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The Making of a Female Marxist: E.D. Kuskova's Conversion to Russian Social Democracy*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2008
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Historians have traditionally overlooked the role of women in Russian Social Democracy. This article, based on archival as well as published sources, examines the radicalization of E.D. Kuskova (1860–1958), a long neglected participant in the Russian Marxist movement during its formative years.
Kuskova was attracted to radicalism by its promise of a fulfilling life of service to society, and as an escape from the traditional, confining roles for women in prerevo-lutionary Russia. She came to Social Democracy after concluding that it provided a more satisfactory Weltanschauung and a more accurate diagnosis of Russia's socio-economic ills than did its ideological alternatives.
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References
1 Western historiography has produced only three studies of women who entered the ranks of Russian Social Democracy in this period: McNeal, Robert H., Bride of the Revolution: Krupskaia and Lenin (Ann Arbor, MI, 1972)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bergman, Jay, Vera Zasulich: A Biography (Stanford, CA, 1983)Google Scholar; and Beate Fieseler, “Women in Russian Social Democracy, 1890–1917: The Making of Women Social Democrats”, unpublished paper presented to the Conference on Women in the History of the Russian Empire, Akron, OH, August 1988. On the general neglect of women in Russian Social Democracy in the prerevolutionary period, see Fieseler, , “Women in Russian Social Democracy”, pp. 1–2.Google Scholar
2 Aronson, G.Ia., “E.D. Kuskova. Portret obshchestvennogodeiatelia”,.Novyi zhurnal, XXXVII (1954), p. 237.Google Scholar It is indicative of historians' lack of interest in Russia's first women Marxists that the most extensive attention to Kuskova's early political thought and activity is that provided in Galai, Shmuel, The Liberation Movement in Russia (Cambridge, 1973), pp. 61–63, 65, 71, 74.Google Scholar
3 The principal source is Kuskova's memoirs, “Davno minuvshee”, which appeared in Novyi zhurnal between 1955 and her death in 1958; these cover the first three decades of her life. Additional reminiscences about this period are contained in her “Tragediia Maksima Gor'kogo”, Novyi zhurnal, XXXVII (1954), pp. 224–245Google Scholar, and “Nadpol'e i podpol'e marksizma”, Novoe russkoe slovo, 24 07 1954.Google Scholar Unpublished reminiscences are found in Kuskova's correspondence with three emigré friends, written between 1949 and 1957 and preserved in the L.O. Dan Archive of the Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis, Amsterdam [hereafter, IISG], and in the V.A. Maklakov and N.V. Volsky collections of the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford, CA [hereafter, HIWRP].
These recollections, written after more than forty years, contain numerous inconsistencies in points of detail, and especially dating. This reflects not only the vagaries of time and memory but also a certain carelessness on Kuskova's part. Yet, the over-all chronology and her general reconstruction of events is consistent throughout her writings and is often verifiable from other sources.
4 Some of these have been published in Obzor vazhneishikh dozanii, proizvodivshikhsia v zhandarmskikh upravleniiakh Imperii, po gosudarstvennym prestupleniiam, XVII ([St. Petersburg], n.d.) and Men'shchikov, L.P., Okhrana i revoliutsiia, 3 vols (Moscow, 1925–1932).Google Scholar A generous colleague has provided detailed notes on police files – some of them inaccessible to Western scholars- preserved in Tsentral'nyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Oktiabr'skoi revoliutsii, Moscow [hereafter, TsGAOR] and in Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv saratovskoi oblasti, Saratov [hereafter, GASO].
5 Most important among these are Chernov, V.M., Zapiski sotsialista revolutionera (Berlin, 1922)Google Scholar; Mitskevich, S.I. (ed.), Na zare rabochego dvizheniia v Moskve (Moscow, 1932)Google Scholar, and Na grani dvukh epokh. Ot narodnichestva k marksizmu (Moscow, 1937).Google Scholar
6 Kuskova, “Davno minuvshee”, XXXXIII (1955), pp. 96, 113, 115; and Aronson, G.Ia., “K 80-tiletiiu. E.D. Kuskovoi”, Sotsialisticheskii vestnik, XII, no. 627 (1949), p. 223.Google Scholar I have adopted the name “Kuskova” throughout for the sake of convenience and to avoid confusion, since her surname changed twice in the period under consideration. In fact, she did not become Kuskova until her second marriage in 1893.
