The Olga and Lensky of the proletarian dictatorship era: a case of “free love” between a gymnasium schoolgirl and a red army commander

The article discusses a short story of “free love” that occurred in the Perm province during the Russian Civil War. The heroes of this story were a 15-year-old gymnasium school student and a 39-year-old commander of an artillery division of the Red Army. In our time, this story has become known thanks to the judicial investigation case of 1919 preserved in the archive. It shows that the division commander, who was a worker by origin and a member of the Bolshevik Party, was accused by his party comrades of raping an underage girl. Based on the materials of the “party investigation”, the assembly of communists of the division made the harsh decision: to expel the “criminal” from the Bolshevik Party, remove the division commander from his post and put him on trial by the revolutionary tribunal. In this particular case, the consequences of the Bolsheviks’ “revolutionary experiment” in the field of marital relations are vividly revealed: the “emancipation” of relations between a man and a woman, the spread of the “free love” practice, polygamy, cohabitation with minors, the birth of illegitimate children, prostitution. On the other hand, in this case, the plight of women who, due to certain circumstances, found themselves serving in the belligerent army is also revealed.