Inessa Armand
Encyclopedia
Inessa Armand born Elisabeth-Inès Stéphane d'Herbenville, was a French
communist
politician and feminist who spent most of her life in Russia
. She was also known for her affair with Vladimir Lenin
.
She was born in Paris
as the daughter of Théodore d'Herbenville, a French opera singer, and Nathalie Wild, a British comedian. Her father died when she was only five and she was brought up by her aunt and grandmother living in Moscow
, both teachers.
At the age of nineteen she married Alexander Armand, the son of a wealthy Russian textile manufacturer. The marriage produced 4 children. Inessa and her husband opened a school for peasant children outside of Moscow. She also joined a charitable group dedicated to helping the city's destitute women.
In 1903 she joined the illegal Social Democratic Labour Party
. Armand distributed illegal propaganda
and after being arrested in June 1907, she was sentenced to two years' internal exile in Mezen
in Northern Russia.
In November 1908 Armand managed to escape from Mezen and eventually left Russia to settle in Paris where she met Vladimir Lenin
and other Bolsheviks living in foreign exile. In 1911 Armand became secretary for the Committee of Foreign Organisations established to coordinate all Bolshevik
groups in Western Europe.
Armand returned to Russia in July 1912, to help organise the Bolshevik campaign to get its supporters elected to the Duma
. Two months later she was arrested and imprisoned, only to be released against bail in March 1913. Once again illegally leaving Russia, she went to live with Vladimir Lenin and Nadezhda Krupskaya in Galicia. She also began work editing Rabotnitsa
.
Armand was upset that many socialists
in Europe chose not to fight against the war effort during World War I
. She joined Lenin in helping to distribute propaganda that urged Allied troops to turn their rifles against their officers and start a socialist revolution. In March 1915, Armand went to Switzerland
where she organised the anti-war International Conference of Socialist Women.
On 1 March 1917, Tsar Nicholas II
abdicated, leaving the Provisional Government
in control of the country. The Bolsheviks in exile were now desperate to return to Russia to help shape the future of the country. The German
Foreign Ministry, who hoped that their presence in Russia would help bring the war on the Eastern Front
to an end, provided a special train for Armand, Vladimir Lenin and 26 other revolutionaries to travel to Petrograd.
After the October Revolution
Armand served as an executive member of the Moscow Soviet
. Armand was a staunch critic of the Soviet government's decision to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
. On her return to Petrograd, she became director of Zhenotdel
, an organisation that fought for female equality in the Communist Party
and the Soviet trade unions, lasting till 1930, apparently. She also chaired the First International Conference of Communist Women in 1920. The spring of 1920 saw the appearance, again on Armand’s initiative, of the journal Kommunistka, which dealt with "the broader aspects of female emancipation and the need to alter the relationship between the sexes if lasting change was to be effected".
But the fifth number of this journal carried its founder’s obituary. While she was on a holiday in the Caucasus
, she contracted cholera
and died at the age of forty-six. She was buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis
in Moscow.
Armand has been portrayed in the movies Lenin in Paris
(1981, played by Claude Jade
), Le Train (1987, played by Dominique Sanda
) and All My Lenins (1997, played by Janne Sevchenko). She was also portrayed as the heroine in the fictionalised account of Lenin's Russian return Seven Days to Petrograd (1988 by Tom Hyman, Penguin Books).
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
communist
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
politician and feminist who spent most of her life in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. She was also known for her affair with Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
.
She was born in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
as the daughter of Théodore d'Herbenville, a French opera singer, and Nathalie Wild, a British comedian. Her father died when she was only five and she was brought up by her aunt and grandmother living in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, both teachers.
At the age of nineteen she married Alexander Armand, the son of a wealthy Russian textile manufacturer. The marriage produced 4 children. Inessa and her husband opened a school for peasant children outside of Moscow. She also joined a charitable group dedicated to helping the city's destitute women.
In 1903 she joined the illegal Social Democratic Labour Party
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party
The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party , also known as Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or Russian Social Democratic Party, was a revolutionary socialist Russian political party formed in 1898 in Minsk to unite the various revolutionary organizations into one party...
. Armand distributed illegal propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
and after being arrested in June 1907, she was sentenced to two years' internal exile in Mezen
Mezen
-See also:*Administrative divisions of Arkhangelsk Oblast...
in Northern Russia.
In November 1908 Armand managed to escape from Mezen and eventually left Russia to settle in Paris where she met Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
and other Bolsheviks living in foreign exile. In 1911 Armand became secretary for the Committee of Foreign Organisations established to coordinate all Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
groups in Western Europe.
Armand returned to Russia in July 1912, to help organise the Bolshevik campaign to get its supporters elected to the Duma
Duma
A Duma is any of various representative assemblies in modern Russia and Russian history. The State Duma in the Russian Empire and Russian Federation corresponds to the lower house of the parliament. Simply it is a form of Russian governmental institution, that was formed during the reign of the...
. Two months later she was arrested and imprisoned, only to be released against bail in March 1913. Once again illegally leaving Russia, she went to live with Vladimir Lenin and Nadezhda Krupskaya in Galicia. She also began work editing Rabotnitsa
Rabotnitsa
Rabotnitsa is a women's journal, published in the Soviet Union and Russia and one of the oldest Russian magazines for women and families. Founded in 1914, and first published on Women's Day, it is the first socialist women's journal, and the most politically left of the women's periodicals...
.