7 Kuskova, “Davno minuvhsee”, XXXXIII, pp. 96–112. The surname Esipov suggests that Kuskova's father probably belonged to one of Russia's oldest and most prestigious untitled noble families, albeit a branch that no longer retained any wealth. Entsiklopedi-cheskii slovar', 43 vols (St. Petersburg, 1893–1907), XIa (1894), p. 648Google Scholar, s.v. “Esipovy”.
8 That is, a student in the “women's higher courses” (vysshie zhenskie kursy), initiated at the beginning of the 1870s as private, non-degree granting institutions of higher educa tion for women. See Entsiklopedicheskii slovar' XX (1894), pp. 870–873Google Scholar s.v. “Zhenskoe obrazovanie”; and Ruth A.F. Dudgeon, “Women and Higher Education in Russia, 1855–1905” (Ph.D., George Washington University, 1975), pp. 130–131.
9 Kuskova, , “Davno minuvshee”, XXXXIII, p. 112.Google Scholar Also, p. 111.
10 Ibid., pp. 116–117. Also see ibid., XXXXIV (1956), p. 124, and Kuskova, to Vol'skii, N.V., 10 11 1955Google Scholar, HIWRP, Volsky Collection, box 5.
11 Kuskova, , “Davno minuvshee”, XXXXIV, pp. 124, 129–130, 138Google Scholar, and XXXXIII, p. 117.
12 Ibid., XXXXV (1956), p. 159. The typical curriculum for girls' gymnasia included the following subjects required during a seven year period: religion, Russian, French, German, mathematics, history, geography, physics, drawing, needlework, gymnastics, and choir. Satina, S., Education of Women in Pre-revolutionary Russia, trans. Poustchine, A.F. (New York, 1966), p. 45.Google Scholar It is worth noting that, even as late as 1894, only one percent of all Russian girls attended school (as compared with approximately four percent of all boys). Stiles, Richard, The Women's Liberation Movement in Russia. Feminism, Nihilism and Bolshevism, 1860–1930 (Princeton, NJ, 1978), p. 166.Google Scholar
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14 Ibid., pp. 161–162, 166–167. Also see XXXXIV, pp. 136–137.
15 Ibid., XXXXV, pp. 163, 166–167, and XXXXIV, p. 138.
16 Ibid., XXXXIV, pp. 124, 129–130, 138, XXXXIII, p. 117, and XXXXV, p. 167.
17 Ibid., XXXXIII, p. 118, and XXXXIV, p. 136. Also see, XXXXIV, pp. 125, 131, 134.
18 Ibid., XXXXIV, pp. 140–142, and XXXXV, pp. 162,169. The date of her graduation is confirmed by police files. TsGAOR, f. 102, 3d–vo, 1894, d. 19, 1. 2.
19 Kuskova, , “Davno minuvshee”, XXXXV, pp. 174–177.Google Scholar
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21 On Saratov as a place of exile, see Ul'ianov, G., “Vospominaniia o M. A. Natansone”, Katorga i ssylka, no. 4/89 (1932), pp. 62–63Google Scholar; and Shirokova, V.V., Partiia “Narodnogo prava”. Iz istorii osvoboditel'nogo dvizheniia 90–kh godov XIX veka (Saratov, 1972), pp. 33–35.Google Scholar
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24 Kuskova, , “Davno minuvshee”, XXXXV, p. 162Google Scholar, and XXXXIV, p. 142.
25 Ibid., XXXXV, pp. 158–159, and Kuskova to Vol'skii, 31 July 1949, HIWRP, Volsky Collection, box 5.
26 Shilov, A.A. et al. (eds.), Deiateli revoliutsionnogo dvizheniia v Rossii. Biobibliografi-cheskii slovar', 4 vols (Moscow, 1927–1934), II, pt. 4Google Scholar (1932), cols 2109–2110, s.v. “luve-naliev, Ivan Petrovich”; and Kuskova, “Davno minuvshee”, XXXXV, p. 159. Returning to Saratov in 1879, Iuvenaliev received a teaching appointment at the gymnasium sometime before December 1881, despite police concern about his “political unreliability”. GASO, f. 1, op. l, 1879, d. 2919,11. 1, 4, 7,10, 13,170b.; and TsGAOR, f. 102, 3 d-vo, 1882, op. 78, d. 469,1. 2.
27 Kuskova, , “Davno minuvhsee”, XXXXVII, pp. 155,174–175, and Kuskova to Makla-kov, 1 November 1951, HIWRP, Maklakov Collection, box 18. Also see Saratovets [I.I. Mainov], “Saratovskii semidesiatnik”, Minuvshee gody, no. 4 (1908), pp. 255, 174.Google Scholar
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29 Ibid., pp. 165–166.
