old age in 1939, but the death happened strangely: right after the birthday, celebrated on a grand scale. Suddenly, peritonitis opened up, but for some reason the operation was not performed.
And if you knew in advance where she would be buried, she would also be indignant: Krupskaya’s ashes were placed in the Kremlin wall on Red Square, and she was even against Lenin being in the Mausoleum, and more than once turned to Stalin with a request to bury her husband in a 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 age-old Russian world order. And Lenin's wife is her main advantage.
Tradition Political career Krupskaya - the ability to be everything to her husband: friend, assistant, adviser, support, "stone wall". However, it should still be noted that Krupskaya herself was a fairly wise woman.
She did not completely dissolve into a man, as most of the wives of brilliant personalities do, as the Kremlin wives behaved, but forced others to reckon with themselves. By the way, Vladimir Ilyich himself understood this very well.
TVNZ When Krupskaya realized that her personal life did not work out, she would not have children, her husband had a mistress, Inessa Armand, she did not harm, make scenes, offered to leave and even remained on friendly terms with Armand, then nursed her grandson. Here, having weighed all the pros and cons, Lenin (a great analyst, by the way) refused to divorce and preferred Krupskaya, breaking 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 it wasn't always like that.
Young Krupskaya was a sweet girl, quite determined and purposeful. The quiet life of a gymnasium teacher or governess did not suit her at all. She wanted to remake the world, just as Marx wanted.
Large online library A friend A. Yakubova introduced 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. Moreover, she acted very wisely in a feminine way: she showed him her passion for Marxism (approximately smart wife today enthusiastically watches football with her husband or goes with him to winter fishing), and then “fed” her mother with pickles. Krupskaya herself never knew how to cook and did not want to learn, except for omelettes and scrambled eggs, she did nothing. And Elizaveta Vasilievna did her best! And so it continued until her death.
Everything is for you Another girl would worry about looks. Perhaps Nadezhda was also worried, and probably cried when future husband he came up with conspiratorial nicknames “Fish”, “Lamprey”, and his relatives generally said that she had a “herring appearance” due to her eyes bulging due to illness. But in life, no one knew about it!
She married him and became the "first lady" of the new state, taking on an important function - educating the younger generation in the spirit of communism, i.e. she thought broadly and looked far ahead, even if Golden medal The gymnasium did not even exist. Yes, and you never know what else Interesting Facts Krupskaya has been hidden from us by history.