Grigory Zinoviev
Encyclopedia
Grigory Yevseevich Zinoviev , born Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich Radomyslsky Apfelbaum , was a Bolshevik
revolutionary and a Soviet
Communist
politician. Zinoviev is best remembered as the long-time head of the Communist International and as the chief defendant in a 1936 show trial
, the Trial of the Sixteen that marked the start of the so-called Great Terror
in the USSR and resulted in his execution the day after his conviction.
, Ukraine
), to Jewish dairy farmers, who educated him at home. Between 1923 and 1935 the city was known as Zinovyevsk. Gregory Zinoviev was known in early life under the names of Apfelbaum or Radomyslovsky and later adopted several designations, such as Shatski, Grigoriev, Grigori and Zinoviev, by the two last of which he is most frequently called. He studied philosophy, literature and history. He became interested in politics, and joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party
in 1901. He was a member of its Bolshevik
faction from the time of its creation in 1903. Between 1903 and the fall of the Russian Empire
in February 1917, he was a leading Bolshevik and one of Lenin's closest associates, working both within Russia and abroad as circumstances permitted. He was elected to the RSDLP's Central Committee in 1907 and sided with Lenin in 1908 when the Bolshevik faction split into Lenin's supporters and Alexander Bogdanov
's followers. Zinoviev remained Lenin's constant aide-de-camp and representative in various socialist organizations until 1917.
Zinoviev spent the first three years of World War I
in Switzerland
. After the Russian monarchy
was overthrown during the February Revolution
, he returned to Russia in April 1917 in a sealed train with Lenin and other revolutionaries opposed to the war. He remained a part of the Bolshevik leadership throughout most of that year and spent time with Lenin after Lenin was forced into hiding after an abortive coup attempt in July 1917. However, Zinoviev and Lenin soon had a falling out over Zinoviev's opposition to the Bolshevik seizure of power in October. On October 10, 1917 (Julian calendar), he and Lev Kamenev
were the only two Central Committee members to vote against an armed revolt. Their publication of an open letter opposed to use of force enraged Lenin, who demanded their expulsion from the party.
On October 29, 1917 (Julian calendar), immediately after the Bolshevik seizure of power during the October Revolution
, the executive committee of the national railroad labor union, Vikzhel, threatened a national strike unless the Bolsheviks shared power with other socialist parties and dropped Lenin and Leon Trotsky
from the government. Zinoviev, Kamenev, and their allies in the Bolshevik Central Committee argued that the Bolsheviks had no choice but to start negotiations since a railroad strike would cripple their government's ability to fight the forces that were still loyal to the overthrown Provisional Government. Although Zinoviev and Kamenev briefly had the support of a Central Committee majority and negotiations were started, a quick collapse of the anti-Bolshevik forces outside Petrograd allowed Lenin and Trotsky to convince the Central Committee to abandon the negotiating process. In response, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Alexei Rykov
, Vladimir Milyutin
, and Victor Nogin resigned from the Central Committee on November 4, 1917 (Julian calendar). The following day, Lenin wrote a proclamation calling Zinoviev and Kamenev "deserters". He never forgot their behavior, eventually making an ambiguous reference to their "October episode" in his Testament
.
This was an important turning point in Zinoviev's career. For the next five years it was Trotsky and not Zinoviev who was the number two man in the Bolshevik Party. Zinoviev, an ambitious man, was not willing to accept his demotion and did much to undermine Trotsky's position within the Party between 1918 and 1925.
Zinoviev soon returned to the fold and was once again elected to the Central Committee at the VII Party Congress on March 8, 1918. He was put in charge of the Petrograd (Saint Petersburg prior to 1914, Leningrad
1924-1991) city and regional government. In September 1918 he declared:
He became a non-voting member of the ruling Politburo when it was created after the VIII Congress on March 25, 1919. He also became the Chairman of the Executive Committee
of the Comintern
when it was created in March 1919. It was in this capacity he presided over the Congress of the Peoples of the East
in Baku
in September 1920 and gave his famous four hour speech in German at the Halle
congress of the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany
in October 1920
Zinoviev was responsible for Petrograd's defense during two periods of intense clashes with White
forces in 1919. Trotsky, who was in overall charge of the Red Army
during the Russian Civil War
, thought little of Zinoviev's leadership, which aggravated their strained relationship.
were dropped from the Politburo and the Secretariat
.
