Inessa Armand: Revolutionary and Feminist

315 Pages·1992·15.317 MB·English

by  Armand, Inessa Federovna, Armand, Inessa Fedorovna, Armand, Inès, Armand, Inessa, Armand, Inessa, Lenin, Vladimir Ilʹič, Lénine, Vladimir Iliitch, Armand, Inessa Fedorovna, Elwood, Ralph Carter

Inessa Armand was the first Director of the Women's Section of the Russian
Communist Party (the Zhenotdel). She was one of the most important
women in the pre-revolutionary Bolshevik Party, and second only to
Aleksandra Kollontai in the ranks of early Soviet feminists. Yet if Armand is
mentioned at all in Western literature, it is solely as Lenin's protegee and
probable mistress.
In this political biography of Armand, the first to appear in English,
Professor R. C. Elwood seeks to correct this picture by portraying her as an
accomplished revolutionary propagandist and Bolshevik organizer before
1917 and as a feminist who devoted much of her life to defending women's
interests in the home, in the workplace and in society. Based on unpublished
police reports, memoirs, Armand's letters to her five children and two
husbands, and Lenin's 118 published letters to her, this study provides new
and revealing information on Inessa's up-bringing in the wealthy Armand
family, on the revolutionary sympathies of many members of that family, on
their subsequent and controversial financial support of the Bolshevik Party,
and on her career as a Tolstoyan and feminist long before she became a
revolutionary. The author also examines Armand's stormy relations with
Lenin and casts doubt on the veracity of earlier evidence that they had an
extended love affair.
Nonetheless Armand was a close friend of Lenin from 1909 to her death
from cholera in 1920 and this biography also provides insights into the
private life of the first Soviet leader - a man who was often patronizing,
inconsiderate, rude and prudish and from whose tutelage Armand spent
many of her last years trying to escape.
INESSA ARMAND
INESSA
ARMAND
Revolutionary and
feminist
R. C. ELWOOD
Carleton University, Ottawa
CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY PRESS
PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
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CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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©Cambridge University Press 1992
This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 1992
First paperback edition 2002
A catalogue record/or this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
Elwood, Ralph Carter, 1936-
Inessa Armand: revolutionary and feminist IR. C. Elwood.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0 521414865 (hardback)
I. Armand, I. F. (Inessa Fedorovna), 1874-1920.
2. Women communists - Soviet Union - Biography.
3. Feminists-Soviet Union - Biography.
I. Title.
HX313.8 .A75E48 1992
305.42'092-dc20
[B] 91-33752 CIP
ISBN 0 52141486 5 hardback
ISBN 0 521 89421 2 paperback
CONTENTS
List of illustrations viii
Preface ix
Introduction 1
1 In the neS't of gentlefolk 10
2 From feminism to marxism 2 5
3 Underground propagandist 44
4 Years of wandering 63
5 Building a 'Party of the New Type' 77
6 In defence of women workers 103
7 Lenin's 'girl friday' 125
8 The end of an affair? 173
9 On the eve of revolution 190
10 Return to Moscow 205
11 French fiasco 222
12 Soviet feminism 231
13 Death in the Caucasus 262
Bibliography 278
Index 292
vii
ILLUSTRATIONS
page
1 Nathalie Wild and Theodore Stephane (Pavel Podliashuk, 13
Tovarishch Inessa: Dokumental'naiapovest' 4th edn, [Moscow,
1984]).
2 Ines Stephane as a teenager (I. F. Armand, Stat' i, rechi, pis' ma 18
[Moscow, 1975]).
3 Inessa and Alexander Armand (1895) (I. F. Armand, Stat'i, 21
rechi, pis'ma [Moscow, 1975]).
4 Inessa Armand in her study at Eldigino ( 1902) (I. F. 29
Armand, Stat' i, rechi, pis' ma [Moscow, 19 7 5]).
5 Inessa Armand in the Swiss Alps (1904) (I. F. Armand, 36
Stat'i, rechi, pis'ma [Moscow, 1975]).
6 Police photographs taken after Armand's arrest in July 1907 54
(From Okhrana Collection, Hoover Institution).
7 Armand and exile friends in Mezen (1908) (Pavel Podliashuk, 59
Tovarishch Inessa: Dokumental' naia povest' 4th edn, [Moscow,
1984]).
8 Armand and her children in Brussels (1909 or 1910) (I. F. 71
Armand, Stat'i, rechi, pis'ma [Moscow, 1975]).
9 'Meeting in Poronin' (Lenin w malarstwie polskim [Cracow, 98
1978]).
10 Andre, Inessa and Varvara Armand on the Adriatic Coast 131
(1914) (Pavel Podliashuk, Tovarishch Inessa: Dokumental' naia
povest' 4th edn, [Moscow, 1984]).
11 Bolsheviks in Stockholm (April 1917) (Dagens Nyheter). 202
12 Inessa Armand in 1918 (I. F. Armand, Stat' i, rechi, pis' ma 208
[Moscow, 1975])
13 Inessa Armand in 1920 (Kommunistka, no. 5, October 1920). 260
viii
PREFACE
Inessa Armand, if she is mentioned at all in Western textbooks of
Russian history or in popular biographies of V. I. Lenin, is usually
portrayed as a beautiful woman with a talent for playing the piano and
for speaking in four languages. She is rarely seen as a person of
revolutionary significance other than allegedly being Lenin's mistress
for most of the decade before he came to power. The first time I had
reason to question this view was twenty years ago when working on
Lenin's troubled relations with the pre-revolutionary Pravda. I was
struck by the fact that in 1912 the Bolshevik leader sent Armand to St
Petersburg to try to bring the recalcitrant editors into line. I wondered
then (but not sufficiently to put my doubts into print) why he would
dispatch a political neophyte, who supposedly was his lover, on a
difficult and dangerous revolutionary mission that predictably ended
with her arrest. Several years later, my preconceptions about Armand
were again challenged when studying another event of revolutionary
significance: the Brussels 'Unity' Conference of 1914. Once again Lenin
chose her for a politically sensitive mission - this time to defend his
untenable position on party unity before the leaders of European social
democracy in Brussels. I was particularly intrigued by the nuances of
