Krupskaya, Nadezhda Konstantinova (1869-1939)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1939 Mar 8 p. 1

Birth date: 1869

text of obituary:

WIFE OF LENIN DIED LAST WEEK IN MOSCOW

Newspapers last week reported the death of Lenin's wife, known as Mme. Nadejida [sic Nadezhda] Konstantinova Krupskaya.

In her seventy years, and many years of revolutionary activity, she had a hard life of scheming, of flight, imprisonment, and exile.

The following are brief facts from her life history: In 1896, the year she met the future Bolshevick [sic] leader, Lenin, Krupskaya was sent off to Siberia for three years, to a frozen spot 1200 miles from the nearest railroad.

But Lenin followed her there, and they were married.

For a year after she was exiled she carried on underground work of UFA, in the Ural mountains, then she went to Munich in Germany. Upon returning to Germany she became secretary of "The Spark," the newspaper which published Lenin's writings, and played an important part in bringing on the revolution of 1905. After the failure of that rebellion, she went back to St. Petersburg, rising steadily in the Bolshevik hierarchy, until forced to flee again in 1908.

She was abroad, like her husband, when the World War broke out, and it is uncertain whether she returned with Lenin in the famous sealed train which sped through the war liens under German auspices. in any event, Krupskaya was in Russia in time for the revolution, and with Lenin put her policies into effect.