Zinoviev was one of the most powerful figures in the Soviet leadership during Lenin's final illness in 1922-1923 and immediately after his death in January 1924. He delivered the Central Committee's reports to the XIIth and XIIIth Party Congresses in 1923 and 1924 respectively, something that Lenin had previously done. He was also considered one of the Communist Party's leading theoreticians. As head of the Comintern, Zinoviev deserved some of the blame for the failure of the Communist revolt in Germany
in the fall of 1923, but he managed to shift it to Karl Radek
, the Comintern's representative in Germany in 1923.
During Lenin's illness, Zinoviev, his close associate Kamenev, and Joseph Stalin
formed a ruling 'triumvirate' (or 'troika') in the Communist Party
, playing a key role in the marginalization of Leon Trotsky
. The triumvirate carefully managed the intra-party debate and delegate selection process in autumn 1923 during the run-up to the XIIIth Party Conference and secured a vast majority of the seats. The Conference, held in January 1924 just before Lenin's death, denounced Trotsky and Trotskyism
. Some of Trotsky's supporters were demoted or reassigned in the wake of his defeat, and Zinoviev's power and influence appeared to be at its zenith. However, as subsequent events showed, his real power base was limited to the Petrograd/Leningrad Party organization while the rest of the Communist Party apparatus was increasingly under Stalin's control.
After Trotsky's defeat at the XIIIth Conference, tensions between Zinoviev and Kamenev on the one hand and Stalin on the other hand became more pronounced and threatened to end their fragile alliance. Nevertheless, Zinoviev and Kamenev helped Stalin retain his position as General Secretary of the Central Committee
at the XIIIth Party Congress in May-June 1924 during the first Lenin's Testament
controversy.
After a brief lull in the summer of 1924, Trotsky published The Lessons of October, an extensive summary of the events of 1917. In the article, Trotsky described Zinoviev's and Kamenev's opposition to the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917, something that the two would have preferred to be left unmentioned. This started a new round of intra-party struggle with Zinoviev and Kamenev once again allied with Stalin against Trotsky. They and their supporters accused Trotsky of various mistakes and worse during the Russian Civil War
and damaged his military reputation so much that he was forced to resign as People's Commissar of Army and Fleet Affairs and Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council
in January 1925. Zinoviev demanded Trotsky's expulsion from the Communist Party, but Stalin refused to go along at that time and skillfully played the role of a moderate.
With Trotsky finally on the sidelines, the Zinoviev-Kamenev-Stalin triumvirate began to crumble in early 1925. The two sides spent most of the year lining up support behind the scenes. Stalin struck an alliance with Communist Party theoretician and Pravda
editor Nikolai Bukharin
and Soviet prime minister Alexei Rykov
. Zinoviev and Kamenev allied with Lenin's widow, Nadezhda Krupskaya, and Grigory Sokolnikov, the Soviet Commissar of Finance
and non-voting Politburo member. The struggle became open at the September 1925 meeting of the Central Committee and came to a head at the XIVth Party Congress in December 1925. With only the Leningrad delegation behind them, Zinoviev and Kamenev found themselves in a tiny minority and were soundly defeated. Zinoviev was re-elected to the Politburo, but his ally Kamenev was demoted from a full member to a non-voting member and Sokolnikov was dropped altogether, while Stalin had more of his allies elected to the Politburo. Within weeks of the Congress, Stalin wrestled control of the Leningrad party organization and government from Zinoviev and had him dismissed from all regional posts, leaving only the Comintern as a potential power base for Zinoviev.
