# Maria Spiridonova — My Disillusionment in Russia character guide

> Maria Spiridonova in My Disillusionment in Russia by Emma Goldman.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** XVI Maria Spiridonova, Spiridonova, Maria

**First appearance:** 0018-xvi-maria-spiridonova

## Snapshot

A frail little woman who survived Tsarist torture and Siberian exile, now living in disguise in Moscow and calmly indicting the revolution she once served.

## Who they are

The narrator zigzags through back streets to a top-floor room where Spiridonova sits before a desk piled with letters, having escaped from a Kremlin prison. Told she had broken down into hysteria, the narrator instead finds her self-contained and clear on every point, reciting the Brest-Litovsk peace, the razverstka, and the terrorism against revolutionary criticism. When she detects doubt, she reaches for peasants' letters and reads aloud as proof.

## Relationships

### [Unknown Narrator](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/my_disillusionment_in_russia_se/characters/unknown_narrator)

_friendship_

Maria Spiridonova is a fellow left Socialist Revolutionary and ally who is persecuted by the Bolsheviks, creating a bond of shared suffering with the narrator.

### [Unknown Narrator](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/my_disillusionment_in_russia_se/characters/unknown_narrator)

_friendship_

Maria Spiridonova is a fellow left Socialist Revolutionary and ally who is persecuted by the Bolsheviks, creating a bond of shared suffering with the narrator.

## In the story

### [XVI: Maria Spiridonova](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/my_disillusionment_in_russia_se/chapters/xvi-maria-spiridonova)

Central figure of the chapter; provides a detailed indictment of Bolshevik policies, including Brest-Litovsk and razverstka, and describes the suffering of the peasantry.

### [XXIX: Travelling Salesmen of the Revolution](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/my_disillusionment_in_russia_se/chapters/xxix-travelling-salesmen-of-the-revolution)

Friends circulated a manifesto demanding her release for medical treatment; Trotsky deemed her 'still too dangerous to be liberated'; she was released only after European Socialist press coverage, on condition she return to prison.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/my_disillusionment_in_russia_se/characters/maria_spiridonova
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/my_disillusionment_in_russia_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/my_disillusionment_in_russia_se/characters