E d Stasova. Elena Stasova: family, biography, revolutionary activities

Russian and Soviet revolutionary, figure in the international communist, women's, anti-war and anti-fascist movements

Activist of the Russian and international communist movement, hero of Socialist Labor (1960)

Biography

She was born into the family of a Russian public figure, lawyer Dmitry Stasov, who participated in major trials of that time, one of the organizers and directors of the Russian Musical Society (1859). Niece of V.V. Stasov. Granddaughter of the architect Vasily Petrovich Stasov.

Until the age of 13, Elena was raised and educated at home. Afterwards I entered the 5th grade of the gymnasium; She graduated from it in 1890 with a gold medal.

Having received the right to teach Russian language and history, she became a teacher at the Sunday school where her mother had previously worked.

At the age of 20, Elena met Nadezhda Krupskaya, together they taught in Sunday schools for workers and conducted Social Democratic propaganda.

Since 1898, she became an active member of the Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class, which later became the basis of the RSDLP. Conducted party work in St. Petersburg, Orel, Moscow, Minsk, Vilno, and was secretary (technical employee) of the St. Petersburg Committee and the Northern Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP.

In 1905-1906 she lived in exile in Switzerland, where she worked in the Central Committee of the RSDLP and participated in the publication of the newspaper “Proletariat”.

In February 1917 - March 1920 - Secretary of the Party Central Committee. From 1917 a candidate member of the Central Committee, in 1918-1920 a member of the Central Committee of the party.

In 1918, member of the Presidium of the Petrograd Cheka and secretary of the Petrograd Committee of the RCP (b).

Since September 1920 - Secretary of the Presidium of the Council for Propaganda and Action of the Peoples of the East, member of the Caucasian Bureau of the Central Committee.

In 1921-1925, he worked illegally in the apparatus of the Communist Party of Germany and the representative office of the Executive Committee of the Comintern in Berlin.

In 1927-1937, Chairman of the Central Committee of the International Organization for Assistance to Fighters of the Revolution (IOPR) of the USSR and Deputy Chairman of the Executive Committee of the IOPR.

In 1932, at the Amsterdam Anti-War Congress, she was elected a member of the World Anti-War and Anti-Fascist Committee, and in 1934 she participated in the creation of the World Anti-War and Anti-Fascist Women's Committee.

In 1933, on her initiative and the initiative of the workers of Ivanovo, an Interhome was founded for the children of foreign revolutionaries and workers who were imprisoned.

In 1930-1934, member of the Central Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. In 1935-1943 member of the International Control Commission of the Comintern.

In 1938-1946 editor of the magazine “International Literature”.

Retired since 1946.

In 1948, she received a severe reprimand from the Party Central Committee for praising Bukharin.

She lived in a famous house on the embankment.

She died on December 31, 1966 in Moscow. After her death, she was cremated and her ashes were placed in an urn in the Kremlin wall on Red Square in Moscow.

Memory

On the wall of the house in which she lived, there was a memorial plaque with the text:

The Ivanovo international orphanage, founded by MOPR in 1933, is named after Stasova; streets in Moscow (in the area of Leninsky Prospekt), St. Petersburg (in the area of Energetikov Avenue), Krasnoyarsk (Vetluzhanka microdistrict).
In 1973, a USSR postage stamp dedicated to Stasova was issued.

I was the fifth child in the family; two sisters and two brothers were older than me. The brothers closest to me in age at home were my brothers, and the youngest in the family was also a boy.

I lived in great friendship with both the eldest and the youngest, which did not stop us from fighting intensely with each other.

Growing up among boys, I did not lag behind them in anything.

I remember that I was very friendly with the Auerbach boys (the sons of mining engineer Alex. Andreevich Auerbach), Seryozha and Volodya, and that when their mother asked who to invite to their birthday party, they answered: “The best is Lelya Stasova, she plays better than all the boys.” into Cossack robbers." From early childhood I retained in my memory the impression of a constantly ill mother, and even later, at the age of 9-10, I remember how she often had nervous attacks and how I had to help my older sisters bring her to her senses. My father, Dmitry Vasilyevich, a lawyer by training (he graduated from the School of Law in St. Petersburg in 1847 as a 19-year-old youth), quickly moved forward in his service in the Senate and would probably have reached high official positions, judging by the beginning, since in During the coronation of Alexander II he was a herald.

However, his views and interests did not go in the direction desired by the government, and in 1861, a month after his marriage, his father was arrested for collecting signatures against the matriculation of students during the student movement and, of course, flew out of the service.

Since then, he never again served in public service, but worked first as a sworn solicitor, and then as a sworn attorney.

He is together with Vlad. You. Samarsky-Bykhovets, Knierim, Gaevsky, Prince and other young lawyers worked on new legal norms of the “era of great reforms,” and his father was the first chairman of the first council of sworn attorneys in Russia (in St. Petersburg).

With short interruptions, he remained in this post until his death in 1918, since the attorneys at law considered him the “conscience” of the class.

Enormous civil practice did not prevent my father from constantly arguing in political cases both in the old courts and in the reformed ones (the trial of 50, the trial of 193, the Karakozov trial, etc.). For his activities in this direction, for the endless number of defendants whom he took on bail, my father was repeatedly subjected to arrests and searches, and in 1880 to expulsion from St. Petersburg to Tula, since Alexander II once declared that “you can’t spit , so as not to get into Stasov, he is involved in everything.” Along with his activities as a sworn attorney, he devoted a lot of time and effort to music, as he played the piano beautifully and was a highly educated musician.

He, together with Anton Rubinstein and Kologrivov, founded the St. Petersburg Conservatory and the Russian Musical Society, which organized symphony concerts in St. Petersburg and in major cities until the revolution and contributed to the introduction of music in Russia.

