Gregory Zinoviev
Born in Russia in 1883, founding member of the RSDLP and the Bolsheviks;
CC member from 1907. Lenin's closest associate in exile till 1917.
With Kamenev, opposed the October insurrection, but was appointed
Chairman of Petrograd Soviet and later Secretary of the Communist
International, through which position he knew most of the leaders
of the International. From this time on Zinoviev and Kamenev were
always closely associated. Trotsky remarked that the two had complementary
characters. In 1923, they formed the 'troika' with Stalin to fight
Trotsky, broke with Stalin in 1925 over bureaucratism, and joined
the United Opposition against Stalin in 1926. Expelled in 1927.
Capitulated to Stalin and re-admitted in 1928. Despite prostrating
themselves before Stalin, they were expelled again 1932, for the
crime of reading a right-opposition document, exiled, arrested
1934, charged in the First Moscow Trial with plotting to assassinate
Stalin and shot. Z was a prolific writer, but only his excellent
History of the Bolshevik Party has come down to us. Described
by Trotsky as an 'agitator', with a good political instinct, though
tempestuous, obsessive and sometimes vindictive In his 'Testament',
Lenin remarked that it 'was no accident that K and Z opposed the
October insurrection'. Zinoviev remarked in 1926 that their mistake
in supporting Stalin against Trotsky in 1923 was even greater
than their mistake in 1917. Trotsky in turn later remarked that
their error in capitulating to Stalin in 1928 was even worse,
since in doing so they showed the way for younger, less authoritative
Bolsheviks. "Simply a demagogue, a populariser of ideas worked
out by Lenin" according to Serge.
