- Zinovyev also spelled:
- Zinoviev
- Original name:
- Ovsel Gershon Aronov Radomyslsky
- Born:
- Sept. 11 [Sept. 23, New Style], 1883, Yelizavetgrad, Ukraine, Russian Empire [now Kirovohrad, Ukraine]
- Political Affiliation:
- Bolshevik
- Communist Party of the Soviet Union
- Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party
- United Opposition
Grigory Yevseyevich Zinovyev
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Who was Grigory Yevseyevich Zinovyev?
Grigory Yevseyevich Zinovyev was a prominent Russian revolutionary and a key figure in the Bolshevik Party alongside Vladimir Lenin before the Russian Revolution of 1917. He held significant leadership positions in the Communist Party during the 1920s and served as chairman of the executive committee of the Communist International.
Zinovyev was a powerful orator and played a crucial role in consolidating Bolshevik power. However, his political fortunes shifted, and he eventually became a victim of Joseph Stalin's Great Purge. He was arrested, tried on fabricated charges, and executed in 1936.
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What role did Zinovyev play in the Russian Revolution?
Grigory Yevseyevich Zinovyev was a prominent Russian revolutionary who worked closely with Vladimir Lenin in the Bolshevik Party before the Russian Revolution of 1917. He was a key figure in the Communist Party leadership in the Soviet Union during the 1920s.
Zinovyev was an agitator among St. Petersburg workers during the 1905 Revolution and became a member of the Bolshevik Central Committee in 1907. He was Lenin's principal collaborator from 1909 to 1917. After the February Revolution in 1917, Zinovyev returned to Russia with Lenin. However, he opposed Lenin's insistence on seizing power in October and even leaked information about the planned coup. Despite this, he was soon reinstated as a leading Bolshevik and became known as an outstanding orator who helped gain public support for the new regime. He also served as chairman of the executive committee of the Communist International (Comintern) starting in 1919.
Zinovyev later became a victim of Joseph Stalin's Great Purge, being executed in 1936.
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Which political party was Zinovyev a part of?
Grigory Yevseyevich Zinovyev was a prominent member of the Bolshevik Party before the Russian Revolution of 1917. He later became a central figure in the leadership of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union during the 1920s. Zinovyev worked closely with Vladimir Lenin and was a key collaborator in the years leading up to the revolution. He was a victim of Joseph Stalin's Great Purge and was executed in 1936.
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What government positions did Zinovyev hold after the revolution?
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Grigory Zinovyev held several significant government positions. He became the head of the Petrograd (later Leningrad) party organization and chairman of the Petrograd Soviet. Additionally, Zinovyev served as the chairman of the executive committee of the Communist International (Comintern) starting in 1919. He was also a full member of the party's Politburo.
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Why did Zinovyev fall out of power in the Soviet Union?
Grigory Yevseyevich Zinovyev fell from power in the Soviet Union primarily due to his political rivalry with Joseph Stalin. After Lenin's death, Zinovyev formed an alliance with Lev Kamenev to oppose Leon Trotsky's bid for leadership. However, Stalin eventually turned against his former allies, systematically undermining Zinovyev's influence. Despite his positions as head of the Leningrad party organization and chairman of the Communist International (Comintern), Zinovyev was forced out of the Politburo and Comintern by the end of 1926 and expelled from the Communist Party. He was later executed during Stalin's Great Purge in 1936.
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What happened to Zinovyev during the Stalinist purges?
Grigory Yevseyevich Zinovyev, a prominent Bolshevik revolutionary and leader in the Soviet Union, became a victim of Joseph Stalin's Great Purge. After initially collaborating with Stalin and Lev Kamenev to sideline Leon Trotsky, Zinovyev eventually formed an opposition against Stalin. This led to his expulsion from the Communist Party in 1927.