I write so much about my father because he had a huge influence on me, and I owe him very, very much.

The father approached the children surprisingly skillfully, gently, I would say femininely, but for all that he was very demanding and strict; however, the distinguishing feature of his attitude towards us was equal and always the same treatment.

He prepared all of us for grammar school in geography, and I remember how diligently I prepared his lessons, since it went without saying that it was impossible to come to his lesson without knowing what was unmistakably assigned.

My father read a lot and had a huge library, which we used widely.

When reading newspapers and magazines, my father always noted interesting articles and notes and pointed them out to us. In his youth, he studied political economy a lot, and his library contained all the classics of bourgeois political economy, who were also my first teachers.

In the 1900s, when the Social-Democratic movement. began to play a major role in public life, my father began to feel a gap in his knowledge.

I remember how he once turned to me with a request to explain to him the difference in the Social-Democratic program. and s.-r. and after that he concluded: “I need to read Marx, otherwise you’re groping around.” Besides him, my uncle, Vladimir Vasilyevich Stasov, my father’s brother, a music and art critic, had a great influence on me.

I have preserved his letters to me, dating back to my childhood, and one must be amazed at how this extremely educated man, engaged in major scientific and artistic work, knew how to approach a child without imitating childish language, but combining sweet chatter with serious artistic and broad humanitarian issues.

Undoubtedly, he contributed greatly to the development of self-criticism and endurance in me.

Until the age of 13, I studied at home, by that time I already spoke two languages (French and German) and entered the fifth grade of the Tagantseva private girls’ gymnasium in the spring of 1897.

I studied very well and graduated from high school with the right to the first gold medal and with the title of home teacher. mentors Already in the 8th grade, my teaching abilities were discovered, and one of our class mentors convinced me to enroll in a Sunday school for working women, but at that time I dreamed of medical courses, on the one hand, and of continuing my education in the field of history, on the other , and refused. The years 1892-1893 turned out to be very significant for me in terms of my mental development.

This year, at the same gymnasium, I attended a special course on the history of primitive human culture, taught by Professor A. S. Lappo-Danilevsky.

I remember now what a huge impression his presentation of the emergence of the concept of property among primitive man made on me.

I immediately decided that in order to understand life it was necessary to become acquainted with political economy, and since none of the people around me could help me in how to approach this issue, I simply began to study the political economy of John Stuart Mill. Of course, the work was very difficult, but since I had a lot of persistence and patience, I completed both volumes. Since then, I have adopted the habit of taking notes on what I read, which made my work much easier.

I remember that I began to feel a stronger and stronger sense of duty towards the “people”, towards the workers and peasants who gave us, the intelligentsia, the opportunity to live the way we lived. I think that these thoughts, thoughts about our unpayable debt, were formed partly under the influence of reading.

Looking back, I remember what an impression Ivanyukov’s book “The Fall of Serfdom in Russia” made on me. She pointed out to me the gap in my education, and I began studying Semevsky’s “History of the Peasantry.”

Obviously, the result of all the internal work on myself, plus the events of external life, in which student stories played a significant role at that time, forced me to seek the application of my strength to practical work, and this was, on the one hand, work in the “Lithuanian Sunday evening classes for adult workers and teenagers,” and on the other hand, work in the “Mobile Museum of Teaching Aids.” Working among tobacco and textile workers brought me close and directly into contact with the workers, and my acquaintance with Krupskaya, Yakubova and Nevzorova, on the one hand, and Ustrugova and Sibileva, on the other, brought me into contact with comrades who were already working in the political field.

At the same time, active comrades began to use me and my acquaintances to store both literature and the archive and press of the party.

This work led to the fact that after one of the failures of a comrade who was in charge of the literature warehouses, I was assigned to be in charge of all the warehouses of the St. Petersburg committee.

This was in 1898, and therefore I consider the time of joining the party to be 1898, although already in the spring of 1896 I had in my possession: “Working Day”, “Who lives by what”, “Nothing can be done with us "and others. Little by little, the work increased, and I was in charge not only of literature warehouses, but in general everything that related to the technical side of the PC, i.e., delivery of all kinds of apartments for meetings, appearances, overnight stays, receipt and distribution of literature, installation technology (hectographs, printing houses, etc.), and then correspondence with abroad.

Since the emergence of Iskra and the beginning of the campaign to gather the party, I have worked a lot together with I. I. Radchenko in this area.

Varvara Fedorovna Kozhevnikova-Stremer and Nick also helped a lot. Nick. Stremer.

This was our close “Iskra” company, which waged an intense struggle with the “economists” - Tokarev, Anosov and others. The “Union of Struggle” and “Iskra” did not merge in St. Petersburg, but were represented at the Second Congress by two separate representatives.

This departure coincided with G. M. Krzhizhanovsky, a member of the Central Committee, calling me to Kyiv. However, I did not have to stay there, since the day before my arrival in Kiev there was a failure, and I, together with M. M. Essen (The Beast), left for Minsk, where we were sheltered by a friend, engineer M. N. Kuznetsov.

M. M. Essen soon went abroad, and I received the task of working together with Mark (Lyubimov) on the Central Committee technique. For this purpose, I had to move to Orel, and from there travel for passports, connections with the military organization and crossing the border to Smolensk to F.V. Gusarev and to Vilno to Klopov.

And in early spring I moved to Moscow, where Krasikov, Lengnik, Galperin, Bauman and I were entrusted with organizing and conducting work in the north. Bureau of the Central Committee. In June, Bauman, his wife Medvedeva, Lengnik, and I were arrested and had to move the northern bureau to Nizhny Novgorod.

