Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya (, ; – 27 February 1939)McNeal, 13. was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. She was a leading figure in the Bolshevik party and was married to Vladimir Lenin.
Krupskaya was born in Saint Petersburg to an aristocratic family that had descended into poverty, and she developed strong views about improving the lives of the poor. She embraced Marxism and met Lenin at a Marxist discussion group in 1894. Both were arrested in 1896 for revolutionary activities and after Lenin was exiled to Siberia, Krupskaya was allowed to join him in 1898 on the condition that they marry. The two settled in Munich and then London after their exile, before briefly returning to Russia to take part in the Revolution of 1905.
Following the 1917 Revolution, Krupskaya was at the forefront of the political scene, becoming a member of the Communist Party's Central Committee in 1924. She was deputy education commissar from 1929 to 1939, with strong influence over the Soviet educational system, including development of Soviet librarianship.
Krupskaya died in Moscow in 1939, a day after her seventieth birthday. The circumstances of her death and personal tensions"Stalin threatened to produce another woman who would swear that she, not Krupskaya, was Lenin's true wife if she dared to publish Lenin's "Last testament". with Joseph Stalin have prompted several claims, some of which derived from Stalin's inner circle, that she was poisoned.Yuri Felshtinsky and Vladimir Pribylovsky, The Corporation. Russia and the KGB in the Age of President Putin, Encounter Books, , 2009, p. 445.
Early life
Nadezhda Krupskaya was born to an upper class but impoverished family. Her father, Konstantin Ignatyevich Krupski (1838–1883), was a Russian military officer and a nobleman of the Russian Empire who had been orphaned in 1847 at the age of nine. He was educated and given a commission as an infantry officer in the Imperial Russian Army.Marcia Nell Boroughs Scott, Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya: A flower in the dark. [Dissertation] The University of Texas at Arlington, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1996. 1383491.
Just before leaving for his assignment in Poland, he married Krupskaya's mother. After six years of service, Krupski lost favour with his supervisors and was charged with "un-Russian activities". He may have been suspected of being involved with revolutionaries. Following this time he worked in factories or wherever he could find work. Just before his death, he was recommissioned as an officer.McNeal, 5–9.
Krupskaya's mother, Yelizaveta Vasilyevna Tistrova (1843–1915), was a daughter of landless Russian nobles. Yelizaveta's parents died when she was young and she was enrolled in the Bestuzhev Courses, the highest formal education available to women in Russia at the time. After earning her degree, Yelizaveta worked as a governess for noble families until she married Krupski.McNeal, 11–12.
Having parents who were well educated and of aristocratic descent, combined with first-hand experience of lower-class working conditions, probably led to the formation of many of Krupskaya's ideological beliefs. "From her very childhood Krupskaya was inspired with the spirit of protest against the ugly life around her."C. Bobrovskaija, Lenin and Krupskaja (New York City: Workers Library Publishers, Inc., 1940), 4.
One of Krupskaya's friends from gymnasium, Ariadne Tyrkova, described her as "a tall, quiet girl, who did not flirt with the boys, moved and thought with deliberation, and had already formed strong convictions . . . She was one of those who are forever committed, once they have been possessed by their thoughts and feelings . . ."McNeal, 19. She briefly attended two different secondary schools before finding the perfect fit with Prince A. A. Obolensky's Female Gymnasium, "a distinguished private girls' secondary school in Petersburg." This education was probably more liberal than most other gymnasiums since it was noted that some of the staff were former revolutionaries.McNeal, 17–19.
After her father's death, Krupskaya and her mother gave lessons as a source of income. Krupskaya had expressed an interest in entering the education field from a young age.Mihail S. Skalkin, and Georgij S. Tsov’janov, “Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya," Prospects, Paris, Vol. 24, Issue 1 (1 January 1994): 49. She was particularly drawn to Leo Tolstoy's theories on education, which were fluid instead of structured. They focused on personal development of each individual student and centred on importance of the teacher–student relationship."Tolstoy, Leo", in Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 21 March 2008.
This led Krupskaya to study many of Tolstoy's works, including his theories of reformation. These were peaceful, law-abiding ideas, which focused on people abstaining from unneeded luxuries and being self-dependent instead of hiring someone else to tend their house, etc. Tolstoy made a lasting impression on Krupskaya; it was said that she had "a special contempt for stylish clothes and comfort."McNeal, 23. She was always modest in dress, as were her furnishings in her home and office.
As a devoted, lifelong student, Krupskaya began to participate in several discussion circles. These groups were formed to study and discuss particular topics for the benefit of everyone involved. It was later, in one of these circles, that Krupskaya was first introduced to the theories of Marx. This piqued her interest as a potential way of making life better for her peopleMatietta Shaginyan, "Memories of Nadezhda Krupskaya", Soviet Literature, Moscow, Vol. 0, Issue 3 (1 January 1989): 156. and she began an in-depth study of Marxist philosophy. This was difficult since books on the subject had been banned by the Russian government, meaning that revolutionaries collected them and kept them in underground libraries. In 1890, she joined a Marxist circle organised by the engineer, Robert Klasson. The following year, she took a job in a Sunday school for adult workers.
