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Elena Dmitriyevna
Stasova ( rus, Елена Дмитриевна Стасова; 15 October
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_
Russian(s)_refers_to_anything_related_to_Russia,_including:
*Russians_(,_''russkiye''),_an_ethnic_group_of_the_East_Slavic_peoples,_primarily_living_in_Russia_and_neighboring_countries
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Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
-Soviet people">Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...
communist revolutionary who became a political functionary working for the Communist International (Comintern). She was a Comintern representative to Germany in 1921. From 1927 to 1937 she was the president of
International Red Aid
International Red Aid (also commonly known by its Russian acronym MOPR ( ru , МОПР, for: ''Междунаро́дная организа́ция по́мощи борца́м револю́ции'' - Mezhdunarodnaya organizatsiya pomoshchi bor ...
(MOPR). From 1938 to 1946, she worked on the editorial staff of the magazine ''
International Literature''.
Biography
Early years
Yelena Stasova was born in
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
in 1873, the youngest of five children, in an eminent
noble
A noble is a member of the nobility.
Noble may also refer to:
Places Antarctica
* Noble Glacier, King George Island
* Noble Nunatak, Marie Byrd Land
* Noble Peak, Wiencke Island
* Noble Rocks, Graham Land
Australia
* Noble Island, Gr ...
family. Her father was the state attorney
Dmitry Stasov
Dmitry Vasilievich Stasov (1828–1918) was a Russian lawyer who was a leading figure in the juridical reforms of the 1860s. He was the brother of the critic Vladimir Stasov and father of the Bolshevik revolutionary Elena Stasova
Elena Dmitri ...
.
[ This volume contains an English translation of Stasova's autobiography, first published in 1927.] She was educated at home until the age of 13, and then at the prestigious Tagantsev private school for girls. Stasova described her political awakening as being tied to a realization that other people "made it possible for us, the intelligentsia, to live the way we did." At the age of about 20 she began teaching in evening classes and Sunday schools in
Ligovo Ligovo (russian: Лигово) is a historical area of the federal city of Saint Petersburg (Russia). It is located in the southern part of the city on the road leading to Petergof.
A settlement of east Slavs existed on the site of modern Ligovo f ...
, which brought her into contact with female political activists such as
Nadezhda Krupskaya, future wife of
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...
. She joined the
Russian Social Democratic Workers Party
The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP; in , ''Rossiyskaya sotsial-demokraticheskaya rabochaya partiya (RSDRP)''), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or the Russian Social Democratic Party, was a socialist pol ...
(RSDRP) at the time of its establishment in 1898, her main contribution being to use her parents' house to store illegal socialist literature.
Family
Her grandfather, Vasili Stasov, had been
architect
An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...
to
Emperors of all the Russias Alexander I Alexander I may refer to:
* Alexander I of Macedon, king of Macedon 495–454 BC
* Alexander I of Epirus (370–331 BC), king of Epirus
* Pope Alexander I (died 115), early bishop of Rome
* Pope Alexander I of Alexandria (died 320s), patriarch of ...
and
Nicholas I. Her uncle was art critic
Vladimir Stasov
Vladimir Vasilievich Stasov (also Stassov; rus, Влади́мир Васи́льевич Ста́сов; 14 January Adoption_of_the_Gregorian_calendar#Adoption_in_Eastern_Europe.html" ;"title="/nowiki> O.S._2_January.html" ;"title="Adoption of ...
. Her father, Dmitry (1828–1918), was the most eminent liberal Russian lawyer of his generation. As a young man, he had a promising career working for the Senate, and a
Herald
A herald, or a herald of arms, is an officer of arms, ranking between pursuivant and king of arms. The title is commonly applied more broadly to all officers of arms.
Heralds were originally messengers sent by monarchs or noblemen to ...
at the
coronation
A coronation is the act of placement or bestowal of a crown upon a monarch's head. The term also generally refers not only to the physical crowning but to the whole ceremony wherein the act of crowning occurs, along with the presentation of ot ...
of
Alexander II – but was barred for life from government service after he was arrested during a student demonstration. He set up in private practice, and was defence counsel in numerous political trials, including trial of
Dmitry Karakozov
Dmitry Vladimirovich Karakozov (russian: Дми́трий Влади́мирович Карако́зов; – ) was a Russian political activist and the first revolutionary in the Russian Empire to make an attempt on the life of a tsar. His ...
, the first of the revolutionaries to attempt to assassinate Alexander II, the
Trial of the 50, which was the first political trial to be held in public in Russia, and at Russia's largest political trial the
Trial of the 193 The Trial of the 193 was a series of criminal trials held in Russia in 1877-1878 under the rule of Tsar Alexander II. The defendants were 193 socialist students and other “revolutionaries” charged with populist “unrest” and propaganda again ...