But at the same time as the Moscow failure, the southern bureau in Odessa also failed, and Mouse (Kulyabko) moved to Moscow.

It was decided that Kulyabko would take over the secretaryship of the Northern Bureau, and I would take over the Southern Bureau. In Nizhny Novgorod, where I went to give Mysha (Kulyabko) communications, I was arrested, and a day later I was transported to Moscow, to Taganka, where I stayed until December 1904, when I was released on bail. She left Moscow for St. Petersburg and immediately went back to work.

The countrywoman passed on all her connections to me, and I again began to serve as secretary in the St. Petersburg committee, and in the spring, when Alexei (Central Committee member A.I. Rykov) was arrested immediately upon his arrival from the congress, I also carried out the work of the secretary of the Central Committee throughout the summer. In the fall, I transferred the secretaryship of the St. Petersburg committee to V. Ksandrov, the management of technology to V.S. Lavrov (engineer), but continued to serve as secretary until August 1905. Then I was sent to Geneva as a representative for technical affairs of the Central Committee. In January 1906, I returned to St. Petersburg and worked until the end of February as secretary of the PC. In February 1906, I was instructed to go to Finland and accept from German Fedorovich (H. E. Burenin) work on communication with abroad (transportation to Sweden, receiving weapons, both land border - Torneo-Haparanda, and sea border - Abo, Ganges, Vasa-Stockholm).

At the same time, I had to organize the affairs of the unification congress in Sweden and the transportation of comrades to the congress and back.

At the end of this work, I returned to St. Petersburg and until my arrest on July 7, 1906, I was the secretary of the PC, together with Raisa Arkadyevna Karfunkel, a Menshevik, for after the unification congress the PC was united.

Together with her, we held a citywide conference, which first met at the Society of Engineers on Zagorodny Prospekt, 21, once in Teriokki, in the hall of the People's House, and then at the Society of Technologists on Anglisky Prospekt.

This meeting did not take place, because too few participants arrived, and upon leaving the building, Karfunkel, Krasikov and I were arrested on the street and taken: Karfunkel and I to the Lithuanian Castle, and Krasikov to Kresty.

Since they found nothing except an article about the organization that was supposed to be published for our legal newspaper “Echo,” I was only expelled from St. Petersburg, but already in January 1907 I was allowed to return, through the efforts of my father, and I I worked in PC again until March, when illness forced me to move to the Caucasus.

From the fall of 1907, I worked in Tiflis as a propagandist in various circles, until the fall of 1910, when Spandaryan and Sergo Ordzhonikidze involved me in the work of the Central Committee, first in preparing the Prague Conference, and then in terms of publishing and the technology of the Central Committee in general. In November 1913, I went into exile from Tiflis and on January 9, 1914, I arrived at my destination - the village of Rybinskoye, Kansky district, Yenisei province. I received the exile by the verdict of the Tiflis court chamber, and was prosecuted together with Vera Schweitzer, Maria Vokhmina, Armenui Hovvyan, Vaso Khachaturyants, Suren Spandaryan and Nerses Nersesyan under Article 102. Corner. Lay., 1st part. We were all arrested during May-June 1912, and evidence regarding me was established only after the arrest of Ovvyan and Vokhmina.

As a result of this search, there was an order for my arrest in St. Petersburg, where I arrived, not expecting anything, straight to my parents’ apartment.

It turned out that the police had already been there, and all the rooms, except for the walk-through dining room and the rooms occupied by the old footman Roman Smirnov, were sealed.

I arrived sick, with a temperature of about 40°. Roman warned me about the search.

I gave him several copies of theses to hide, since he was always privy to my illegal work and more than once hid my things, I washed my face and wanted to go to my brother-doctor, when the police showed up, examined my things, found nothing, but still arrested me. and took me to the station (Furshtadskaya, 26), however, giving me the opportunity to telephone my brother, the magistrate, about my arrival and arrest.

My brother immediately arrived at the police station, and I managed to give him both money (some of it was party money), as well as various addresses and cases, so that my comrades were immediately notified of my arrest and Stalin (Koba) had the opportunity to receive money from my brother.

After two weeks of sitting in Predvarilka and Peresylnoy prison, I was sent to Tiflis, thanks to the efforts of my father and brother - at my own expense. The situation of this trip was such that I could safely escape, and my brother suggested this to me, although he vouched for me, but I rejected the escape, since I was confident in my complete cleanliness, and only at the security department in Tiflis, having seen my briefcase with letters, a metric certificate, a high school diploma - on the one hand, and with the Central Committee archive, copied in my hand - on the other, I realized that I sat down firmly.

In September, confirmation of my sentence took place, and on November 25, Ovvyan and I set off through Baku, Kozlov, Ryazhsk, Samara and Chelyabinsk to Krasnoyarsk, since the Yenisei province was designated as the place of exile. In Samara we met a number of male comrades (Serebryakova, V.M. Sverdlova, etc.), and in Chelyabinsk we were joined by Semyon Schwartz, Anna Trubina and Marusya Cherepanova; Together with the latter, I found myself in exile in the village of Rybinsk, Kansk district. In the fall of 1916, I was allowed to go on vacation to St. Petersburg “to visit my elderly parents,” because this was the clause according to which, in general, according to the letter of the law, exiles and settlers had the right to leave the borders of Siberia.

However, the tsarist police did not leave me alone and on the night of February 25-26, 1917, they came to me, carried out an unsuccessful search and sent me to the Liteiny precinct, where at first I found only one political prisoner, who was brought in an hour before me, and then during the day 16 more people were delivered.

From May 1920, she moved to Petrograd and worked as an organizer in the provincial party committee, until its merger with the Petrograd committee.

