Olga Kameneva
Encyclopedia
Olga Davidovna Kameneva (née Bronstein [Бронштейн]) was a Russia
n Bolshevik
revolutionary
and a Soviet politician
. She was the sister of Leon Trotsky
and the first wife of Lev Kamenev
.
, Ukraine
, Russian Empire
, a small village 15 miles from the nearest post office. She was one of two daughters of a wealthy but illiterate farmer, David Leontyevich Bronstein (or Bronshtein, 1847 - 1922), a Jewish colonist, and Anna Bronstein (1850 - 1910). Although the family was of Jewish extraction, it was not religious and the languages spoken at home were Russian
and Ukrainian
, not Yiddish.
Olga Bronstein joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in 1902 and soon married Lev Kamenev, a fellow Marxist revolutionary. In 1908, after Lev Kamenev's release from prison, the Kamenevs left Russia for Geneva
and then Paris
, where Lev Kamenev became one of Vladimir Lenin
's two deputies. The couple helped Lenin edit the main Bolshevik magazine Proletariy. In January 1914 the Kamenevs moved to St. Petersburg so that Lev could be in immediate control of the Bolsheviks' legal newspaper Pravda
and their Duma
faction.
of 1917, Kameneva was put in charge of the Theater Division (TEO) of the People's Commissariat for Education. Working with theatrical director and theorist Vsevolod Meyerhold
, she tried to radicalize Russian theaters, effectively nationalizing them under Bolshevik control. However, Meyerhold came down with tuberculosis
in May 1919 and had to leave for the south. In his absence, the head of the Commissariat, Anatoly Lunacharsky, secured Lenin's permission to revise government policy in favor of more traditional theaters and dismissed Kameneva in June.
From the time it was organized in October 1919, Kameneva was a member of the board of directors of the Soviet Communist Party's Women's Section. In 1920 she supported People's Commissar of Public Health
Nikolai Semashko's opinion that contraception
was "unquestionably harmful" and should not be advocated.
(ARA) under Herbert Hoover
in the Soviet press. In 1923-1925 she was the head of the short-lived Commission for Foreign Relief (KZP), a Soviet governmental commission that regulated and then liquidated remaining Western charities in the Soviet Union
. In 1926-1928 Kameneva served as chairman of the USSR Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries ("Voks", Vsesoiuznoe Obshchestvo Kul'turnoi Sviazi s Zagranitsei) In that capacity she greeted many prominent Western visitors to the Soviet Union, e.g. Le Corbusier
and Theodore Dreiser
, represented the Soviet Union at the festivities in Vienna
commemorating the centennial of Ludwig van Beethoven
's death in March-April 1927, Throughout the 1920s she also ran a leading literary salon
in Moscow.
In the early 1920s the Kamenevs' family life began to disintegrate starting with Lev Kamenev's reputed affair with the British
sculptress
Clare Frewen Sheridan
in 1920. In the late 1920s he left Olga Kameneva for Tatiana Glebova, with whom he had a son, Vladimir Glebov (1929-1994).
(Soviet secret police) Special Board banned her from Moscow
and Leningrad
for 5 years in connection with the Kremlin Case. After Lev Kamenev's show trial
and execution on August 25, 1936, she was arrested and imprisoned. Her younger son, Yu. L. Kamenev, was executed on January 30, 1938, at the age of 17. Her older son, Air Force officer A.L. Kamenev, was executed on July 15, 1939 at the age of 33.
Olga Kameneva was shot on September 11, 1941 on Joseph Stalin
's orders in the Medvedev forest outside Orel
together with Christian Rakovsky
, Maria Spiridonova
and 160 other prominent political prisoners. This execution was one of the many NKVD massacres of prisoners
committed in 1941.
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n 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....
revolutionary
Revolutionary
A revolutionary is a person who either actively participates in, or advocates revolution. Also, when used as an adjective, the term revolutionary refers to something that has a major, sudden impact on society or on some aspect of human endeavor.-Definition:...
and a Soviet politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
. She was the sister 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....
and the first wife of 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....
.
Childhood and Revolutionary Career (1883-1917)
Olga Kameneva was born in Yanovka, Kherson ProvinceKherson Province
Kherson Province may refer to:*Kherson Oblast, subdivision of Ukraine*Kherson Governorate, subdivision of the Russian Empire...
, 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...
, 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...
, a small village 15 miles from the nearest post office. She was one of two daughters of a wealthy but illiterate farmer, David Leontyevich Bronstein (or Bronshtein, 1847 - 1922), a Jewish colonist, and Anna Bronstein (1850 - 1910). Although the family was of Jewish extraction, it was not religious and the languages spoken at home were Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
and Ukrainian
Ukrainian language
Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....
, not Yiddish.
Olga Bronstein joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in 1902 and soon married Lev Kamenev, a fellow Marxist revolutionary. In 1908, after Lev Kamenev's release from prison, the Kamenevs left Russia for Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
and then Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, where Lev Kamenev became one of Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
's two deputies. The couple helped Lenin edit the main Bolshevik magazine Proletariy. In January 1914 the Kamenevs moved to St. Petersburg so that Lev could be in immediate control of the Bolsheviks' legal newspaper Pravda
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....
and their Duma
Duma
A Duma is any of various representative assemblies in modern Russia and Russian history. The State Duma in the Russian Empire and Russian Federation corresponds to the lower house of the parliament. Simply it is a form of Russian governmental institution, that was formed during the reign of the...
faction.