. In May 1926, Stalin, weighing his options in a letter to Vyacheslav Molotov
, directed his supporters to concentrate their attacks on Zinoviev since the latter was intimately familiar with Stalin's methods from their time together in the triumvirate. Following Stalin's orders, his supporters accused Zinoviev of using the Comintern apparatus in support of factional activities (the Lashevich Affair) and Zinoviev was dismissed from the Politburo after a tumultuous Central Committee meeting in July 1926. Soon thereafter the office of the Comintern Chairman was abolished and Zinoviev lost his last important post.
Zinoviev remained in opposition to Stalin throughout 1926 and 1927, resulting in his expulsion from the Central Committee in October 1927. When the United Opposition tried to organize independent demonstrations commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Bolshevik seizure of power in November 1927, the demonstrators were dispersed by force and Zinoviev and Trotsky were expelled from the Communist Party on November 12. Their leading supporters, from Kamenev down, were expelled in December 1927 by the XVth Party Congress, which paved the way for mass expulsions of rank and file oppositionists as well as internal exile of opposition leaders in early 1928.
Zinoviev and Kamenev remained politically inactive until October 1932 when they were expelled from the Communist Party for failure to inform on oppositionist party members during the Ryutin Affair
. After once again admitting their supposed mistakes, they were readmitted in December 1933. They were forced to make self-flagellating speeches at the XVIIth Party Congress in January 1934 when Stalin was parading his erstwhile political opponents, now defeated and outwardly contrite.
of the Communist Party, Zinoviev, Kamenev, and their closest associates were once again expelled from the party and arrested in December 1934. They were tried in January 1935 and were forced to admit "moral complicity" in Kirov's assassination. Zinoviev was sentenced to 10 years in prison and his supporters to various prison terms.
In August 1936, after months of careful preparations and rehearsals in Soviet secret police prisons, Zinoviev, Kamenev, and 14 others, mostly Old Bolshevik
s, were put on trial again. This time, the charges included forming a terrorist organization that supposedly killed Kirov and tried to kill Stalin and other leaders of the Soviet government. This Trial of the Sixteen (or the trial of the "Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center") was the first Moscow Show Trial
and set the stage for subsequent show trials where Old Bolsheviks confessed to increasingly elaborate and monstrous crimes, including espionage, poisoning, sabotage, and so on. Zinoviev and the other defendants were found guilty on August 24, 1936.
Prior to the trial, Zinoviev and Kamenev had agreed to plead guilty to the false charges on the condition that they not be executed, a condition that Stalin accepted, stating "that goes without saying." Nonetheless, a few hours after the conviction, Stalin ordered their execution for that night. Shortly after midnight, on the morning of August 25, Zinoviev and Kamenev were executed by shooting.
Accounts of Zinoviev's execution vary, with some having him beg and plead for his life, prompting a more stoic Kamenev to tell Zinoviev to quiet down and die with dignity. Regardless, Zinoviev put up such resistance against the guards that, instead of taking him to the appointed execution room, the guards took him into a nearby cell and shot him there.
The execution of Zinoviev, Kamenev, and their associates was a sensational news event in the USSR and around the world, paving the way for the mass arrests and executions of the terror of 1937-1938. Zinoviev and his co-defendants were formally absolved of the spurious charges which led to their death by the Soviet government in 1988 during perestroika
.
Zinoviev is remembered in Britain
as the alleged author of the "Zinoviev Letter
" which caused a sensation when published on October 25, 1924, four days before a general election. The letter called on British Communists
to prepare for revolution. This document is now generally accepted to have been a forgery
, validating the declaration that Zinoviev made in a letter dated 27 October 1924:
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
revolutionary and a Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
Communist
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
politician. Zinoviev is best remembered as the long-time head of the Communist International and as the chief defendant in a 1936 show trial
Show trial
The term show trial is a pejorative description of a type of highly public trial in which there is a strong connotation that the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal to present the accusation and the verdict to the public as...
, the Trial of the Sixteen that marked the start of the so-called Great Terror
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
in the USSR and resulted in his execution the day after his conviction.
Before the 1917 Revolution (1901-1917)
Gregory Zinoviev was born in Yelizavetgrad, Imperial Russia (currently KirovohradKirovohrad
Kirovohrad , formerly Yelisavetgrad, is a city in central Ukraine. It is located on the Inhul River. It is a motorway junction. Pop. 239,400 ....
, Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
), to Jewish dairy farmers, who educated him at home. Between 1923 and 1935 the city was known as Zinovyevsk. Gregory Zinoviev was known in early life under the names of Apfelbaum or Radomyslovsky and later adopted several designations, such as Shatski, Grigoriev, Grigori and Zinoviev, by the two last of which he is most frequently called. He studied philosophy, literature and history. He became interested in politics, and joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party
The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party , also known as Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or Russian Social Democratic Party, was a revolutionary socialist Russian political party formed in 1898 in Minsk to unite the various revolutionary organizations into one party...
in 1901. He was a member of its Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
faction from the time of its creation in 1903. Between 1903 and the fall of the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
in February 1917, he was a leading Bolshevik and one of Lenin's closest associates, working both within Russia and abroad as circumstances permitted. He was elected to the RSDLP's Central Committee in 1907 and sided with Lenin in 1908 when the Bolshevik faction split into Lenin's supporters and Alexander Bogdanov
Alexander Bogdanov
Alexander Aleksandrovich Bogdanov –7 April 1928, Moscow) was a Russian physician, philosopher, science fiction writer, and revolutionary of Belarusian ethnicity....
's followers. Zinoviev remained Lenin's constant aide-de-camp and representative in various socialist organizations until 1917.
1917
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
. After the Russian monarchy
Monarchy
A monarchy is a form of government in which the office of head of state is usually held until death or abdication and is often hereditary and includes a royal house. In some cases, the monarch is elected...
was overthrown during the February Revolution
February Revolution
The February Revolution of 1917 was the first of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. Centered around the then capital Petrograd in March . Its immediate result was the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, the end of the Romanov dynasty, and the end of the Russian Empire...
, he returned to Russia in April 1917 in a sealed train with Lenin and other revolutionaries opposed to the war. He remained a part of the Bolshevik leadership throughout most of that year and spent time with Lenin after Lenin was forced into hiding after an abortive coup attempt in July 1917. However, Zinoviev and Lenin soon had a falling out over Zinoviev's opposition to the Bolshevik seizure of power in October. On October 10, 1917 (Julian calendar), he and Lev Kamenev
Lev Kamenev
Lev Borisovich Kamenev , born Rozenfeld , was a Bolshevik revolutionary and a prominent Soviet politician. He was briefly head of state of the new republic in 1917, and from 1923-24 the acting Premier in the last year of Lenin's life....
were the only two Central Committee members to vote against an armed revolt. Their publication of an open letter opposed to use of force enraged Lenin, who demanded their expulsion from the party.
On October 29, 1917 (Julian calendar), immediately after the Bolshevik seizure of power during the October Revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
, the executive committee of the national railroad labor union, Vikzhel, threatened a national strike unless the Bolsheviks shared power with other socialist parties and dropped Lenin and Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
from the government. Zinoviev, Kamenev, and their allies in the Bolshevik Central Committee argued that the Bolsheviks had no choice but to start negotiations since a railroad strike would cripple their government's ability to fight the forces that were still loyal to the overthrown Provisional Government. Although Zinoviev and Kamenev briefly had the support of a Central Committee majority and negotiations were started, a quick collapse of the anti-Bolshevik forces outside Petrograd allowed Lenin and Trotsky to convince the Central Committee to abandon the negotiating process. In response, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Alexei Rykov
Alexei Rykov
Aleksei Ivanovich Rykov was a Russian Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet politician most prominent as Premier of Russia and the Soviet Union from 1924–29 and 1924–30 respectively....
, Vladimir Milyutin
Vladimir Milyutin
Vladimir Pavlovich Milyutin was a Bolshevik leader who was appointed People's Commissar of Agriculture in 1917....
