As you know, in the family of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and his wife Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya there were no children. In Soviet times, this delicate topic was carefully hushed up, but now every now and then there are versions of the illegitimate descendants of the leader of the world proletariat. Assumptions are very different - from the offspring of the merchant's daughter Varvara, who lived in Shushenskoye, to the Socialist-Revolutionary Fanny Kaplan, who wanted to kill her father, Lenin, out of resentment for her abandoned mother. The long-term relationship between the leader of the Bolsheviks and Inessa Armand also gave reason to say that they could have a common child - and not even one.
Love amid the class struggle
Lenin's close friendship with the ardent revolutionary of French descent lasted for over ten years - until the woman's death from cholera in 1920. Many of Ilyich's associates, in particular Alexandra Kollontai, who claimed that Lenin's tumultuous romance with Armand began in 1911 while working together at a party school in the Paris suburb of Longjumeau, said that they could have a love relationship. And Nadezhda Krupskaya allegedly resigned herself to the fact that her husband had a mistress, and treated her as a faithful ally in the class struggle. In her surviving family album, photographs of Inessa and Vladimir Ilyich are located on one page.
Documents preserved in the archives indirectly testify to the intimate relations of the leader with Inessa Armand. This is what a woman writes to Lenin in 1913 (from Paris to Krakow): “We parted, we parted, dear, with you! And it hurts so much. I would do without kissing now, just to see you. " And this is an entry from Inessa's diary, made shortly before her death: “A hot feeling remained only for the children and for V. I. In all other respects, the heart seemed to have died out."
After the revolution, Inessa Armand became the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Moscow province. She lived next to Lenin's sister Anna - and the Bolshevik leader had the opportunity to visit her.
Alexandra Kollontai said in her memoirs that the death of her beloved woman shocked the leader and aggravated his illness. Among the wreaths laid on the grave, one was of fresh white flowers and with an inscription on the mourning ribbon: "To Comrade Inessa from V. I. Lenin."
At the age of 15, in 1889, Inessa (maiden name d'Erbanville) came to Russia to visit her aunt (the mother of the future revolutionary had Russian citizenship), who gave music lessons to the wealthy Armand family of textile industrialists. Four years later, the girl married Alexander Armand, the son of a merchant of the first guild.
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The sons Fyodor and Alexander appeared in the marriage, as well as daughters Inna and Varvara. In 1902, Inessa left her husband for his 18-year-old brother Vladimir (she was then 28 years old), from whom she gave birth to another son, Andrei.
Date in the personal file
It is Andrei Armand that many historians consider Lenin's illegitimate son. It would seem that the date of his birth, 1903, excludes such a version - after all, then the Bolshevik leader and Inessa Armand did not even know each other.
But the archives preserved the personal file of Andrei Armand, the captain of the Red Army, who died in 1944 in the battles for the Baltic states. And there the date of birth is 1909! The fact that this is the same Andrei Armand is evidenced by his home address: Moscow, Manezhnaya street, house 9. It was here that the family of Inessa Armand lived after the revolution.
Vladimir, the second husband of Inessa, died of tuberculosis in the same 1909. If the date of birth of Andrei indicated in the personal file is correct, then his father could be both the official spouse of his mother and the leader of the Bolsheviks.
Rumors about Andrey Armand's relationship with Lenin circulated immediately after his birth. This was facilitated by a strange act of the mother: she gave the boy the patronymic of not the second, but the first husband. That is, he remained Andrei Alexandrovich for the rest of his life. According to the documents, Alexander Armand adopted the son of his brother.
But why did Inessa take such a step? Maybe she wanted to emphasize that the deceased spouse was not the father of the child?
Seized correspondence
Information about the life of Andrei Armand is rather scanty. The apartment in which Inessa's family was settled by order of Lenin was communal. Andrei, who received a higher education, went to Nizhny Novgorod (Gorky), where he worked at a plant as a mechanical engineer. In 1935 he returned to Moscow. In 1941, he volunteered for the front as part of the people's militia.