On behalf of the Central Committee, she went to Baku to organize the first Congress of the Peoples of the East and to work in the Caucasian bureau of the Central Committee. After the Congress of the Peoples of the East, she was elected a member of the Council for Propaganda and Action of the Peoples of the East and its secretary, while also working in the Caucasian Bureau of the Central Committee. From April 1921 to February 1926 it was at the disposal of the Comintern; Currently I work in the secretariat of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. [In 1927-37, Deputy Chairman of the Executive Committee of the International Organization for Assistance to Fighters of the Revolution (IOPR) and Chairman of the Central Committee of the USSR MOPR. In 1930-34, member of the Central Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. In 1935-43, member of the International Control Commission of the Comintern.

In 1938-43 editor of the magazine "International Literature". Since 1946 she has been engaged in social and literary activities.] (Granat)

Stasova, Elena Dmitrievna

Stasova E. D.

(1873-1966; autobiography). - I was born in 1873, October 16 (3). I was the fifth child in the family; two sisters and two brothers were older than me. The brothers closest to me in age at home were my brothers, and the youngest in the family was also a boy. I lived in great friendship with both the eldest and the youngest, which did not stop us from fighting intensely with each other. Growing up among boys, I did not lag behind them in anything. I remember that I was very friendly with the Auerbach boys (the sons of mining engineer Alex. Andreevich Auerbach), Seryozha and Volodya, and that when their mother asked who to invite to their birthday party, they answered: “The best is Lelya Stasova, she plays better than all the boys.” into Cossack robbers."

From early childhood I retained in my memory the impression of a constantly ill mother, and even later, at the age of 9-10, I remember how she often had nervous attacks and how I had to help my older sisters bring her to her senses. My father, Dmitry Vasilyevich, a lawyer by training (he graduated from the School of Law in St. Petersburg in 1847 as a 19-year-old youth), quickly moved forward in his service in the Senate and would probably have reached high official positions, judging by the beginning, since in During the coronation of Alexander II he was a herald. However, his views and interests did not go in the direction desired by the government, and in 1861, a month after his marriage, his father was arrested for collecting signatures against the matriculation of students during the student movement and, of course, flew out of the service. Since then, he never again served in public service, but worked first as a sworn solicitor, and then as a sworn attorney. He is together with Vlad. You. Samarsky-Bykhovets, Knierim, Gaevsky, Prince and other young lawyers worked on new legal norms of the “era of great reforms,” and his father was the first chairman of the first council of sworn attorneys in Russia (in St. Petersburg). With short interruptions, he remained in this post until his death in 1918, since the attorneys at law considered him the “conscience” of the class. Enormous civil practice did not prevent my father from constantly arguing in political cases both in the old courts and in the reformed ones (the trial of 50, the trial of 193, the Karakozov trial, etc.). For his activities in this direction, for the endless number of defendants whom he took on bail, my father was repeatedly subjected to arrests and searches, and in 1880 to expulsion from St. Petersburg to Tula, since Alexander II once declared that “you can’t spit , so as not to get into Stasov, he is involved in everything.” Along with his activities as a sworn attorney, he devoted a lot of time and effort to music, as he played the piano beautifully and was a highly educated musician. He, together with Anton Rubinstein and Kologrivov, founded the St. Petersburg Conservatory and the Russian Musical Society, which organized symphony concerts in St. Petersburg and in major cities until the revolution and contributed to the introduction of music in Russia.

I write so much about my father because he had a huge influence on me, and I owe him very, very much. The father approached the children surprisingly skillfully, gently, I would say femininely, but for all that he was very demanding and strict; however, the distinguishing feature of his attitude towards us was equal and always the same treatment. He prepared all of us for grammar school in geography, and I remember how diligently I prepared his lessons, since it went without saying that it was impossible to come to his lesson without knowing what was unmistakably assigned. My father read a lot and had a huge library, which we used widely. When reading newspapers and magazines, my father always noted interesting articles and notes and pointed them out to us. In his youth, he studied political economy a lot, and his library contained all the classics of bourgeois political economy, who were also my first teachers. In the 1900s, when the Social-Democratic movement. began to play a major role in public life, my father began to feel a gap in his knowledge. I remember how he once turned to me with a request to explain to him the difference in the Social-Democratic program. and s.-r. and after that he concluded: “I need to read Marx, otherwise you’re groping around.”

Besides him, my uncle, Vladimir Vasilyevich Stasov, my father’s brother, a music and art critic, had a great influence on me. I have preserved his letters to me, dating back to my childhood, and one must be amazed at how this extremely educated man, engaged in major scientific and artistic work, knew how to approach a child without imitating childish language, but combining sweet chatter with serious artistic and broad humanitarian issues. Undoubtedly, he contributed greatly to the development of self-criticism and endurance in me.

Until the age of 13, I studied at home, by that time I already spoke two languages (French and German) and entered the fifth grade of the Tagantseva private girls’ gymnasium in the spring of 1897. I studied very well and graduated from high school with the right to the first gold medal and with the title of home teacher. mentors Already in the 8th grade, my teaching abilities were discovered, and one of our class mentors convinced me to enroll in a Sunday school for working women, but at that time I dreamed of medical courses, on the one hand, and of continuing my education in the field of history, on the other , and refused. The years 1892-1893 turned out to be very significant for me in terms of my mental development. This year, at the same gymnasium, I attended a special course on the history of primitive human culture, taught by Professor A. S. Lappo-Danilevsky. I remember now what a huge impression his presentation of the emergence of the concept of property among primitive man made on me. I immediately decided that in order to understand life it was necessary to become acquainted with political economy, and since none of the people around me could help me in how to approach this issue, I simply began to study the political economy of John Stuart Mill. Of course, the work was very difficult, but since I had a lot of persistence and patience, I completed both volumes. Since then, I have adopted the habit of taking notes on what I read, which made my work much easier.