, and Victor Nogin resigned from the Central Committee on November 4, 1917 (Julian calendar). The following day, Lenin wrote a proclamation calling Zinoviev and Kamenev "deserters". He never forgot their behavior, eventually making an ambiguous reference to their "October episode" in his Testament
Lenin's Testament
Lenin's Testament is the name given to a document written by Vladimir Lenin in the last weeks of 1922 and the first week of 1923. In the testament, Lenin proposed changes to the structure of the Soviet governing bodies...
.
This was an important turning point in Zinoviev's career. For the next five years it was Trotsky and not Zinoviev who was the number two man in the Bolshevik Party. Zinoviev, an ambitious man, was not willing to accept his demotion and did much to undermine Trotsky's position within the Party between 1918 and 1925.
The Civil War (1918-1920)
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
1924-1991) city and regional government. In September 1918 he declared:
He became a non-voting member of the ruling Politburo when it was created after the VIII Congress on March 25, 1919. He also became the Chairman of the Executive Committee
Executive Committee of the Communist International
The Executive Committee of the Communist International, commonly known by its acronym, ECCI, was the governing authority of the Comintern between the World Congresses of that body...
of the Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
when it was created in March 1919. It was in this capacity he presided over the Congress of the Peoples of the East
Congress of the Peoples of the East
The Congress of the Peoples of the East was held in Baku in September 1920. The congress was first planned by Mirsäyet Soltanğäliev and the National Communists. However Stalin prevented Soltanğäliev from attending the congress, fearing that he would help consolidate his wing of the communist...
in Baku
Baku
Baku , sometimes spelled as Baki or Bakou, is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. It is located on the southern shore of the Absheron Peninsula, which projects into the Caspian Sea. The city consists of two principal...
in September 1920 and gave his famous four hour speech in German at the Halle
Halle
Halle is a noun that means hall in the German language. It may also refer to:-In Germany:* Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, official name Halle , also called Halle or Halle an der Saale...
congress of the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany
Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany
The Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany was a short-lived political party in Germany during the Second Reich and the Weimar Republic. The organization was established in 1917 as the result of a split of left wing members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany...
in October 1920
Zinoviev was responsible for Petrograd's defense during two periods of intense clashes with White
White movement
The White movement and its military arm the White Army - known as the White Guard or the Whites - was a loose confederation of Anti-Communist forces.The movement comprised one of the politico-military Russian forces who fought...
forces in 1919. Trotsky, who was in overall charge of the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
during the Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
, thought little of Zinoviev's leadership, which aggravated their strained relationship.
Rise to the top (1921-1923)
In early 1921, when the Communist Party was split into numerous factions and disagreements were threatening to engulf the Party, Zinoviev supported Lenin's faction. As a result, Zinoviev was made a full member of the Politburo after the Xth Party Congress on March 16, 1921, while members of other factions such as Nikolai KrestinskyNikolai Krestinsky
Nikolay Nikolayevich Krestinsky was a Russian Bolshevik revolutionary and Soviet politician.-Origins:Krestinsky was born in the town of Mogilev, in what is now Mahilyow Voblast of Belarus. According to Russian archivist A. B. Roginsky, Krestinsky was of ethnic Russian origin...
were dropped from the Politburo and the Secretariat
Secretariat of the CPSU Central Committee
The Secretariat of the CPSU Central Committee was a key body within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and was responsible for the central administration of the party as opposed to drafting government policy which was usually handled by the Politburo...
.
Zinoviev was one of the most powerful figures in the Soviet leadership during Lenin's final illness in 1922-1923 and immediately after his death in January 1924. He delivered the Central Committee's reports to the XIIth and XIIIth Party Congresses in 1923 and 1924 respectively, something that Lenin had previously done. He was also considered one of the Communist Party's leading theoreticians. As head of the Comintern, Zinoviev deserved some of the blame for the failure of the Communist revolt in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
in the fall of 1923, but he managed to shift it to Karl Radek
Karl Radek
Karl Bernhardovic Radek was a socialist active in the Polish and German movements before World War I and an international Communist leader after the Russian Revolution....
, the Comintern's representative in Germany in 1923.
