Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Krupskaya was born into a noble family that had descended into poverty, and she
developed strong views about improving the lot of the poor. At one Marxist
discussion group, she met Lenin who was soon exiled to Siberia, where she was
allowed to join him, on condition that they married. This could suggest a marriage of
convenience, though they remained loyal. Following the 1917 Revolution, Krupskaya
was at the forefront of the political scene. From 1922–1925, she was aligned with
Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev against Trotsky's Left Opposition, though she later fell
out with Stalin. She was deputy education commissar from 1929 to 1939, with strong
influence over the Soviet educational system, including the development of Soviet
librarianship.
Contents
1 Early life
2 Married life
3 Political career
3.1 Views
3.2 Alleged role in the Georgian Affair and tension with Stalin
4 Soviet education and libraries
4.1 Soviet education
Early life
Nadezhda Krupskaya was born to an upper-class but impoverished family. Her father,
Konstantin Ignat'evich Krupski (1838–1883), was a Russian military officer and a
nobleman of the Russian Empire who had been orphaned in 1847 at the age of nine.
He was educated and given a commission as an infantry officer in the Russian Army.
[3] Just before leaving for his assignment in Poland, he married Krupskaya's mother.
After six years of service, Krupski lost favour with his supervisors and was charged
with "un-Russian activities." He may have been suspected of being involved with
revolutionaries. Following this time he worked in factories or wherever he could find
work. Just before his death, he was recommissioned as an officer.[4]
After her father's death, Krupskaya and her mother gave lessons as a source of
income. Krupskaya had expressed an interest in entering the education field from a
young age.[9] She was particularly drawn to Leo Tolstoy's theories on education,
which were fluid instead of structured. They focused on the personal development of
each individual student and centred on the importance of the teacher–student
relationship.[10]
This led Krupskaya to study many of Tolstoy's works, including his theories of
reformation. These were peaceful, law-abiding ideas, which focused on people
abstaining from unneeded luxuries and being self-dependent instead of hiring
someone else to tend their house, etc. Tolstoy made a lasting impression on
Krupskaya; it was said that she had "a special contempt for stylish clothes and
comfort."[11] She was always modest in dress, as were her furnishings in her home
and office.
Married life
In October 1896, several months after Lenin was arrested, Krupskaya was also
arrested. After some time, Lenin was sentenced to exile in Siberia. They had very
little communication while in prison but before leaving for Siberia, Lenin wrote a
"secret note" to Krupskaya that was delivered by her mother. It suggested that she
could be permitted to join him in Siberia if she told people she was his fiancée. At that
time, Krupskaya was still awaiting sentencing in Siberia. In 1898,[13] Krupskaya was
permitted to accompany Lenin but only if they were married as soon as she arrived.
[15]
In her memoirs, Krupskaya notes "with him even such a job as translation was a
labour of love".[16] Her relationship with Lenin was more professional than marital,
but she remained loyal, never once considering divorce.[citation needed]
Upon his release, Lenin went off to Europe and settled in Munich. Upon her release
Krupskaya joined him (1901). After she had arrived the couple moved to London.
Political career
Nadezhda Krupskaya, Vladimir Lenin, Lenin's cat, and an American journalist in the
Kremlin, 1920
Krupskaya's political life was active: she was anything but a mere functionary of the
Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party from 1903.
Leon Trotsky, who was working closely with Lenin and Krupskaya from 1902–1903,
writes in his autobiography ("My Life", 1930) of the central importance of Krupskaya
in the day-to-day work of the RSDLP[clarification needed] and its newspaper, Iskra.
"The secretary of the editorial board [of Iskra] was [Lenin's] wife [...] She was at the
very center of all the organization work; she received comrades when they arrived,
instructed them when they left, established connections, supplied secret addresses,
wrote letters, and coded and decoded correspondence. In her room there was always a
smell of burned paper from the secret letters she heated over the fire to read..."[18]
Krupskaya became secretary of the Central Committee in 1905; she returned to Russia
the same year, but left again after the failed revolution of 1905 and worked as a
teacher in France for a couple of years.
After the October Revolution in 1917, she was appointed deputy to Anatoliy
Lunacharskiy, the People's Commissar for Education, where she took charge of
Vneshkol'nyi Otdel the Adult Education Division. She became chair of the education
committee in 1920 and was the deputy education commissar (government minister)
from 1929 to 1939.
In 1936, she defended restrictions on abortion passed by the Soviet government in that
year, arguing that they were part of a consistent policy pursued since 1920 to do away
with the reasons to have an abortion.[21]
Krupskaya wrote a memoir of her life with Lenin, translated in 1930 as Memories of
Lenin and in 1970 as Reminiscences of Lenin.[22] The book gives the most detailed
account of Lenin's life before his coming to power and ends in 1919. However, the
text was edited by other hands after Krupskaya finished it and so may not be entirely
reliable.
In his 2014 book Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, historian Stephen Kotkin claims that
three letters and one Pravda article supposedly dictated by Lenin, as well as a report
delivered to Lenin relating to the Georgian Affair, were partly or wholly fabricated by
Krupskaya with the aim of weakening Stalin's standing within the Party. Kotkin
claims this may have resulted from a falling-out between Krupskaya and Stalin.[23]
Soviet education
Further information: Education in the Soviet Union
The revolution did not cause an overnight improvement in the libraries. In fact, for a
while there were even more problems. The Trade Unions still refused to allow general
public use, funds for purchasing books and materials were in short supply and books
that were already a part of the libraries were falling apart. In addition there was a low
interest in the library career field due to low income and the libraries were sorely in
need of re-organization.
She also sought better professional schools for librarians. Formal training was scarce
in pre-revolutionary Russia for librarians and it only truly began in the 20th century.
Krupskaya, therefore, advocated the creation of library "seminaries" where practicing
librarians would instruct aspiring librarians in the skills of their profession, similar to
those in the West. The pedagogical characteristics were however those of the Soviet
revolutionary period. Librarians were trained to determine what materials were
suitable to patrons and whether or not they had the ability to appreciate what the
resource had to offer.[29]
Krupskaya also desired that librarians possess greater verbal and writing skills so that
they could more clearly explain why certain reading materials were better than others
to their patrons. She believed that explaining resource choices to patrons was a
courtesy and an opportunity for more education in socialist political values, not
something that was required of the librarian. They were to become facilitators of the
revolution and, later, those who helped preserve the values of the resulting socialist
state.[29]
Krupskaya was a committed Marxist for whom each element of public education was
a step toward improving the life of her people, granting all individuals access to the
tools of education and libraries, needed to forge a more fulfilling life. The fulfillment
was education and the tools were education and library systems.[30]