For the history of the former Soviet Union, you may have only heard the names of Lenin and Stalin, but not Lenin's wife, Krupskaya.
Krupskaya was not from a low background, having grown up and studied in a progressive aristocratic family from an early age. She was well acquainted with the revolution and the life of the people at all levels, always stood on the side of the working people, and showed a resolute hatred for the exploiters.
When she was still very young, she developed a strong interest in the teaching profession, and since then she has been deeply involved in this field, with many theoretical outputs, and eventually became a generation of famous educators.
In fact, this beautiful woman was not only Lenin's wife, but also his close revolutionary comrade-in-arms, and had the title of "First Lady of the Soviet Union".
Her feelings for Lenin were even deeper. After Lenin's death, she became a poor widow and lived a very lonely life, but why did Stalin give her a cruel order?
imbroglio
During Lenin's lifetime, Krupskaya had an entanglement with Stalin.
In 1922, Lenin was seriously ill, and with the consent of his doctor, he dictated a letter to Trotsky asking him to continue his offensive posture on the monopoly of foreign trade.
At that time, because Krupskaya had recorded the letter, Stalin called her, in which he scolded her and threatened her by taking the matter to the Central Supervisory Commission.
Krupskaya knew about Lenin's illness and did not tell about the humiliation she had suffered.
She wrote about it only in a letter to Kamenev, in which she said: "Stalin has brutally insulted me, I have not been in the party for a day, I have not heard a word of comrade insult against me for thirty years, neither the interests of the party nor Lenin have been exchanged for Stalin's respect for me." I know better than all the doctors what can be said to Ilyich. ”
She seems to be pouring out her grievances and grievances to Kamenev, but in fact she is also seeking a kind of protection from him, she is not willing to trouble Lenin, but she alone cannot support herself in front of Stalin.
Krupskaya had a heart to hide from Stalin. However, paper can't contain fire after all.
In 1923, Stalin made another phone call to Lenin's residence, and after Krupskaya replied, Lenin immediately asked her who had called, and Krupskaya replied: "Stalin, I don't care about him." ”
There was so much information in such a sentence, and with the addition of Stalin's name, Lenin naturally did not let his guard down and immediately continued to ask, and Krupskaya knew that he could not hide it, so he was forced to tell the truth.
When talking about being scolded, Krupskaya did not want to worry more about Stalin, and she advised Lenin not to pay much attention to it.
She felt that the matter had passed, and she did not take it to heart. It's just that Lenin didn't see it that way. In his opinion, Stalin's words and deeds were completely against him. Stalin seemed to have only humiliated Krupskaya, but in fact it also caused great damage to Lenin's face.
On March 5, 1923, Lenin dictated a letter to Stalin, solemnly demanding his apology, and copied the letter to Noviev and Kamenev.
He said that if Stalin did not apologize, then simply severed relations between them. "You rudely asked my wife to answer the phone and abused her, and although she agreed to you to forget what you said, Zinoviev and Kamenev learned about it from her. ”
Lenin's attitude was so fierce that Stalin could not help but consider Lenin's face, and he finally chose to bow his head and apologize to Krupskaya, but he was not a person who was willing to give up on this, and he still remembered this incident afterwards, and his entanglement with Krupskaya became deeper and deeper as time went on.
In the eyes of historians, the contradiction between Krupskaya and Stalin is, to a certain extent, also the contradiction between Lenin and Stalin.
Before Lenin's illness, Stalin had the power of General Secretary of the Politburo. After Lenin's illness, the contradictions between the two men on the monopoly of foreign trade, the "Georgian" affair, and the question of the workers' and peasants' inspectorate became more and more acute.
Krupskaya, Lenin's wife and a veteran member of the Russian Communist Party, was caught between the two, standing in opposition to Stalin in both public and private life.
At the same time, she was deeply dissatisfied with Stalin's Russism and bureaucratic ways, and it was difficult for her to easily reconcile with Stalin in order to safeguard the interests of the party and the state.