With Stalin and Kamenev against Trotsky (1923-1924)
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
formed a ruling 'triumvirate' (or 'troika') in the Communist Party
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
, playing a key role in the marginalization of Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
. The triumvirate carefully managed the intra-party debate and delegate selection process in autumn 1923 during the run-up to the XIIIth Party Conference and secured a vast majority of the seats. The Conference, held in January 1924 just before Lenin's death, denounced Trotsky and Trotskyism
Trotskyism
Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky considered himself an orthodox Marxist and Bolshevik-Leninist, arguing for the establishment of a vanguard party of the working-class...
. Some of Trotsky's supporters were demoted or reassigned in the wake of his defeat, and Zinoviev's power and influence appeared to be at its zenith. However, as subsequent events showed, his real power base was limited to the Petrograd/Leningrad Party organization while the rest of the Communist Party apparatus was increasingly under Stalin's control.
After Trotsky's defeat at the XIIIth Conference, tensions between Zinoviev and Kamenev on the one hand and Stalin on the other hand became more pronounced and threatened to end their fragile alliance. Nevertheless, Zinoviev and Kamenev helped Stalin retain his position as General Secretary of the Central Committee
General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the title given to the leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. With some exceptions, the office was synonymous with leader of the Soviet Union...
at the XIIIth Party Congress in May-June 1924 during the first Lenin's Testament
Lenin's Testament
Lenin's Testament is the name given to a document written by Vladimir Lenin in the last weeks of 1922 and the first week of 1923. In the testament, Lenin proposed changes to the structure of the Soviet governing bodies...
controversy.
After a brief lull in the summer of 1924, Trotsky published The Lessons of October, an extensive summary of the events of 1917. In the article, Trotsky described Zinoviev's and Kamenev's opposition to the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917, something that the two would have preferred to be left unmentioned. This started a new round of intra-party struggle with Zinoviev and Kamenev once again allied with Stalin against Trotsky. They and their supporters accused Trotsky of various mistakes and worse during the Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
and damaged his military reputation so much that he was forced to resign as People's Commissar of Army and Fleet Affairs and Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council
Revolutionary Military Council
Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic or Revvoyensoviet Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic or Revvoyensoviet Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic or Revvoyensoviet (Революционный Военный Совет, Revolyutsionny Voyenny Sovyet; Реввоенсовет, Revvoyensovyet; also...
in January 1925. Zinoviev demanded Trotsky's expulsion from the Communist Party, but Stalin refused to go along at that time and skillfully played the role of a moderate.
Break with Stalin (1925)
Pravda
Pravda was a leading newspaper of the Soviet Union and an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991....
editor Nikolai Bukharin
Nikolai Bukharin
Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin , was a Russian Marxist, Bolshevik revolutionary, and Soviet politician. He was a member of the Politburo and Central Committee , chairman of the Communist International , and the editor in chief of Pravda , the journal Bolshevik , Izvestia , and the Great Soviet...
and Soviet prime minister Alexei Rykov
Alexei Rykov
Aleksei Ivanovich Rykov was a Russian Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet politician most prominent as Premier of Russia and the Soviet Union from 1924–29 and 1924–30 respectively....
. Zinoviev and Kamenev allied with Lenin's widow, Nadezhda Krupskaya, and Grigory Sokolnikov, the Soviet Commissar of Finance
Finance
"Finance" is often defined simply as the management of money or “funds” management Modern finance, however, is a family of business activity that includes the origination, marketing, and management of cash and money surrogates through a variety of capital accounts, instruments, and markets created...
and non-voting Politburo member. The struggle became open at the September 1925 meeting of the Central Committee and came to a head at the XIVth Party Congress in December 1925. With only the Leningrad delegation behind them, Zinoviev and Kamenev found themselves in a tiny minority and were soundly defeated. Zinoviev was re-elected to the Politburo, but his ally Kamenev was demoted from a full member to a non-voting member and Sokolnikov was dropped altogether, while Stalin had more of his allies elected to the Politburo. Within weeks of the Congress, Stalin wrestled control of the Leningrad party organization and government from Zinoviev and had him dismissed from all regional posts, leaving only the Comintern as a potential power base for Zinoviev.