Theater and Women's Issue Work (1918-1920)
In early 1918, after the October RevolutionOctober 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...
of 1917, Kameneva was put in charge of the Theater Division (TEO) of the People's Commissariat for Education. Working with theatrical director and theorist Vsevolod Meyerhold
Vsevolod Meyerhold
Vsevolod Emilevich Meyerhold was a great Russian and Soviet theatre director, actor and theatrical producer. His provocative experiments dealing with physical being and symbolism in an unconventional theatre setting made him one of the seminal forces in modern international theatre.-Early...
, she tried to radicalize Russian theaters, effectively nationalizing them under Bolshevik control. However, Meyerhold came down with tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
in May 1919 and had to leave for the south. In his absence, the head of the Commissariat, Anatoly Lunacharsky, secured Lenin's permission to revise government policy in favor of more traditional theaters and dismissed Kameneva in June.
From the time it was organized in October 1919, Kameneva was a member of the board of directors of the Soviet Communist Party's Women's Section. In 1920 she supported People's Commissar of Public Health
Public health
Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals" . It is concerned with threats to health based on population health...
Nikolai Semashko's opinion that contraception
Contraception
Contraception is the prevention of the fusion of gametes during or after sexual activity. The term contraception is a contraction of contra, which means against, and the word conception, meaning fertilization...
was "unquestionably harmful" and should not be advocated.
Managing Soviet Contacts with the West (1921-1928)
In 1921-1923 Kameneva was a leading member of the Central Commission for Fighting the After-Effects of the Famine and oversaw a propaganda campaign against the American Relief AdministrationAmerican Relief Administration
American Relief Administration was an American relief mission to Europe and later Soviet Russia after World War I. Herbert Hoover, future president of the United States, was the program director....
(ARA) under Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover was the 31st President of the United States . Hoover was originally a professional mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted partnerships between government and business...
in the Soviet press. In 1923-1925 she was the head of the short-lived Commission for Foreign Relief (KZP), a Soviet governmental commission that regulated and then liquidated remaining Western charities in the Soviet Union
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....
. In 1926-1928 Kameneva served as chairman of the USSR Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries ("Voks", Vsesoiuznoe Obshchestvo Kul'turnoi Sviazi s Zagranitsei) In that capacity she greeted many prominent Western visitors to the Soviet Union, e.g. Le Corbusier
Le Corbusier
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier , was a Swiss-born French architect, designer, urbanist, writer and painter, famous for being one of the pioneers of what now is called modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland and became a French citizen in 1930...
and Theodore Dreiser
Theodore Dreiser
Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser was an American novelist and journalist of the naturalist school. His novels often featured main characters who succeeded at their objectives despite a lack of a firm moral code, and literary situations that more closely resemble studies of nature than tales of...
, represented the Soviet Union at the festivities in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
commemorating the centennial of Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
's death in March-April 1927, Throughout the 1920s she also ran a leading literary salon
Salon (gathering)
A salon is a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine taste and increase their knowledge of the participants through conversation. These gatherings often consciously followed Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "either to...
in Moscow.
In the early 1920s the Kamenevs' family life began to disintegrate starting with Lev Kamenev's reputed affair with the British
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
sculptress
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
Clare Frewen Sheridan
Clare Frewen Sheridan
Clare Sheridan , was an English sculptress and writer who is known primarily for creating busts for famous sitters, and writing diaries recounting her worldly travels...
in 1920. In the late 1920s he left Olga Kameneva for Tatiana Glebova, with whom he had a son, Vladimir Glebov (1929-1994).
Fall from power and execution (1928-1941)
Kameneva quickly lost her influence after Kamenev and Trotsky's fall from power in 1927. On July 27, 1935 the NKVDNKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
(Soviet secret police) Special Board banned her from Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
and Leningrad
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...
for 5 years in connection with the Kremlin Case. After Lev Kamenev's 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...
and execution on August 25, 1936, she was arrested and imprisoned. Her younger son, Yu. L. Kamenev, was executed on January 30, 1938, at the age of 17. Her older son, Air Force officer A.L. Kamenev, was executed on July 15, 1939 at the age of 33.
Olga Kameneva was shot on September 11, 1941 on Joseph Stalin
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...
's orders in the Medvedev forest outside Orel
Oryol
Oryol or Orel is a city and the administrative center of Oryol Oblast, Russia, located on the Oka River, approximately south-southwest of Moscow...
together with Christian Rakovsky
Christian Rakovsky
Christian Rakovsky was a Bulgarian socialist revolutionary, a Bolshevik politician and Soviet diplomat; he was also noted as a journalist, physician, and essayist...
, Maria Spiridonova
Maria Spiridonova
Maria Alexandrovna Spiridonova was a figure in Russian revolutionary circles at the beginning of the 20th century.- Biography :She joined the Socialist-Revolutionary Party during her training to become a nurse....
and 160 other prominent political prisoners. This execution was one of the many NKVD massacres of prisoners
NKVD massacres of prisoners
The NKVD prisoner massacres were a series of mass executions committed by the Soviet NKVD against prisoners in Eastern Europe, primarily Poland, Ukraine, the Baltic states, Bessarabia and other parts of the Soviet Union from which the Red Army was withdrawing after the German invasion in 1941...
committed in 1941.