Life in a highly humanitarian family, which retained all the best that was in the Russian intelligentsia of the 60s, constant contact with people chosen in a cultural and artistic sense (we visited all Russian musicians and Peredvizhniki artists) undoubtedly had a great influence on me . I remember that I began to feel a stronger and stronger sense of duty towards the “people”, towards the workers and peasants who gave us, the intelligentsia, the opportunity to live the way we lived. I think that these thoughts, thoughts about our unpayable debt, were formed partly under the influence of reading. Looking back, I remember what an impression Ivanyukov’s book “The Fall of Serfdom in Russia” made on me. She pointed out to me the gap in my education, and I began studying Semevsky’s “History of the Peasantry.” Obviously, the result of all the internal work on myself, plus the events of external life, in which student stories played a significant role at that time, forced me to seek the application of my strength to practical work, and this was, on the one hand, work in the “Lithuanian Sunday evening classes for adult workers and teenagers,” and on the other hand, work in the “Mobile Museum of Teaching Aids.” Working among tobacco and textile workers brought me close and directly into contact with the workers, and my acquaintance with Krupskaya, Yakubova and Nevzorova, on the one hand, and Ustrugova and Sibileva, on the other, brought me into contact with comrades who were already working in the political field.

Gradually, I began to work in the political Red Cross, and lectures (for a fee) were held at our home more than once for this purpose, which was in great vogue at that time and to which our humanitarian intelligentsia, including my relatives, willingly contributed and helped. At the same time, active comrades began to use me and my acquaintances to store both literature and the archive and press of the party. This work led to the fact that after one of the failures of a comrade who was in charge of the literature warehouses, I was assigned to be in charge of all the warehouses of the St. Petersburg committee. This was in 1898, and therefore I consider the time of joining the party to be 1898, although already in the spring of 1896 I had in my possession: “Working Day”, “Who lives by what”, “Nothing can be done with us "and others. Little by little, the work increased, and I was in charge not only of literature warehouses, but in general everything that related to the technical side of the PC, i.e., delivery of all kinds of apartments for meetings, appearances, overnight stays, receipt and distribution of literature, installation technology (hectographs, printing houses, etc.), and then correspondence with abroad.

Since the emergence of Iskra and the beginning of the campaign to gather the party, I have worked a lot together with I. I. Radchenko in this area.

I. I. Radchenko (Arkady), who came from Geneva directly to me at the request of I. K. Krupskaya, asked me to give him connections with the “Union of Struggle”. Iv. Iv. was a representative of the Iskra organization. I connected him then with Nick. Alekseevich Anosov, but personally kept in touch with him all the time, and all correspondence between Iskra and St. Petersburg was conducted by Iv and I. Iv. together. Varvara Fedorovna Kozhevnikova-Stremer and Nick also helped a lot. Nick. Stremer. This was our close “Iskra” company, which waged an intense struggle with the “economists” - Tokarev, Anosov and others. The “Union of Struggle” and “Iskra” did not merge in St. Petersburg, but were represented at the Second Congress by two separate representatives.

I worked at the PC until January 1904, when, as a result of failure and being passed over, due to inexperience, as a technical assistant who had just started work, I was forced to leave St. Petersburg. This departure coincided with G. M. Krzhizhanovsky, a member of the Central Committee, calling me to Kyiv. However, I did not have to stay there, since the day before my arrival in Kiev there was a failure, and I, together with M. M. Essen (The Beast), left for Minsk, where we were sheltered by a friend, engineer M. N. Kuznetsov. M. M. Essen soon went abroad, and I received the task of working together with Mark (Lyubimov) on the Central Committee technique. For this purpose, I had to move to Orel, and from there travel for passports, connections with the military organization and crossing the border to Smolensk to F.V. Gusarev and to Vilno to Klopov. And in early spring I moved to Moscow, where Krasikov, Lengnik, Galperin, Bauman and I were entrusted with organizing and conducting work in the north. Bureau of the Central Committee. In June, Bauman, his wife Medvedeva, Lengnik, and I were arrested and had to move the northern bureau to Nizhny Novgorod. But at the same time as the Moscow failure, the southern bureau in Odessa also failed, and Mouse (Kulyabko) moved to Moscow. It was decided that Kulyabko would take over the secretaryship of the Northern Bureau, and I would take over the Southern Bureau. In Nizhny Novgorod, where I went to give Mysha (Kulyabko) communications, I was arrested, and a day later I was transported to Moscow, to Taganka, where I stayed until December 1904, when I was released on bail. She left Moscow for St. Petersburg and immediately went back to work. The countrywoman passed on all her connections to me, and I again began to serve as secretary in the St. Petersburg committee, and in the spring, when Alexei (Central Committee member A.I. Rykov) was arrested immediately upon his arrival from the congress, I also carried out the work of the secretary of the Central Committee throughout the summer. In the fall, I transferred the secretaryship of the St. Petersburg committee to V. Ksandrov, the management of technology to V.S. Lavrov (engineer), but continued to serve as secretary until August 1905. Then I was sent to Geneva as a representative for technical affairs of the Central Committee.