Armand was upset that many socialists
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
in Europe chose not to fight against the war effort during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. She joined Lenin in helping to distribute propaganda that urged Allied troops to turn their rifles against their officers and start a socialist revolution. In March 1915, Armand went to Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
where she organised the anti-war International Conference of Socialist Women.
On 1 March 1917, Tsar Nicholas II
Nicholas II of Russia
Nicholas II was the last Emperor of Russia, Grand Prince of Finland, and titular King of Poland. His official short title was Nicholas II, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias and he is known as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer by the Russian Orthodox Church.Nicholas II ruled from 1894 until...
abdicated, leaving the Provisional Government
Russian Provisional Government
The Russian Provisional Government was the short-lived administrative body which sought to govern Russia immediately following the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II . On September 14, the State Duma of the Russian Empire was officially dissolved by the newly created Directorate, and the country was...
in control of the country. The Bolsheviks in exile were now desperate to return to Russia to help shape the future of the country. The German
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
Foreign Ministry, who hoped that their presence in Russia would help bring the war on the Eastern Front
Eastern Front (World War I)
The Eastern Front was a theatre of war during World War I in Central and, primarily, Eastern Europe. The term is in contrast to the Western Front. Despite the geographical separation, the events in the two theatres strongly influenced each other...
to an end, provided a special train for Armand, Vladimir Lenin and 26 other revolutionaries to travel to Petrograd.
After the October Revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
Armand served as an executive member of the Moscow Soviet
Soviet (council)
Soviet was a name used for several Russian political organizations. Examples include the Czar's Council of Ministers, which was called the “Soviet of Ministers”; a workers' local council in late Imperial Russia; and the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union....
. Armand was a staunch critic of the Soviet government's decision to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a peace treaty signed on March 3, 1918, mediated by South African Andrik Fuller, at Brest-Litovsk between Russia and the Central Powers, headed by Germany, marking Russia's exit from World War I.While the treaty was practically obsolete before the end of the year,...
. On her return to Petrograd, she became director of Zhenotdel
Zhenotdel
The Zhenotdel was the Women's Section of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union .In November 1918 Alexandra Kollontai, Inessa Armand, Nadezhda Krupskaya, Konkordiia Samoilova, Klavdia Nikolayeva, and Zlata Lilina organized the First National Congress of Women Workers and...
, an organisation that fought for female equality in the Communist Party
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
and the Soviet trade unions, lasting till 1930, apparently. She also chaired the First International Conference of Communist Women in 1920. The spring of 1920 saw the appearance, again on Armand’s initiative, of the journal Kommunistka, which dealt with "the broader aspects of female emancipation and the need to alter the relationship between the sexes if lasting change was to be effected".
But the fifth number of this journal carried its founder’s obituary. While she was on a holiday in the Caucasus
Caucasus
The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...
, she contracted cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
and died at the age of forty-six. She was buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis
Kremlin Wall Necropolis
Burials in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis in Moscow began in November 1917, when 240 pro-Bolshevik victims of the October Revolution were buried in mass graves on Red Square. It is centered on both sides of Lenin's Mausoleum, initially built in wood in 1924 and rebuilt in granite in 1929–1930...
in Moscow.
Armand has been portrayed in the movies Lenin in Paris
Lenin in Paris
Lenin in Paris is a Soviet film directed by Sergei Yutkevich in 1981 on Mosfilm.-Synopsis:Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin spent four years in Paris , and this historical docudrama explores those years with a certain amount of humor...
(1981, played by Claude Jade
Claude Jade
Claude Marcelle Jorré, better known as Claude Jade , was a French actress, known for starring as Christine in François Truffaut's three films Stolen Kisses , Bed and Board and Love on the Run . Jade acted in theatre, film and television...
), Le Train (1987, played by Dominique Sanda
Dominique Sanda
Dominique Sanda is a French actress and former fashion model.Sanda was born as Dominique Marie-Françoise Renée Varaigne in Paris to Lucienne and Gérard Varaigne...
) and All My Lenins (1997, played by Janne Sevchenko). She was also portrayed as the heroine in the fictionalised account of Lenin's Russian return Seven Days to Petrograd (1988 by Tom Hyman, Penguin Books).
Further reading
- Ralph Carter Elwood. 'Inessa Armand: revolutionary and feminist'. Cambridge University Press, 1992, 304 pages, softcover, ISBN 0521894212 (0-521-89421-2). Softcover, 316 pages, ISBN 0521414865 (0-521-41486-5). Hardcover, ISBN 978521414869
- Ralph Carter Elwood. 'Vserossiiskaya Konferentsiya Ros. Sots. -Dem. Rab. Partii 1912 Goda: All-Russian Conference of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party 1912. Together With Izveschenie O Konferentsii Organizatsii Rsdrp
- Ralph Carter Elwood, Konferentsiia Rsdrp 1912 Prague, Czechoslovakia, Konferentsiia Organizatsii R.S.-D.R.P. (1912 Vienna, Austria) Izveshc, Rossiiskaia Sotsial-Demokraticheskaia Rabochaia Partiia, Hardcover, Kraus Intl Pubns, ISBN 0527873160 (0-527-87316-0).
- Michael Pearson. The Sealed Train. New York: G. P. Putnam's & sons . 1975. 320 pages + 8 pages photographs.
- Pearson, Michael. Lenin's Mistress: The Life of Inessa Armand. Duckworth, 2001, 277 pages, New York: Random House, 2002 (hardcover, ISBN 0-375-50589-X).