their extensive correspondence at the time of this conference: by the
way Lenin implored her to represent the Bolshevik faction, by his
insensitive and condescending comments to her during the meeting,
and by her show of independence in refusing to bow to his demands
after Brussels. The impression conveyed was certainly not the conven
tional one of a loyal. docile and mindless protegee.
I was fortunate that in 1981 Janet Hyer, then an undergraduate at
Carleton University, was looking around for a topic on which to write
her honours research essay. I suggested that the prevailing view of
Armand might bear re-examination. Her excellent essay and sub
sequent Master's thesis on Rabotnitsa focussed on Inessa's contributions
to the women's movement in late Imperial and early Soviet Russia -
another facet of her life which has largely been ignored by Western and
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PREFACE
Soviet commentators. On the basis of Ms Hyer's work and my sus
picions, I decided to look at Armand's entire life, not just at her relations
with Lenin, and to attempt a biography that would concentrate on her
overlooked roles as a revolutionary and as a feminist. As a summer
research assistant, Ms Hyer has called my attention to many of the
sources on which this book is based; as a person with a sharply focussed
feminist perspective, she challenged an old-fashioned political his
torian's view of the world and forced me to rethink many of my own
stereotypes; as a friend, she read a draft of this manuscript and made
many helpful criticisms - some of which I have taken to heart. I would
like to acknowledge my very great debt to Janet Hyer for the assistance
which she has given me and to absolve of blame in those areas where
critics may still find me too old fashioned.
Most of my research was done in various hospitable libraries in
London and in the marvellous archives of the Hoover Institution in
Stanford, California. Like most Canadian scholars, I am indebted to the
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada which has
generously supported my research. I also wish to thank Peter Redda
way, then of the London School ofEconomics, who provided me with a
conducive work space while I was on sabbatical leave at LSE in
1984-5; Jacques Galley and Pierre-Alain Crausaz who loaned me their
foresters' hut near Ecuvillens so that I might collate material gathered in
London while gazing at the Swiss Alps; and Ronald M. Butaloff, archi
vist at the Hoover Institution, who patiently answered my queries
before, during and after my visit to Stanford in 1986. The writing of this
biography was done in Ottawa thanks to a Marston Lafrance Fellow
ship which relieved me of teaching duties at Carleton University for a
year. I hope that both the then Dean of Arts, Naomi Griffiths, who
administered this unique fellowship, and the former Dean of Social
Sciences, Dennis Forcese, who provided me with a quiet hideaway in
which to write, will realize how much they have contributed to the
completion of this project. I doubt if any historian working in North
America and especially in Canada could function without the services of
local Inter-Library Loan offices. I am grateful that Doris Cole and her
efficient associates at Carleton were able to acquire all but one of the
many items I requested.
My thickest research file contains correspondence with friends, col
leagues and other scholars known to me only through their published
work who have generously answered my questions, sent me material I
had overlooked or, in a couple of cases, gone to archives I could not
visit. To them, and to others closer to home who have helped me with
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PREFACE
problems either of translation or of an unfriendly computer, I wish to
express my sincerest appreciation. I hope that the following people will
see reflections of their assistance at different points in Inessa's biography
and will accept this simple expression of thanks: Andrei Belykh, Laurie
Bernstein, John Bushnell, Barbara Clements, John Channon, Fred
Corney, David Doughan, Linda Edmondson, Hasmik Egian, Ben Eklof,
Marjorie Elwood, Beate Fieseler, Carl Jacobsen, Samuel Kassow, John
Keep, Peter King, Ronnie Kowalski, George Melnikoff, Egor Nazarenko,
Iuri Orlov, Elizabeth Popoff-Backer, Teresa Rakowska-Harmstone, Steve
Sampson, Joseph Sanders, Gregory Smolnyec, Mikhailova Svetlana,
Edward Swiderski, Michael Sydenham and Tova Yedlin.
To Robert H. McNeal - friend, scholar, tiller of the same vineyard -
who for twenty-five years answered my questions, encouraged my
efforts, and commented in a constructive fashion on my work - I owe a
most profound debt. While we argued on occasion about Lenin's rela
tions with Inessa Armand, I was greatly looking forward to Bob's
reading of this manuscript before it went to press and to his usual
insightful criticism. It certainly would have been a better book for it.
Tragically, the profession was deprived of an excellent historian and I
lost a good friend when Robert McNeal was killed in a car accident in
June 1988. This book is dedicated to his memory.
To my wife, Jill St. Germain, who listened patiently as I tried to work
out seeming contradictions in Inessa's life, who put my illegible scrawl
onto readable computer disks, and who criticized my style and ques
tioned my logic to good effect, I can only repeat that old bromide of
other over-indulged author-husbands: without you this book would
never have been written.
* *
The dates used herein have been expressed in the form used by the
participants themselves at the time and place in question. This means
that all events in western Europe or in Soviet Russia after February
1918 are dated according to the 'new-style' Gregorian calendar. When
dates refer to publications or occurrences in tsarist Russia or during the
1917 revolutions, I have used the 'old style' Julian calendar. When the
distinction is unclear or confusion seems possible, I have sought to
provide both dates.
xi