. He was arrested in 1880, by order of the Tsar, and banished from St Petersburg for a time. Later, he was President of the Russian Council of Lawyers. A keen pianist, he also co-founded the
St Petersburg Conservatory
The N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov Saint Petersburg State Conservatory (russian: Санкт-Петербургская государственная консерватория имени Н. А. Римского-Корсакова) (formerly known as th ...
with
Anton Rubinstein
Anton Grigoryevich Rubinstein ( rus, Антон Григорьевич Рубинштейн, r=Anton Grigor'evič Rubinštejn; ) was a Russian pianist, composer and conductor who became a pivotal figure in Russian culture when he founded the Sa ...
.
Bolshevik revolutionary
When the RSDRP split into
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
and
Menshevik factions in 1903, Stasova cast her lot with
Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...
and the Bolsheviks as a
professional revolutionary
Leninism is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary vanguard party as the political prelude to the establishme ...
. Over the next two years Stasova adopted the pseudonyms "Absolute" and "Thick". Other pseudonyms which Stasova used during the
underground
Underground most commonly refers to:
* Subterranea (geography), the regions beneath the surface of the Earth
Underground may also refer to:
Places
* The Underground (Boston), a music club in the Allston neighborhood of Boston
* The Underground ...
period included "Delta", "Heron", "Knol", and "Varvara Ivanovna". She served as the conduit for Lenin's newspaper, ''
Iskra
''Iskra'' ( rus, Искра, , ''the Spark'') was a political newspaper of Russian socialist emigrants established as the official organ of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP).
History
Due to political repression under Tsar Nicho ...
,'' in St. Petersburg, until her arrest in January 1904, which forced her to leave the capital and hide in
Minsk
Minsk ( be, Мінск ; russian: Минск) is the capital and the largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach and the now subterranean Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the admi ...
. For the rest of that year she traveled to several cities, acting as a specialist in "technical matters", such as creating false passports, organising escape routes, and making contact with sympathisers in the Russian army.
She also taught new members how to encode and decode.
[Branko Lazitch and Milorad M. Drachkovitch, ''Biographical Dictionary of the Comintern: New, Revised, and Expanded Edition.'' Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1986; pg. 444.] In spring 1904, Stasova was appointed secretary of the Northern Bureau of the Bolshevik Central Committee. In June, she was assigned to take over the Southern Bureau, based in Odessa, but was arrested and held in
Taganka Prison Taganka Prison (Russian: Таганская тюрьма) was built in Moscow in 1804 by Alexander I, emperor of Russia.Katrina Marie"Taganka: The Haunts of Intelligentsia and Blue-Collar Grit"''Passport Moscow''. Retrieved December 5, 2011 It gaine ...
for six months.
She was released on bail in December 1904, and returned to St Petersburg, where she took over as secretary of the city Bolshevik organisation, and later as secretary of the Central Committee.
Stasova emigrated to
Geneva
, neighboring_municipalities= Carouge, Chêne-Bougeries, Cologny, Lancy, Grand-Saconnex, Pregny-Chambésy, Vernier, Veyrier
, website = https://www.geneve.ch/
Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevr ...
, Switzerland in August 1905, to run the Bolshevik organisation abroad while Lenin was in Russia for the
Russian Revolution of 1905
The Russian Revolution of 1905,. also known as the First Russian Revolution,. occurred on 22 January 1905, and was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. The mass unrest was directed again ...
. She returned to St Petersburg in January 1906 and then moved to Finland to organise arms smuggling, and to assist in organising the Congress in Stockholm that was supposed to unify the Bolshevik and Menshevik factions of the RSDRP. Arrested in July 1906, after her return to St Petersburg, she was banned for the second time from living in the capital. In 1907, she settled in
Tiflis
Tbilisi ( ; ka, თბილისი ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( ), is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Kura River with a population of approximately 1.5 million pe ...
(now
Tbilisi
Tbilisi ( ; ka, თბილისი ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( ), is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Kura River with a population of approximately 1.5 million p ...
), the capital of Georgia.
In January 1912, Stasova was elected as an alternate member of the Bolshevik party's Central Committee. She was then secretary to the party's Russian bureau. Arrested on her return to Tiflis, in May 1912, she was tried in May 1913, with
Suren Spandaryan and others, and sentenced to deportation to Siberia. She was allowed to return to St Petersburg in autumn 1916, and was arrested there and held in a police station overnight in February 1917, but released in the morning because of the outbreak of the
February Revolution.
Political career
After the
February Revolution of 1917, Stasova was named a secretary of the Central Committee — a position which she retained through the
October Revolution
The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key mome ...
, finally standing down in March 1920.