In January 1906, I returned to St. Petersburg and worked until the end of February as secretary of the PC. In February 1906, I was instructed to go to Finland and accept from German Fedorovich (H. E. Burenin) work on communication with abroad (transportation to Sweden, receiving weapons, both land border - Torneo-Haparanda, and sea border - Abo, Ganges, Vasa-Stockholm). At the same time, I had to organize the affairs of the unification congress in Sweden and the transportation of comrades to the congress and back. At the end of this work, I returned to St. Petersburg and until my arrest on July 7, 1906, I was the secretary of the PC, together with Raisa Arkadyevna Karfunkel, a Menshevik, for after the unification congress the PC was united. Together with her, we held a citywide conference, which first met at the Society of Engineers on Zagorodny Prospekt, 21, once in Teriokki, in the hall of the People's House, and then at the Society of Technologists on Anglisky Prospekt. This meeting did not take place, because too few participants arrived, and upon leaving the building, Karfunkel, Krasikov and I were arrested on the street and taken: Karfunkel and I to the Lithuanian Castle, and Krasikov to Kresty. Since they found nothing except an article about the organization that was supposed to be published for our legal newspaper “Echo,” I was only expelled from St. Petersburg, but already in January 1907 I was allowed to return, through the efforts of my father, and I I worked in PC again until March, when illness forced me to move to the Caucasus. From the fall of 1907, I worked in Tiflis as a propagandist in various circles, until the fall of 1910, when Spandaryan and Sergo Ordzhonikidze involved me in the work of the Central Committee, first in preparing the Prague Conference, and then in terms of publishing and the technology of the Central Committee in general.

In November 1913, I went into exile from Tiflis and on January 9, 1914, I arrived at my destination - the village of Rybinskoye, Kansky district, Yenisei province. I received the exile by the verdict of the Tiflis court chamber, and was prosecuted together with Vera Schweitzer, Maria Vokhmina, Armenui Hovvyan, Vaso Khachaturyants, Suren Spandaryan and Nerses Nersesyan under Article 102. Corner. Lay., 1st part.

We were all arrested during May-June 1912, and evidence regarding me was established only after the arrest of Ovvyan and Vokhmina. As a result of this search, there was an order for my arrest in St. Petersburg, where I arrived, not expecting anything, straight to my parents’ apartment. It turned out that the police had already been there, and all the rooms, except for the walk-through dining room and the rooms occupied by the old footman Roman Smirnov, were sealed. I arrived sick, with a temperature of about 40°. Roman warned me about the search. I gave him several copies of theses to hide, since he was always privy to my illegal work and more than once hid my things, I washed my face and wanted to go to my brother-doctor, when the police showed up, examined my things, found nothing, but still arrested me. and took me to the station (Furshtadskaya, 26), however, giving me the opportunity to telephone my brother, the magistrate, about my arrival and arrest. My brother immediately arrived at the police station, and I managed to give him both money (some of it was party money), as well as various addresses and cases, so that my comrades were immediately notified of my arrest and Stalin (Koba) had the opportunity to receive money from my brother. After two weeks of sitting in Predvarilka and Peresylnoy prison, I was sent to Tiflis, thanks to the efforts of my father and brother - at my own expense. The situation of this trip was such that I could safely escape, and my brother suggested this to me, although he vouched for me, but I rejected the escape, since I was confident in my complete cleanliness, and only at the security department in Tiflis, having seen my briefcase with letters, a metric certificate, a high school diploma - on the one hand, and with the Central Committee archive, copied in my hand - on the other, I realized that I sat down firmly. Our trial took place on 2 May 1913, and according to it we all received a link to the settlement.

In the fall of 1916, I was allowed to go on vacation to St. Petersburg “to visit my elderly parents,” because this was the clause according to which, in general, according to the letter of the law, exiles and settlers had the right to leave the borders of Siberia.

In St. Petersburg, I immediately contacted Shlyapnikov, Molotov, Zalutsky, M.I. Ulyanova and others, so I was able to enter party life. I did not return back to Siberia, because I became seriously ill and my stay in St. Petersburg was extended, and there came a revolution. However, the tsarist police did not leave me alone and on the night of February 25-26, 1917, they came to me, carried out an unsuccessful search and sent me to the Liteiny precinct, where at first I found only one political prisoner, who was brought in an hour before me, and then during the day 16 more people were delivered.

I was released by the rebel people on March 12 (February 27) in the evening. On March 13 (February 28), 1917, she went to the Tauride Palace and, on behalf of Shlyapnikov, organized the secretariat of the Central Committee Bureau. From that time until the IX Party Congress, she worked as secretary of the Central Committee, first in Petrograd and then in Moscow. From May 1920, she moved to Petrograd and worked as an organizer in the provincial party committee, until its merger with the Petrograd committee. On behalf of the Central Committee, she went to Baku to organize the first Congress of the Peoples of the East and to work in the Caucasian bureau of the Central Committee. After the Congress of the Peoples of the East, she was elected a member of the Council for Propaganda and Action of the Peoples of the East and its secretary, while also working in the Caucasian Bureau of the Central Committee. From April 1921 to February 1926 it was at the disposal of the Comintern; Currently I work in the secretariat of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.

[In 1927-37, Deputy Chairman of the Executive Committee of the International Organization for Assistance to Fighters of the Revolution (IOPR) and Chairman of the Central Committee of the USSR MOPR. In 1930-34, member of the Central Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. In 1935-43, member of the International Control Commission of the Comintern. In 1938-43 editor of the magazine "International Literature". Since 1946 she has been engaged in social and literary activities.]

Large biographical encyclopedia. 2009 .

