Inessa Armand Revolutionary and Feminist [Paperback]

Revealing information on the first Director of the Women's Section of the Russian Communist Party.Based on unpublished police reports, memoirs, and Armand's correspondence, this study provides revealing information on Inessa Armand, the first Director of ?the Women's Section of the Russian Communist Party and one of the most important women in the pre-revolutionary Bolshevik Party.Based on unpublished police reports, memoirs, and Armand's correspondence, this study provides revealing information on Inessa Armand, the first Director of ?the Women's Section of the Russian Communist Party and one of the most important women in the pre-revolutionary Bolshevik Party.Inessa Armand was born of French-English parents in Paris in 1874, raised in the family of a wealthy Moscovite manufacturer, and buried at the age of 46 next to the walls of the Kremlin. In this biography, Professor R. C. Ellwood explores her relatively short life as a Tolstoyan, a lady philanthropist interested in rehabilitating prostitutes, an underground propagandist arrested five times by the tsarist police, an important Bolshevik organizer in Western Europe before the revolution, and a leading Soviet feminist from 1917 to 1920. Armand's unique life is made even more interesting by her close friendship with Lenin and this study examines their stormy relations, casting doubt on the conventional wisdom of an extended love affair.List of illustrations; Preface; Introduction; 1. In the nest of gentlefolk; 2. From feminism to Marxism; 3. Underground propagandist; 4. Years of wandering; 5. Building a 'party of new type'; 6. In defence of women workers; 7. Lenin's 'girl friday'; 8. The end of an affair?; 9. On the eve of revolution; 10. Return to Moscow; 11. French fiasco; 12. Soviet feminism; 13. Death in the Caucasus; Bibliography; Index.Elwood's scholarship is...scrupulous...he makes important dicoveries through close comparison of variant editions of texts. Journal of Modern History ...Armand's story--nowl#(