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31 Kuskova, , “Davno minuvshee”, LI (1957), pp. 160–161.Google Scholar
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34 Smirnov, , “Valerian Aleksandrovich Balmashev”, p. 243.Google Scholar Also see Chernov, , Zapiski sotsialista revoliutsionera, pp. 42–43.Google Scholar
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37 Ibid., XXXXVIII, pp. 140, 143–153, passim, and Kuskova to Vol'skii, 31 July 1949, and 14 August 1949, HIWRP, Volsky Collection, box 5.
38 Kuskova, , “Davno minuvshee”, XXXXVII, p. 168.Google Scholar
39 Ibid., p. 170.
40 Ibid., p. 168.
41 Ibid., XXXXVIII, p. 162, XXXXIX (1957), pp. 143, 147–148, and Kuskova to Vol'-skii, 14 August 1949.
42 Kuskova, , “Davno minuvshee”, XXXXIX, p. 149.Google Scholar
43 Idealism and a desire to be of service to society had long motivated Russian women to take up the study of medicine. See Engels, Barbara, Mothers and Daughters: Women of the Intelligentsia in Nineteenth Century Russia (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 156ff.Google Scholar The appeal that medicine held for radical women is discussed briefly in McNeal, Robert H., “Women in the Russian Radical Movement”, Journal of Social History, V (1971–1972), pp. 152–153Google Scholar; and Stites, , The Women's Liberation Movement in Russia, p. 54.Google Scholar
44 In 1886 the Minister of Education had closed further admission to the “women's higher courses”; by 1889, the St. Petersburg Bestuzhev Courses were ail that remained. Satina, , Education of Women in Pre-revolutionary Russia, pp. 103, 105–106.Google Scholar
45 Kuskova, , “Davno minuvshee”, XXXXIX, p. 149.Google Scholar For an interesting discussion of the medical education then available to women, see Dudgeon, , “Women and Higher Education in Russia”, pp. 100–104, 141–142, 196, 206.Google Scholar
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47 Ibid., pp. 153–154. Kuskova's, enrollment in the medical courses was noted by the police. TsGAOR, f. 102, 3 d-vo, 1894Google Scholar, d. 19,1. 2.
48 Kuskova, , “Davno minuvshee”, XXXXIX, p. 154.Google Scholar For a summary of contemporaries' assessments of the revolutionary situation in Moscow at the turn of the decade, see Nevskii, V.I., Ocherki po istorii Rossiiskoi Kommunisticheskoi Partii (2nd ed., Leningrad, 1925), p. 281.Google Scholar
49 Kuskova, , “Davno minuvshee”, XXXXIX, p. 154.Google Scholar Little information is available about the members of this circle. Kuskova recalls: “Into this circle went P.M. Troitskii, a science student; Dubrovin; the Greek Kefali; Ural Cossack Cha[l]usov; and G.L. Tiraspol'skii, a student at the higher Moscow Technological School.” Ibid.
50 See McNeal, “Women in the Russian Radical Movement”, for what is still one of the best assessments of women's roles and status in radical circles.
51 Kuskova, , “Davno minuvshee”, XXXXIX, p. 155.Google Scholar
52 Ibid.
53 The activities of the Moscow Marxist circles in 1891 and early 1892 are described in A. Vinokurov, “O vozniknovenii moskovskoi partiinoi organizatsii”, in Mitskevich, , Na zare rabochego dvizheniia v Moskve, pp. 40–41Google Scholar, editorial note; and M. Liadov [N.M. Mandel'shtam], “Kak zarodilas' moskovskaia rabochaia organizatisiia”, in Na zare rabochego dvizheniia v Moskve, pp. 43ff.Google Scholar Also see Naimark, Norman M., Terrorists and Social Democrats: The Russian Revolutionary Movement under Alexander III (Cambridge, MA, 1983), pp. 175ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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57 Chernov, , Zapiski sotsialista revoliutsionera, p. 158.Google Scholar Also ibid., pp. 148–149. On the destruction of the Astyrev circle, see Obzor vazhneishikh dozanii, XVII, pt. 1, pp. 8–10Google Scholar; and Mitskevich, , Okhrana i revoliutsiia, I, p. 67.Google Scholar
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59 Kuskova, , “Davno minuvshee”, XXXXIX, pp. 156–158.Google Scholar
60 Ibid., pp. 158–159,161,167, and Kuskova, to Vol'skii, 14 08 1949Google Scholar; and TsGAOR, f. 102, 3 d-vo, 1894, d. 19, 1. 2. See also Chernov, , Zapiski sotsialista revoliutsionera, p. 94.Google Scholar
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63 Kuskova, , “Davno minuvshee”, XXXXIX, p. 167.Google Scholar
64 Russian radicals and liberals alike were unanimous in perceiving the famine and its consequences as evidence of “the infirmity and unfitness of the autocratic regime”. Men'shchikov, , Okhrana i revoliutsiia, I, p. 130.Google Scholar
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66 Kuskova, , “Davno minuvshee”, XXXXIX, pp. 169–170Google Scholar, and L, pp. 173–175. She also mentions her expulsion from Saratov in Kuskova to Vol'skii, 19 August 1949, HIWRP, Volsky Collection, box 5, and Kuskova to Dan, 19 April 1952. This episode is puzzling, since there is no corroborating evidence in the available police files, and elsewhere Kuskova says that she was sent from Penza to Nizhnii Novgorod. “Tragediia Maksima Gor'kogo”, p. 231.
