Table Of ContentTurton, Katy (2004) Forgotten lives : the role of Anna, Ol'ga and Mariia
Ul'ianova in the Russian revolution 1864-1937. PhD thesis.
http://theses.gla.ac.uk/2594/
Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author
A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or
study, without prior permission or charge
This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first
obtaining permission in writing from the Author
The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any
format or medium without the formal permission of the Author
When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the
author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given
Glasgow Theses Service
http://theses.gla.ac.uk/
FORGOTTEN LIVES:
THE ROLE OF ANNA, OL'GA AND MARIIA
UL'IANOVA IN THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION,
1864-1937
Katy Turton
Thesis submitted for the degree of Ph.D. to the
University of Glasgow.
Research conducted in the Department of Central and
East European Studies.
April 2004
ABSTRACT
Anna, Ol'ga and Mariia Ul'ianova hold a place in history as Lenin's
sisters, his supporters and helpers, but they played a far greater role in the
Russian revolution and the Soviet regime as revolutionaries and Bolsheviks in
their own right. However, this aspect of their lives has been consistently
overlooked by English-language historians for decades. This thesis aims to
redress this imbalanced portrayal of the UI'ianov women. Although not solely
biographical in nature, it traces Anna, Ol'ga and Mariia's lives from their
childhood and education, through their work in the underground revolutionary
movement to their careers in the Soviet regime. It also investigates the
personality cults that arose around the UI'ianov women and their portrayal in
history since their deaths to the present day. The thesis uses extensive
unpublished primary documents from the RGASPI and GARF archives in
Moscow and contemporary publications such as Pravda and Proletarskaia
revoliutsiia to build a picture of Anna, Ol'ga and Mariia's lives and to interrogate
secondary sources about the sisters.
The thesis draws various conclusions about the Ul'ianov women. 01' ga
died when she was twenty, so she features only in two chapters of the thesis.
Nonetheless it is clear that like Anna and Mariia she was an intelligent and well-
educated young woman, who devoted herself to the study of revolutionary ideas.
Anna and Mariia joined the underground movement in the early 1890s and,
alongside Lenin, established themselves as competent, dedicated social
democrats. Although the sisters have been portrayed as little more than Lenin's
helpers, this thesis shows that Anna and Mariia had independent revolutionary
careers before 1917, acting as party correspondents, newspaper workers and
agitators. It is also apparent that during the underground years the UI'ianov
family as a whole acted as a mutual support network, exchanging political
information, advice and instructions.
After the revolution, this thesis shows that Anna and Mariia pursued
political careers which reflected their long-held political beliefs. Anna headed
the Department for the Protection of Children, while Mariia spent ten years
leading the Rabsel 'kor movement. Both women had to negotiate the changing
political times after their brother Lenin's death. While Anna retreated into work
for Istpart, Mariia participated in the power struggles between party fractions,
first supporting Stalin and Bukharin against the oppositionists and then
attempting to defend Bukharin against Stalin's attacks. This thesis investigates
Anna and Mariia' s prolific biographical works on Lenin, finding them to be a
means both of protecting the sisters from Stalin by raising their public profile and
of educating Soviet citizens. Finally this thesis shows how Anna and Mariia's
portrayal while they were alive and after their deaths shifted and changed
according to the political situation, the development of the cult of personality
around Lenin and even the current Soviet model of the ideal woman.
Although focussed on the sisters' lives, this thesis also sheds light on the
revolutionary underground, showing how issues that were of crucial importance
to the party's leadership in Europe often appeared insignificant or at odds with
the situation in Russia. The thesis also provides an insight into the working of
the Soviet government and how political relationships from before 1917 had a
great impact on the interactions between government departments and
individuals. Above all, however, this thesis gives Anna, Ol'ga and Mariia their
due place in Bolshevik and revolutionary history.
To reclaim our past and insist that it become a part of human
history is the task that lies before us, for the future requires
that women as well as men shape the world's destiny.
Judy Chicago, US Artist, 1939 _ 1
1 Judy Chicago, quoted in The Little Book of Great Women, (Oxford: New Internationalist
Publications Ltd, 2000), p. 90.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 1
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND CLARIFICATION OF DATES 2
INTRODUCTION 3
Methodology 8
CHAPTER ONE The Solar System Myth 16
The Learning Curve 27
CHAPTER TWO Becoming Revolutionaries 34
The Eldest 35
The Next Generation 41
The Last Recruit 49
Additions to the Family 52
CHAPTER THREE The Underground Years 60
Joining Up 64
The Spark 70
"The Revolution is Beginning" 79
From Saratov to February 87
CHAPTER FOUR The Ul'ianov Network 101
Working Together 104
The Politics of Exchange 110
A Revolutionary Year 125
CHAPTER FIVE The Revolution Realised 133
"A Great Friend of the Rabsel 'kors" 136
The Children of the Revolution 151
ANew History 164
Kremlin Life 170
CHAPTER SIX The New Order 176
The Eye of the Storm 183
The Edge of the Storm 203
The Il'ich University 209
The People's Friends 214
CHAPTER SEVEN The Sisters and History 219
W ri ting Lenin 220
The Sisters' Story 231
The Legacy 241
CONCLUSION 256
APPENDIX 1 The Ul'ianov Family Tree 262
APPENDIX 2 Chronology 263
APPENDIX 3 Bibliography of Works by Anna 277
Il'inichna Ul'ianova-Elizarova
APPENDIX 4 Bibliography of Works by Mariia 281
Il'inichna UI'ianova
BIBLIOGRAPHY 287
Archives 287
Published Documentary Collections 287
Contemporary Works and Memoirs 290
Secondary Accounts 304
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My thanks are due to the various institutions and people who have helped
me produce this thesis. My first thanks go to James D. White who suggested the
topic of Lenin's sisters to me and then provided encouragement and excellent
supervision during the four years of my research. I am grateful to the SAAS not
only for funding me through university and a post-graduate diploma in the
Russian Language, but also for providing a grant for my PhD, which included
generous provision for two research trips to Moscow. The AHRB, which took
over the funding in 2002, is also due thanks. The University of Glasgow and
more specifically the Department of Central and East European Studies, headed
by Richard Berry, has been an excellent environment for researching my thesis.