See what “Stasova, Elena Dmitrievna” is in other dictionaries:

Elena Dmitrievna Stasova E.D. Stasova. 1920s ... Wikipedia

Activist of the Russian and international communist movement, Hero of Socialist Labor (1960). Member of the Communist Party since 1898. Daughter of D. V. Stasov. After graduating from high school, she worked with... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

At the end of July 1917, the VI Party Congress began its work in Petrograd on the Vyborg side.
Stasova came to his meeting. Seeing Elena Dmitrievna, M. S. Olminsky, who chaired the meeting, asked her:
Why did you come?
I came to the congress meeting.
Don’t you know that we are meeting illegally and that we could be arrested? You are the custodian of the party's traditions, so leave immediately.
Elena Dmitrievna left the congress. The congress elected her as a candidate member of the Central Committee in absentia.
E. D. Stasova talks about this in her book of memoirs, “Pages of Life and Struggle.” She explains what exactly Olminsky meant when he called her “the guardian of the party’s traditions.” For many years, party connections were concentrated in her hands - a huge number of addresses, names of revolutionaries. The party made sure that in any conditions, in an environment of the most severe repressions and arrests, the “keepers of traditions” remained free. This helped quickly restore Bolshevik organizations after failures.
“Absolute” was one of the secret pseudonyms of E. D. Stasova. This pseudonym seemed to symbolize her ideological conviction and firmness, her clarity and accuracy in her work.
Elena Dmitrievna Stasova was born and raised in a family that left a noticeable mark in the history of Russian culture. Her grandfather, Vasily Petrovich, was an outstanding architect, her father, Dmitry Vasilyevich, was a progressive lawyer, a well-known public figure in St. Petersburg, her uncle, Vladimir Vasilyevich, was a famous art and music critic.
Elena Dmitrievna set out on the path of revolutionary activity early. Since the mid-90s of the last century, she taught at Sunday evening schools for workers. Comrades associated with the St. Petersburg “Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class” worked in these schools. She actively participated in the “Union of Struggle” and E.D. Stasova. Since 1898 she has been a member of the RSDLP.
From the moment of the creation of Lenin's Iskra, Elena Dmitrievna was its faithful ideological follower and agent, distributing the newspaper with enormous energy and ingenuity. She conducted underground revolutionary work in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Orel, Kyiv, and was secretary of the St. Petersburg Party Committee and the Northern Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP.
During the years of the first Russian revolution, E. D. Stasova, working in St. Petersburg and Geneva, devoted a lot of effort to organizing underground printing houses, publishing and transporting illegal party literature. For five years - from 1907 to 1912 - Elena Dmitrievna conducted party propaganda work in Tiflis.
Arrests, prisons, three years in exile in the Yenisei could not break the will of the glorious daughter of the Bolshevik party.
E. D. Stasova actively participated in the preparation and conduct of the Great October Socialist Revolution. From February 1917 to March 1920 she was Secretary of the Central Committee.
At the end of June 1917, when the bourgeois Provisional Government began a vile campaign of slander against V.I. Lenin and it was dangerous for him to stay at home, Vladimir Ilyich lived for several days in the apartment of E.D. Stasova’s parents on Furshtadtskaya Street (now Peter Lavrov Street). Later, in July 1917, the party archive was kept in this apartment.
In August 1917, E. D. Stasova was elected a member of the Lesnovsko-Udelninsky District Duma. The Duma was chaired by M.I. Kalinin. The Bolsheviks used the premises of the Duma to hold illegal party meetings.
In the October days of 1917, E. D. Stasova in the Secretariat of the Central Committee. She conducted extensive correspondence with local party organizations, participated in the publication of the “Bulletins” of the Central Committee, which were sent to all major party organizations in the country and reported on events in Petrograd and throughout Russia.
In 1920, the Central Committee sent E.D. Stasova to Baku, where she took part in the preparation of the 1st Congress of the Peoples of the East and worked in the Caucasus Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP(b).
For several years, Elena Dmitrievna worked at the Comintern, then headed the Soviet section of the International Organization for Assistance to Revolutionary Fighters (IOPR), and edited the journal International Literature.
For great services to the CPSU and the Soviet state, E. D. Stasova was awarded four Orders of Lenin and was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor.
In January 1967, Pravda published an article written by E. D. Stasova shortly before her death, “The Happiness of Being First.” “Each new generation of revolutionaries solves new historical problems,” wrote Elena Dmitrievna. “But it is important to adopt the passion of the fighters seasoned by the revolution, their deep communist conviction, selfless devotion to the party and burning hatred for the enemies of the revolution. For the revolution we started continues in its allegorical barricades, where revolutionary steel is tempered, where the school of struggle for the happiness of the people is held, today are factory shops, mines, construction sites, collective and state farm fields and farms, laboratories of research institutes, universities and technical schools, all areas of activity in which creative labor reigns in the name of communism.”
These words sound like a testament from the glorious representative of Lenin’s guard to the younger generation.

Lenin V.I. Complete Works Volume 9

LETTER TO E. D. STASOVA AND COMRADES IN MOSCOW PRISON

LETTER TO E. D. STASOVA AND COMRADES IN MOSCOW PRISON 75

Dear friends! I received your request about tactics at the trial (from a letter from the Absolute and from a note “transmitted verbatim” through an unknown person). Absolute writes about 2 points of view. The note speaks of three groups - perhaps referring to the following three shades that I am trying to restore: 1) Deny the trial and outright boycott it. 2) Deny the trial and not take part in the judicial investigation. A lawyer should be invited only on the condition that he speaks exclusively about the insolvency of the court from the point of view of abstract law. In the final speech, state the profession de foi * and demand a jury trial. 3) About the final word too. Use the court as a propaganda tool and, for this purpose, take part in the judicial investigation with the help of a lawyer. Show the lawlessness of the court and even call witnesses (prove an alibi, etc.).

You write that a brochure is needed on this issue. I would not consider it convenient to publish a brochure right now, without indications of experience. Maybe we’ll touch on it in the newspaper sometime, on occasion. Perhaps one of those sitting

* - symbol of faith, program, statement of worldview. Ed.

170 V. I. LENIN

will write an article for a newspaper (5-8 thousand letters)? This would probably be the best way to start the discussion.