In 1935, Zinovyev was arrested and secretly tried for complicity in the assassination of Sergey Kirov. The following year, he was put on public trial, found guilty of fabricated charges of forming a terrorist organization, and executed in Moscow on August 25, 1936. His conviction and execution were part of a broader campaign of political terror orchestrated by Stalin to eliminate rivals and consolidate power.
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Grigory Yevseyevich Zinovyev (born Sept. 11 [Sept. 23, New Style], 1883, Yelizavetgrad, Ukraine, Russian Empire [now Kirovohrad, Ukraine]—died Aug. 25, 1936, Moscow, Russia, U.S.S.R.) was a revolutionary who worked closely with Lenin in the Bolshevik Party before the Russian Revolution of 1917 and became a central figure in the Communist Party leadership in the Soviet Union in the 1920s. He later was a victim of Joseph Stalin’s Great Purge.
(Read Leon Trotsky’s 1926 Britannica essay on Lenin.)
Zinovyev was born to lower middle-class Jewish parents and received no formal education, but during travels abroad in 1902–05 he attended lectures on law at Bern University. In 1901 he joined the Social Democratic Workers’ Party and Lenin’s radical Iskra organization within that party. After the party split in 1903, he adhered to the Bolsheviks. He was an agitator among the St. Petersburg workers during the Russian Revolution of 1905 and became a member of the party’s Central Committee after the London Congress in 1907. He was arrested in 1908 but shortly released because of ill health.
Zinovyev was Lenin’s principal collaborator in the period 1909–17, living in France, Austria, or Switzerland. He took part in the struggles against the militant Bolsheviks who opposed Lenin’s leadership and also against the Mensheviks and Leon Trotsky. He was active in directing Bolshevik organizations in Russia and the activities of the Bolshevik deputies in the Duma. During World War I he tried to organize the “internationalists” among the European socialists.
In April 1917, after the February Revolution had overthrown the monarchy, Zinovyev accompanied Lenin on his return to Russia. But in October, when Lenin insisted that the Bolsheviks seize power, Zinovyev and his close associate Lev B. Kamenev opposed him and even leaked information about the proposed coup d’état to the press. Immediately after the October Revolution he again dissented, vainly demanding that his colleagues include members from other socialist parties in the government. To symbolize his protest, he resigned from the Bolshevik Central Committee (November 1917).
Nevertheless, Zinovyev was soon restored to his position as a principal Bolshevik leader. An outstanding orator, he helped win public support for the new regime, and by 1921 he had become head of the Petrograd (later Leningrad) party organization, chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, and a full member of the party’s Politburo. In 1919 he also became chairman of the executive committee of the newly established Communist International (Comintern), which, dominated by the Russian Communists, formulated socialist policies and coordinated the activities of its member parties. (In conjunction with that post he achieved international notoriety when in 1924 the London press published a letter, allegedly written by him, instructing British communists to conduct subversive activities. The publication of the letter was considered to be the cause of the downfall of Britain’s first Labour government.)
In the early 1920s Zinovyev formed a coalition in the Politburo with Kamenev and Stalin to prevent Leon Trotsky from succeeding Lenin, who had become seriously ill and died in January 1924. But after the triumvirate had eliminated Trotsky as a serious contender in the power struggle (by early 1925), Stalin turned against his former allies. Neither Zinovyev’s control over the Leningrad party organization and the Comintern nor his belated political alliance with Trotsky (1926) proved sufficient to preserve his position of authority and influence in the party. By the end of 1926 he had been forced out of the Politburo and the Comintern, and in 1927 he was expelled from the Communist Party.
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Although he was subsequently readmitted to the party, he never recovered his former prestige and was expelled again on two other occasions (1932 and 1934). In 1935 he was arrested, secretly tried for “moral complicity” in the assassination of the party leader Sergey Mironovich Kirov (December 1934), and sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment. The following year, however, he was retried at the first Great Purge trial, found guilty on the fabricated charge of forming a terrorist organization to assassinate Kirov and other Soviet leaders, and executed. In 1988 the Soviet Supreme Court annulled the sentence posthumously.