I appreciate the extra funding it provided to cover my attendance at various
conferences, the opportunities it offered me to present my research, as well as the
help it has given me as I look to embark on a career in academia. I would like to
thank Rebecca Kay for her insightful and invaluable supervision, as well as for
her day-to-day support and encouragement through application forms,
conference papers, crises of confidence and the other trials and tribulations of
being a PhD student. Thank you to David Longley for continuing to support my
work, long after retirement, to Fiona Black and Dickon Copsey for references,
and to the Study Group of the Russian Revolution for providing a friendly forum
in which to present as a post-graduate as well as to meet like-minded academics.
I would like to thank my family, Dorothy McPhillimy and the Moirs, the
Applecrossers, the eSharpers and my Sicilian friends for the love, friendship and
laughter they have given me over the last four years. Lastly, lowe my greatest
thanks to Grant for following me to Russia, returning to Scotland to me and for
giving me all the love, inspiration and support I could ever ask for.
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
USED IN BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES
A.1. Anna Il'inichna Vl'ianova-Elizarova
(To avoid confusion I will always refer to Aleksandr
Il'ich by his full name.)
D.1. Dmitrii II'ich Vl'ianov
GARF State Archive for the Russian Federation
(Archival references without GARF are from the
Russian State Archive of Social and Political History,
RGASPD
M.1. Mariia II'inichna Vl'ianova
M.A. Mariia Aleksandrovna Vl'ianova
N.K. N adezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaia
OJ. Ol'ga Il'inichna Vl'ianova
V.1. Vladimir II'ich Vl'ianov (Lenin)
CLARIFICATION OF DATES
Until the Bolsheviks changed the Russian calendar on 14 February 1918, Russia
followed the Julian (old style) calendar rather than the Gregorian (new style) calendar,
which was used in the rest of Europe. The Julian calendar was twelve days behind the
th th
Gregorian calendar in the 19 century and thirteen days behind it in the 20 century.
I have used the Julian calendar for dates before 14 February 1918.
INTRODUCTION
FORGOTTEN LIVES
Writing in 1932, the historian, D.S. Mirsky, judged that Anna and Mariia
Ul 'ianova, Lenin's sisters were "more or less prominent members of the Social
Democratic, and afterwards, of the Communist Party", but qualified his
statement with the comment that "their revolutionary importance is both
enhanced and eclipsed by the immense figure of Vladimir Il'ich".l
This is a problem faced by all historians of women who write about the
wife or sister or lover of a famous man. The achievements of a woman who was
accomplished in her own right frequently appear insignificant or overshadowed
by the fact that her husband, brother or lover was prime minister, president,
2
explorer or inventor. How does the historian give a fair appraisal of a woman
who was known to the public and known in history mainly because she was
connected to a 'great' man, but who in fact played her own distinct role in
politics, culture or society? Lenin lived his life surrounded by women, including
his wife, Krupskaia, and lover, Armand, his mother and mother-in-law, and his
three sisters, Anna, 01' ga and Mariia, as well as fellow revolutionaries like
Kollontai and his large staff of secretaries. They are all given passing mentions
in biographies of Lenin as "worshipful, subservient women" who were
3
temporarily important to him or to his work. In Anna, Ol'ga and Mariia's case,
the fact that they were 'only' Lenin's sisters, connected to him by chance and not
his choice, has ensured that they are given even less historical attention than the
women Lenin met in his lifetime. Biographies of Lenin tend to refer to his sisters
only during his childhood and the early revolutionary period, and then during his
illness, when Mariia, in particular, cared for him.4 Between those years, readers
1 D.S. Mirsky, Lenin, (London: The Holme Press, 1932), pp. 3-4.
2 Marilyn Yalom, 'Biography as Autobiography: Adele Hugo, Witness of Her Husband's Life',
in Revealing Lives: Autobiography, Biography and Gender, ed. by Susan Groag Bell and
Marilyn Yalom, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990), p. 53.
3 Larissa Vasilieva, Kremlin Wives, ed. and trans. by Cathy Porter, (London: Weidenfeld &
Nicolson, 1994), p. 9.
4 See, for example, Ronald W. Clark, Lenin: The Man Behind the Mask, (London: Faber &
Faber, 1988), Louis Fischer, The Life ofL enin, (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1964) or even
the very recent Robert Service, Lenin: A Biography, (London: Macmillan,2000). Service does
refer to the sisters more than most, but as I shall show in this thesis, these references are
problematic.
3