Married life
Krupskaya first met Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (later known as Vladimir Lenin) in February 1894 at a similar discussion group. She was impressed by his speeches but not his personality, at least not at first. It is hard to know very much of the courtship between Lenin and Krupskaya as neither party spoke often of personal matters.
In October 1896, several months after Lenin was arrested, Krupskaya was also arrested. She was briefly interned in the Peter and Paul Fortress, but was released after another female convict burned herself to death. She was sentenced to three years exile in Ufa, but before she was deported, she received a "secret note" from Lenin, delivered by her mother, which suggested that she could be permitted to join him in his place of exile, a village in the Minusinsk region of Siberia if she told people she was his fiancée. Krupskaya was permitted to accompany Lenin but only if they were married as soon as she arrived.Marcia Nell Boroughs Scott, Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya: A flower in the dark. [Dissertation]. The University of Texas at Arlington, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1996. 1383491. Her mother travelled with her to Siberia, where she joined Lenin in May 1898.
In her memoirs, Krupskaya notes "with him even such a job as translation was a labour of love".Krupskaya. Reminiscences of Lenin. Moscow: Foreign Language Publishing House. 1959. p. 30
It is believed Krupskaya suffered from Graves' disease,H. Rappaport, Conspirator (London: Hutchinson, 2009), 200. an illness affecting the thyroid gland in the neck which causes the eyes to bulge and the neck to tighten. It can also disrupt the menstrual cycle, which may explain why Lenin and Krupskaya never had children.
Upon his release, Lenin went off to Europe and settled in Munich. Upon her release Krupskaya joined him (1901). After she arrived, the couple moved to London.
Krupskaya wrote a memoir of her life with Lenin, translated in 1930 as Memories of Lenin and in 1959 as Reminiscences of Lenin.N. K. Krupskaya's. Reminiscences of Lenin, Foreign Language Publishing House, 1959. The book gives the most detailed account of Lenin's life before his coming to power and ends in 1919. Political career
Krupskaya's political life was active: she was anything but a mere functionary of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party from 1903.
Leon Trotsky, who was working closely with Lenin and Krupskaya from 1902 to 1903, writes in his autobiography (My Life, 1930) of the central importance of Krupskaya in the day-to-day work of the RSDLP and its newspaper, Iskra. "The secretary of the editorial board [of Iskra] was [Lenin's] wife [...] She was at the very center of all the organization work; she received comrades when they arrived, instructed them when they left, established connections, supplied secret addresses, wrote letters, and coded and decoded correspondence. In her room there was always a smell of burned paper from the secret letters she heated over the fire to read..."
Krupskaya became secretary of the Central Committee in 1905; she returned to Russia the same year, but left again after the failed revolution of 1905 and worked as a teacher in France for a couple of years.
Russian Revolution After the Russian Revolution in 1917, she was appointed deputy to Anatoliy Lunacharskiy, the People's Commissar for Education, where she took charge of Vneshkol'nyi Otdel of the Adult Education Division.Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Commissariat of Enlightenment: Soviet Organization of Education and the Arts under Lunacharsky, October 1917–1921. Cambridge University Press, 2002. She became chair of the education committee in 1920 and was the deputy education commissar (government minister) from 1929 to 1939.
Krupskaya was instrumental in foundation of the Soviet educational system itself. She was also fundamental in the development of Soviet librarianship.
Krupskaya became a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1924, a member of its control commission in 1927, a member of the Supreme Soviet in 1931 and an honorary citizen in 1931. Hilda Ageloff reportedly traveled to interview Krupskaya in 1931 for the newspaper Brooklyn Daily Eagle.
Soviet education and libraries
Before the revolution, Krupskaya worked for five years as an instructor for a factory owner who offered evening classes for his employees. Legally, reading, writing and arithmetic were taught. Illegally, classes with a revolutionary influence were taught for those students who might be ready for them. Krupskaya and other instructors were relieved of duty when nearly 30,000 factory workers in the area went on strike for better wages.Raymond, 53–55. Even after the revolution her emphasis was on "the problems of youth organization and education."McNeal, 173. In order to become educated, they needed better access to books and materials.Raymond, 171.
Pre-revolutionary Russian libraries had a tendency to exclude particular members. Some were exclusively for higher classes and some were only for employees of a particular company's "Trade Unions". In addition they also had narrow, orthodox literature. It was hard to find any books with new ideas, which is exactly why the underground libraries began. Another problem was the low level of literacy of the masses. Vyborg Library, designed by Alvar Aalto, was renamed the Nadezhda Krupskaya Municipal Library after the Soviet annexation of Vyborg.