67 Kuskova, , “Davno minuvshee”, L, p. 182.Google Scholar
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76 Kuskova's physically demanding practicum at the Foundling Home combined with her impoverished circumstances to aggravate a latent tuberculosis serious enough to hospitalize her for a time. Kuskova, “Davno minuvshee”, L, pp. 182–183.
77 Ibid., pp. 186–192. Kuskova's description of the circumstances surrounding the marriage is muddled and inaccurate in many respects, as she confuses events that took place in the spring of 1893 with those of the following spring. Okhrana records indicate that Kuskov had been arrested in November of 1892 and released under police surveillance by January 1893. GASO, f. 53, op. l, 1893, d. 4, 1. 19; Obzor vazhneishikh doznanii, XVII, pt. 2, pp. 41–42Google Scholar, and pt. l, pp. 85–86, 299; and Men'shchikov, Okhrana i revoliu-tsiia, I, pp. 292, 419.Google Scholar
78 Kuskova's change of residence was reported by the police. GASO, f. 53, op. 1,1893, d. 4,1. 14. On the People's Right Party, see Shirokova, Partiia “Narodogo prava”.
79 Kuskova, , “Davno minuvshee”, L, p. 185.Google Scholar There is no evidence to support the assertion of several historians that Kuskova joined the People's Right Party. V. Akimov [Makhnovets], Ocherk razvitiia sotsialdemokratii v Rossii (St. Petersburg, 1906), p. 51Google Scholar, note; Liadov, , Kak nachala skladyvat'sia rossiiskaia kommunisticheskaia partiia, p. 251Google Scholar; Nevskii, V.I., Istoriia RKP (b). Kratkii ocherk (Leningrad, 1926), p. 89Google Scholar; and Galai, , The Liberation Movement in Russia, p. 61Google Scholar, are among those who make this claim.
80 Private communication from Shirokova, who has examined manuscripts of the me moirs of Bonch-Bruevich and other Moscow Marxists. Kuskova's return to Moscow was recorded by the police. GASO, f. 53, op. l, 1893, d. 4,1. 108.
81 Knight, Amy, “The ‘Fritschi’: A Study of Female Radicals in the Russian Populist Movement”, Canadian-American Slavic Studies IX (1975), p. 17.Google Scholar
82 It is revealing of Kuskova's attitude about traditional women's roles that in her memoirs she discusses her roles as wife and mother only in so far as they affected her political development. Social Democracy's attraction for women as an escape from traditional roles is noted in Fieseler, , “Women in Russian Social Democracy”, pp. 15–16, 18.Google Scholar
83 Ibid., pp. 11–13,18.
84 In addition to what has already been mentioned, it is not too much to assume that the Social Democratic movement also served as something of a surrogate family for Kusko-va. Fieseler has observed that, for many women who grew up in incomplete families and without what might be considered a “normal” childhood, Social Democracy functioned “as a spiritual home or as a social milieu that could replace what these women had lost or had never had”. Ibid., p. 16.
85 Regarding Kuskova's departure from the Social Democratic movement, see Norton, Barbara T., “Eshche raz ekonomizm: E.D. Kuskova, S.N. Prokopovich and the Challenge to Russian Social Democracy”, The Russian Review, XXXXV (1986), pp. 183–207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar It is worth noting in this connection that the role Kuskova was expected to play as a woman in the movement differed significantly from that expected of men. (See Fieseler, , “Women in Russian Social Democracy”, p. 18Google Scholar for a discussion of the disparity.) These differing expectations undoubtedly contributed to Kuskova's break with organized Marxism, an issue not adequately explored in Norton, “Eshche raz ekonomizm”.
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