She was also returned as an alternate member of the Bolshevik Central Committee by the
6th Congress of the Russian Communist Party in 1917. She was the only woman elected to full membership on the CC by the
7th Congress of 1918 and the
8th Congress of 1919. However, the
9th Congress of 1920 dropped her both from the Central Committee and from the party secretariat.
After being removed from the Central Committee, Stasova worked for the
Petrograd party organization, from where she was brought into the Comintern's apparatus. She was appointed
Comintern representative to the
Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in May 1921, where she used the pseudonym "Hertha".
Stasova remained in Germany through 1926, where she played a leading role in the German affiliate of the
International Red Aid
International Red Aid (also commonly known by its Russian acronym MOPR ( ru , МОПР, for: ''Междунаро́дная организа́ция по́мощи борца́м револю́ции'' - Mezhdunarodnaya organizatsiya pomoshchi bor ...
(MOPR) organization, Die Rote Hilfe.
Stasova returned to the USSR in February 1926.
The next year she was named deputy director head of the international MOPR as well as head of the Central Committee of the MOPR organization in the USSR, positions which she retained through 1937.
Stasova served as a member of the Central Control Commission of the Russian Communist Party from 1930 to 1934 and in 1935 the
7th World Congress of the Comintern
The Seventh World Congress of the Communist International (Comintern) was a multinational conference held in Moscow from July 25 through August 20, 1935 by delegated representatives of ruling and non-ruling communist parties from around the world ...
named her a member of the International Control Commission.
Unlike so many other "
Old Bolsheviks", Stasova was not arrested during the
spy
Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangib ...
mania and
secret police terror which swept the Soviet Union in the late 1930s, although in November 1937,
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
told the head of Comintern,
Georgi Dimitrov that Stasova was "scum" and "probably" would be arrested. She was dismissed from her post on MOPR five days later, on 16 November 1937. Unusually, she retained her place on the International Control Commission until Comintern was abolished in 1943, and in 1938 was re-employed as an editor of the magazine ''International Literature.'' Stasova continued in this role until 1946, when she retired.
In 1948, she received a "severe reprimand" for saying in a public lecture that "Lenin treated all comrades equally and even called Bukharin 'Bukharchik'" — ten years earlier Bukharin had confessed to being a traitor. She wrote later that the words "slipped out" and that it was "a grave political mistake" on her part.
Death and legacy
After Stalin's death, Elena Stasova was the last surviving Old Bolshevik who had served on the Central Committee during the 1917 revolution. She made very few public appearances after retiring, but in 1961, she was one of four Old Bolsheviks who signed an appeal to the
22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (russian: XXII съезд КПСС) was held from 17 to 31 October 1961. In fourteen days of sessions (22 October was a day off), 4,413 delegates, in addition to delegates from 83 foreign ...
for the posthumous rehabilitation of
Nikolai Bukharin.
A boarding school for foreigners in
Ivanovo, Russia Ivanovo (russian: Иваново) is the name of several types of inhabited localities in Russia, inhabited localities in Russia.
Arkhangelsk Oblast
As of 2010, one rural locality in Arkhangelsk Oblast bears this name:
*Ivanovo, Arkhangelsk Oblast, ...
called the Ivanovo International Boarding School ("
Interdom
Interdom (Ivanovo International Boarding School) is a special school for foreigners located in the city of Ivanovo in Russia. The name is an abbreviation of the Russian ''internatzionalny dom'' or "International House".
It was created in on March ...
"), established by MOPR in 1933, was named after Elena Stasova.
Stasova died on 31 December 1966 at
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...
and was laid containing an urn by
Kremlin Wall Necropolis
The Kremlin Wall Necropolis was the national cemetery for the Soviet Union. Burials in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis in Moscow began in November 1917, when 240 pro-Bolshevik individuals who died during the Moscow Bolshevik Uprising were buried in m ...
.
Writings
* ''MOPR's Banners Abroad: Report to the Third MOPR Congress of the Soviet Union.'' Moscow: Executive Committee of International Red Aid, 1931. (By-line given as "H. Stassova" on cover.)
Honours and awards
*
Hero of Socialist Labour
*
Order of Lenin
The Order of Lenin (russian: Орден Ленина, Orden Lenina, ), named after the leader of the Russian October Revolution, was established by the Central Executive Committee on April 6, 1930. The order was the highest civilian decoration ...
(4 times)
References
Further reading
*Barbara Evan Clements,
Bolshevik Women'' New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stasova, Elena
1873 births
1966 deaths
Burials at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis
Politicians from Saint Petersburg
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party members
Old Bolsheviks
Soviet politicians
Soviet women in politics
Female revolutionaries
Comintern people
Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union members
Heroes of Socialist Labour
Recipients of the Order of Lenin