Inessa Armand

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.