Accounts
After Lenin's death, Stalin went to Krupskaya again, which was quite a bit of a reckoning after the autumn. He never forgot that he was forced by Lenin to bow his head to this lady and admit his mistakes, and he was not willing to easily forgive Krupskaya in action. In everyday life, he always ignored Krupskaya and avoided talking to her.
A political time in 1925 gave Krupskaya and Stalin the opportunity for dialogue.
At that time, the two had a disagreement over the issue of Zinoviev's opposition, and Krupskaya showed support for the opposition, and Stalin persuaded her to abandon this attitude, saying that if she agreed, he would make her a member of the Politburo.
It's just that Krupskaya's attitude is very firm, and Stalin's temptation of power is completely useless for her. She made it clear that Stalin could not change her faith.
However, Krupskaya later realized that the opposition's path was not the right one, and soon disassociated herself with it. On May 20, 1927, Krupskaya published a statement in Pravda in which she parted ways with the opposition the previous fall.
This also meant that Stalin had already won the struggle for power, but he did not intend to let Krupskaya go because of this.
At the end of 1929, Stalin gave a cruel order to Krupskaya. At the time, Krupskaya was talking to her secretary in her Kremlin room when suddenly a phone call from the Kremlin garrison command said that a milkman from the city of Gorky was wanted to enter her room.
Krupskaya and the secretary both felt that things were not easy, and the secretary made a special call to Gorky City, and learned that they had not sent a milkman at all.
It was already clear that this was a detective sent by Stalin to enter her room and investigate her.
Krupskaya naturally refused, but the garrison command kept calling, showing an unusually tough and rough attitude. Worried about Krupskaya's sense of safety, the secretary called the captain of the government officials' guard for help, but it still failed to change the course of events.
Faced with such an encounter, Krupskaya's final reaction was very calm. She said that since they had already arranged it, let it be, and the next day, let the so-called "milkman" enter the door.
In short, in the "showdown" with Stalin, Krupskaya did not show any retreat and fear, she was always the "first lady" who bravely faced the battle and never admitted defeat.
Even without Lenin's protection, she still used her own methods to defend her position and dignity.
finale
Krupskaya died at the age of 70 and died on February 26, 1939.
She died suddenly, fainting without warning. When the secretary got the news, he immediately called an ambulance and sent her to the Kremlin hospital, where the diagnosis was cerebral thrombosis, and the condition was dangerous, and it was best to have surgery immediately.
It's just that Krupskaya also happens to have a relatively serious heart disease, and if she dares to undergo surgery, she risks dying on the operating table.
In times of crisis, Krupskaya was lying in a hospital bed and woke up twice, once to ask the secretary what she was doing in the world now, and the secretary replied that she had received many telegrams congratulating her on her 70th birthday, and the central government had also sent congratulatory telegrams, and the other time she woke up and said that no matter what kind of treatment the doctor wanted, she must go to a meeting.
She did not specify what the meeting was, but later Soviet scholars mostly felt that she was going to the 18th Congress, where she was going to oppose the "rebellion" and Stalin.
However, this was not particularly confirmed, and her secretary later merely recalled that she had planned to make a presentation on the subject of political education at the conference and had made serious preparations.
In terms of information about Krupskaya's death, some people say that someone else poisoned her birthday cake, and that she was poisoned.
But according to the testimony of the secretary later, this statement is self-defeating, because they did not receive any cake at that time, and even if they did, Krupskaya would have let them enjoy it together, and if the cake was poisonous, Krupskaya would not be the only one who had the accident.
At that time, there were many other theories, such as the fact that after Krupskaya's death, a large search was carried out on her room and villa. But the reality is that Krupskaya does not have a dacha at all, she is constantly resting in the Arkhangelsk sanatorium.
In the case of the room search, there were also eyewitnesses who testified that the search did not exist. The secretary also gave a more explicit reply, saying that he had only handed over the materials in the safe, that is, some manuscripts, which Krupskaya had given her before her death.
Later, the Central Committee also came to several staff members to divide and sort out Krupskaya's file together with the secretary, and the whole process took about a month.
Some of these archives were handed over to the archives of the Party Central Committee and some to the Ministry of Education, which also marked the two most important events in her life - the revolution and education.