Inessa Armand
Inessa Armand | |
|---|---|
Armand in 1916 | |
| Born | Elisabeth-Inès Stéphane d'Herbenville 8 May 1874 |
| Died | 24 September 1920 (aged 46) |
| Resting place | Kremlin Wall Necropolis, Moscow |
| Other names | Inessa Fyodorovna Armand, Elena Blonina |
| Movement | Bolsheviks |
| Spouses | Alexander Armand
(m. 1893; div. 1902)Vladimir Armand (m. 1902) |
| Partner | Vladimir Lenin (1911–1912/1914) |
| Children | 5 |
Inessa Fyodorovna Armand (born Elisabeth-Inès Stéphane d'Herbenville; 8 May 1874 – 24 September 1920) was a French-Russian communist politician, member of the Bolsheviks and a feminist who spent most of her life in Russia.
Armand, being an important figure in the pre-Revolution Russian communist movement and the early days of the communist era, had been almost forgotten for some time, until the partial opening of Soviet archives during the 1990s (despite this, many valuable sources regarding her life still remain inaccessible in Russian archives). Historian Michael Pearson wrote about her: "She was to help him (Lenin) recover his position and hone his Bolsheviks into a force that would acquire more power than the tsar, and would herself by 1919 become the most powerful woman in Moscow."