With Trotsky against Stalin (1926-1927)
During a lull in the intra-party fighting in the spring of 1926, Zinoviev, Kamenev and their supporters gravitated closer to Trotsky's supporters and the two groups soon formed an alliance, which also incorporated some smaller opposition groups within the Communist Party. The alliance became known as the United OppositionUnited Opposition
The United Opposition was a group formed in the All-Union Communist Party in 1926 by Leon Trotsky, Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev in opposition to Joseph Stalin...
. In May 1926, Stalin, weighing his options in a letter to Vyacheslav Molotov
Vyacheslav Molotov
Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov was a Soviet politician and diplomat, an Old Bolshevik and a leading figure in the Soviet government from the 1920s, when he rose to power as a protégé of Joseph Stalin, to 1957, when he was dismissed from the Presidium of the Central Committee by Nikita Khrushchev...
, directed his supporters to concentrate their attacks on Zinoviev since the latter was intimately familiar with Stalin's methods from their time together in the triumvirate. Following Stalin's orders, his supporters accused Zinoviev of using the Comintern apparatus in support of factional activities (the Lashevich Affair) and Zinoviev was dismissed from the Politburo after a tumultuous Central Committee meeting in July 1926. Soon thereafter the office of the Comintern Chairman was abolished and Zinoviev lost his last important post.
Zinoviev remained in opposition to Stalin throughout 1926 and 1927, resulting in his expulsion from the Central Committee in October 1927. When the United Opposition tried to organize independent demonstrations commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Bolshevik seizure of power in November 1927, the demonstrators were dispersed by force and Zinoviev and Trotsky were expelled from the Communist Party on November 12. Their leading supporters, from Kamenev down, were expelled in December 1927 by the XVth Party Congress, which paved the way for mass expulsions of rank and file oppositionists as well as internal exile of opposition leaders in early 1928.
Submission to Stalin (1928-1934)
While Trotsky remained firm in his opposition to Stalin after his expulsion from the Party and subsequent exile, Zinoviev and Kamenev capitulated almost immediately and called on their supporters to follow suit. They wrote open letters acknowledging their mistakes and were readmitted to the Communist Party after a six-month cooling off period. They never regained their Central Committee seats, but they were given mid-level positions within the Soviet bureaucracy. Bukharin, then at the beginning of his short and ill-fated struggle with Stalin, courted Kamenev and, indirectly, Zinoviev during the summer of 1928. This was soon reported to Stalin and used against Bukharin as proof of his factionalism.Zinoviev and Kamenev remained politically inactive until October 1932 when they were expelled from the Communist Party for failure to inform on oppositionist party members during the Ryutin Affair
Ryutin Affair
The Ryutin Affair was one of the last attempts to oppose the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin within the Soviet Communist Party.Martemyan Ryutin was an Old Bolshevik and a secretary of the Moscow City Communist Party Committee in the 1920s...
. After once again admitting their supposed mistakes, they were readmitted in December 1933. They were forced to make self-flagellating speeches at the XVIIth Party Congress in January 1934 when Stalin was parading his erstwhile political opponents, now defeated and outwardly contrite.
Show trials (1935-1936)
After the murder of Sergei Kirov on December 1, 1934, which served as one of the triggers to Great PurgeGreat Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
of the Communist Party, Zinoviev, Kamenev, and their closest associates were once again expelled from the party and arrested in December 1934. They were tried in January 1935 and were forced to admit "moral complicity" in Kirov's assassination. Zinoviev was sentenced to 10 years in prison and his supporters to various prison terms.