Personally, I have not yet formed a completely definite opinion and would prefer, before speaking decisively, to talk in more detail with my comrades who are sitting or have been at the trial. To start such a conversation, I will state my thoughts. Much depends, in my opinion, on Which will there be a trial? That is, is there an opportunity to use it for campaigning or is there no opportunity? If the former, then tactic No. 1 is no good; if the latter, then it is appropriate, but even then only after an open, definite, energetic protest and statement. If there is an opportunity to use the court for propaganda, then tactic No. 3 is desirable. A speech outlining the profession de foi is generally very desirable, very useful, in my opinion, and in most cases would have a chance of playing a propaganda role. Especially at the beginning of the government's use of the courts, the Social Democrats should have made a speech about the Social Democratic program and tactics. They say: it is inconvenient to admit that you are a member of a party, especially an organization; it is better to limit yourself to the statement that I am a social democrat by conviction. It seems to me that organizational relations should be mentioned directly in the speech, that is, it should be said that for obvious reasons I will not talk about my organizational relations, but I am a social democrat and I will talk about our parties. Such a statement would have two benefits: it is directly and precisely stated that it is impossible to talk about organizational relations (i.e. whether he belonged to an organization, which one, etc.) and at the same time it is said about the party our. This is necessary so that Social Democratic speeches at the trial become party speeches and statements, so that the agitation goes in favor of the party. In other words: I leave my formal organizational relations without consideration, I will keep silent about them, I will not speak formally on behalf of any organization, but, as a Social Democrat, I will talk to you about our party and ask

LETTER TO E. D. STASOVA AND COMRADES IN MOSCOW PRISON 171

take my statements as an experience in presenting precisely those social democratic views that were held throughout our Social Democratic literature, in such and such our brochures, leaflets, newspapers.

Question about a lawyer. Lawyers must be taken with a tight rein and placed in a state of siege, because this intellectual bastard often plays dirty tricks. Announce to them in advance: if you, son of a bitch, allow yourself even the slightest indecency or political opportunism(talk about underdevelopment, about the infidelity of socialism, about infatuation, about the Social Democrats' denial of violence, about the peaceful nature of their teaching and movement, etc., or at least something similar), then I, the defendant, will interrupt you right there in public, call you a scoundrel, declare that I refuse such protection, etc. And bring these threats in execution. Only hire smart lawyers, don’t need others. Tell them in advance: to exclusively criticize and “catch” witnesses and the prosecutor on the issue of checking the facts and the frame-up of the accusation, to exclusively discredit the Shemyakin parties to the court. Even a smart liberal lawyer is extremely inclined to say or hint on the peaceful nature of the social democratic movement, on the recognition of its cultural role even by people like Ad. Vagner etc. All such attempts must be nipped in the bud. Lawyers are the most reactionary people, as Bebel seems to have said. Know your nest, cricket. Just be a lawyer, ridicule the witnesses for the prosecution and the prosecutor, at most contrast a kind of trial with a jury in a free country, but don’t touch the convictions of the defendant, don’t even dare to stutter about your assessment of his convictions and his actions. Because you, liberal, don’t understand these convictions so much that even praising them you won’t be able to do without vulgarities. Of course, all this can be presented to the lawyer not in Sobakevich’s way, but in a gentle, compliant, flexible and prudent manner. But it’s still better to be afraid of lawyers and not trust them, especially if they say that they are Social Democrats and members of the party (according to our § 1!!).

172 V. I. LENIN

The question of participation in the judicial investigation is resolved, it seems to me, by the question of a lawyer. Inviting a lawyer means participating in the judicial investigation. Why not participate to catch witnesses and agitate against the court. Of course, one must be very careful not to fall into the tone of inappropriate justification, that's to say! It's best to immediately before judicial investigation, in response to the first questions from the chairman, declare that I am a Social Democrat and in my speech I will tell you what this means. The specific decision on participation in the judicial investigation depends entirely on the circumstances: let’s assume that you are completely exposed, that the witnesses are telling the truth, that the whole essence of the accusation is in undoubted documents. Then, perhaps, there is no need to participate in the judicial investigation, but to pay all attention to the principled speech. If the facts are shaky, the intelligence witnesses are confused and lying, then it is hardly worth taking away propaganda material to expose the rigging of the trial. The case also depends on the defendants: if they are very tired, sick, tired, there are no tenacious people accustomed to “court negotiations” and verbal battles, then it may be more rational to refuse to participate in the judicial investigation, declare this and give all attention to the principled speech, which it is advisable to prepare in advance. In any case, we are talking about the principles, program and tactics of social democracy, about the labor movement, about socialist goals, about the uprising - the most important thing.

I repeat in conclusion once again: these are my preliminary considerations, which should least of all be considered as an attempt to resolve the issue. We must wait for some indications from experience. And in developing this experience, comrades will in most cases have to be guided by weighing specific circumstances and the instinct of a revolutionary.

Big, big hello to Kurtz, Ruben, Bauman and all friends. Cheer up! Things are going well for us now. We have finally gotten rid of the brawlers.

LETTER TO E. D. STASOVA AND COMRADES IN MOSCOW PRISON 173

The retreat tactics were abandoned. Now we are advancing. Russian committees are also beginning to break with the disruptors. The newspaper has been delivered. There is a practical center (bureau). Two issues of the newspaper were published, the 3rd 76 came out the other day (23.1. 1905 new style). We hope to release weekly. I wish you health and vigor! ! We'll probably see each other again and fight under better conditions than the local squabbles and squabbles like the League congresses!

First published in 1924 in the magazine “Proletarian Revolution” No. 7 (30)

Reprinted from the manuscript