His last duty station was the 1389th Antiaircraft Artillery Regiment of the 34th Antiaircraft Artillery Division. In the battles for the Lithuanian city of Vilkaviskis, Andrei was seriously wounded, he died in the hospital on October 7, 1944, and was buried in the cemetery of Soviet soldiers in Marijampole in the south-west of Lithuania.
In the city registration book there is an entry that the buried Andrei Alexandrovich Armand is the son of Inessa Armand and Vladimir Ulyanov. But when and under what circumstances it was made, no one can explain.
After Inessa's death, Nadezhda Krupskaya took care of her children. All personal correspondence with Lenin was seized by the Chekists. At the same time, the members of the Armand family are sure that Andrei was not the son of the leader, moreover, the relationship of the Bolshevik leader with Inessa did not go beyond friendship.
Residents of Marijampole claim that in the early 1990s a delegation from Russia came to their city. The guests begged the local authorities to open the grave in order to make a DNA analysis of the remains of Captain Armand. But they did not receive permission for these actions. And, accordingly, the question remained open.
At the direction of Stalin
The version about the other son looks much more contrived. In Germany, since socialist times, there was a legend that Lenin's son lived in the country. The version was so popular that it even entered the history textbook of German schoolchildren.
In 1998, a resident of Berlin, Alexander Vladimirovich Steffen, who was 85 at the time, gave an interview to journalist Arnold Bespo. He claimed to be the son of Lenin and Inessa Armand and was born in 1913.
At the age of seven months, Steffen said, he was sent to the family of an unnamed Austrian communist. In the spring of 1920, the boy was visited by his mother in Salzburg, who revealed to him the secret of his birth. In 1928, unknown people took Alexander to America. Staffen believed that this was done at the direction of Stalin.
Alexander obtained US citizenship and served at the Portland Naval Base from 1943-1947. In 1959, after the death of his wife, he changed his place of residence - he moved to the GDR. Here he was immediately granted citizenship and a good apartment. He was received by the then leader of the country Walter Ulbricht - and in a personal conversation said that he knew about the origin of Alexander. And in 1967, Leonid Brezhnev, who arrived on an official visit to Berlin, presented him with the Order of Friendship of Peoples.
Not too believable
The facts presented in the interview do not look very believable.
First of all, there is no documentary evidence that Inessa Armand had another child. Based on the indicated time of his birth (1913), he could be born only in the prison of St. Petersburg (Inessa was there from the fall of 1912 to March 1913, and the last meeting with Lenin before the prison was in June 1912). But in this institution, information about the prisoner's pregnancy and childbirth would have been preserved!
In addition, it is known that Inessa loved her children very much and would hardly agree to give any of them into the wrong hands.
The dates do not coincide either: in 1920 Inessa did not leave for Salzburg, and Brezhnev's visit to the GDR took place not in 1967, but in 1971.
In fact, the only argument in favor of the version set forth by Alexander Steffen is that his surname coincides with the stage name of Inessa's father Theodore d'Herbenville, who was an opera singer (Steffen is the French version of the ancient Greek word that can be translated as "wreath, crown").
Dedication to the cruiser "Aurora"
And the assumption about another son of Lenin and Inessa Armand, whose name was Dmitry, looks absolutely fantastic. This version is actively promoted on the Internet by fans of the famous American actor Leonardo DiCaprio. Several years ago, pictures of the artist appeared on the World Wide Web in the image of Lenin and his revelations about how he dreams of playing the leader of the revolution. The external resemblance was so obvious that a legend was born among Internet users: in 1920, before her death, Inessa Armand gave birth to a son, Dmitry. The boy was transferred to a strange family. In 1942, Dmitry was in German captivity (the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Lower Saxony is indicated). When the British liberated the prisoners in 1945, Dmitry, not wanting to return to his homeland, changed his surname to Italian. He married and emigrated first to England, then to the United States. The couple had a son, George, and in 1974 Leonardo was born in the family, named after the great da Vinci.
Internet users send each other words that they attribute to the actor: “I am not familiar with Lenin's teachings, but I am pleased with the fact that I am the heir of such a famous person. I dedicate my shooting in the film "Titanic" to my great-grandfather and his cruiser "Aurora" ". But whether Leonardo actually pronounced them - perhaps even the most ardent fans do not fully believe.
Elina POGONINA