In August 1936, after months of careful preparations and rehearsals in Soviet secret police prisons, Zinoviev, Kamenev, and 14 others, mostly Old Bolshevik
Old Bolshevik
Old Bolshevik , also Old Bolshevik Guard or Old Party Guard, was an unofficial designation for those who were members of the Bolshevik party before the Russian Revolution of 1917, many of whom were either tried and executed by the NKVD during Stalin era purges or died under suspicious...
s, were put on trial again. This time, the charges included forming a terrorist organization that supposedly killed Kirov and tried to kill Stalin and other leaders of the Soviet government. This Trial of the Sixteen (or the trial of the "Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Center") was the first Moscow Show Trial
Moscow Trials
The Moscow Trials were a series of show trials conducted in the Soviet Union and orchestrated by Joseph Stalin during the Great Purge of the 1930s. The victims included most of the surviving Old Bolsheviks, as well as the leadership of the Soviet secret police...
and set the stage for subsequent show trials where Old Bolsheviks confessed to increasingly elaborate and monstrous crimes, including espionage, poisoning, sabotage, and so on. Zinoviev and the other defendants were found guilty on August 24, 1936.
Prior to the trial, Zinoviev and Kamenev had agreed to plead guilty to the false charges on the condition that they not be executed, a condition that Stalin accepted, stating "that goes without saying." Nonetheless, a few hours after the conviction, Stalin ordered their execution for that night. Shortly after midnight, on the morning of August 25, Zinoviev and Kamenev were executed by shooting.
Accounts of Zinoviev's execution vary, with some having him beg and plead for his life, prompting a more stoic Kamenev to tell Zinoviev to quiet down and die with dignity. Regardless, Zinoviev put up such resistance against the guards that, instead of taking him to the appointed execution room, the guards took him into a nearby cell and shot him there.
The execution of Zinoviev, Kamenev, and their associates was a sensational news event in the USSR and around the world, paving the way for the mass arrests and executions of the terror of 1937-1938. Zinoviev and his co-defendants were formally absolved of the spurious charges which led to their death by the Soviet government in 1988 during perestroika
Perestroika
Perestroika was a political movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during 1980s, widely associated with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev...
.
The "Zinoviev Letter"
- For main article, see Zinoviev letterZinoviev LetterThe "Zinoviev Letter" refers to a controversial document published by the British press in 1924, allegedly sent from the Communist International in Moscow to the Communist Party of Great Britain...
.
Zinoviev is remembered in Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
as the alleged author of the "Zinoviev Letter
Zinoviev Letter
The "Zinoviev Letter" refers to a controversial document published by the British press in 1924, allegedly sent from the Communist International in Moscow to the Communist Party of Great Britain...
" which caused a sensation when published on October 25, 1924, four days before a general election. The letter called on British Communists
Communist Party of Great Britain
The Communist Party of Great Britain was the largest communist party in Great Britain, although it never became a mass party like those in France and Italy. It existed from 1920 to 1991.-Formation:...
to prepare for revolution. This document is now generally accepted to have been a forgery
Forgery
Forgery is the process of making, adapting, or imitating objects, statistics, or documents with the intent to deceive. Copies, studio replicas, and reproductions are not considered forgeries, though they may later become forgeries through knowing and willful misrepresentations. Forging money or...
, validating the declaration that Zinoviev made in a letter dated 27 October 1924:
"The letter of 15th September, 1924, which has been attributed to me, is from the first to the last word, a forgery. Let us take the heading. The organisation of which I am the president never describes itself officially as the Executive Committee of the Third Communist International; the official name is Executive Committee of the Communist International. Equally incorrect is the signature, The Chairman of the Presidium. The forger has shown himself to be very stupid in his choice of the date. On the 15th of September, 1924, I was taking a holiday in Kislovodsk, and, therefore, could not have signed any official letter....
"It is not difficult to understand why some of the leaders of the Liberal-Conservative bloc had recourse to such methods as the forging of documents. Apparently they seriously thought they would be able, at the last minute before the elections, to create confusion in the ranks of those electors who sincerely sympathise with the Treaty between England and the Soviet Union. It is much more difficult to understand why the English Foreign Office, which is still under the control of the Prime Minister, MacDonald, did not refrain from making use of such a white-guardist forgery."
External links
- Grigory Zinoviev Archive, part of Marxists Internet ArchiveMarxists Internet ArchiveMarxists Internet Archive is a volunteer based non-profit organization that maintains a multi-lingual Internet archive of Marxist writers and other similar authors...
. - Anatol Lunacharsky on Zinoviev.
- Leon Trotsky on Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev