Afterwards, Stasova was a Comintern representative to Germany until 1927, when she returned to Russia and took on a leadership position in the International Red Aid (MOPR).

"[3] At the age of about 20 she began teaching in evening classes and Sunday schools in Ligovo, which brought her into contact with female political activists such as Nadezhda Krupskaya, future wife of Vladimir Lenin.

She joined the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party (RSDLP) at the time of its establishment in 1898, her main contribution being to use her parents' house to store illegal socialist literature.

As a young man, he had a promising career working for the Senate, and a Herald at the coronation of Alexander II – but was barred for life from government service after he was arrested during a student demonstration.

[1] Elena's aunt was the feminist Nadezhda Stasova, and her older sister was the writer Varvara Komarova-Stasova.

[7] She served as the conduit for Lenin's newspaper, Iskra, in St. Petersburg, until her arrest in January 1904, which forced her to leave the capital and hide in Minsk.

For the rest of that year she traveled to several cities, acting as a specialist in "technical matters", such as creating false passports, organising escape routes, and making contact with sympathisers in the Russian army.

In June, she was assigned to take over the Southern Bureau, based in Odessa, but was arrested and held in Taganka Prison for six months.

Stasova emigrated to Geneva, Switzerland in August 1905, to run the Bolshevik organisation abroad while Lenin was in Russia for the Russian Revolution of 1905.

[8] After being removed from the Central Committee, Stasova worked for the Petrograd party organization, from where she was brought into the Comintern's apparatus.

She used the pseudonym "Hertha"[8] and remained in Germany through 1926, where she played a leading role in the German affiliate of the International Red Aid (MOPR) organization, die Rote Hilfe.

She made very few public appearances after retiring, but in 1961, she was one of four Old Bolsheviks who signed an appeal to the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union for the posthumous rehabilitation of Nikolai Bukharin.