Full Name: Grigory Yevseevich Zinoviev
Birth Name: Ovsel Gershon Aronov Radomyslsky
Nickname: Grigory Zinoviev

Date of Birth: September 23, 1883
Birth Place: Yelizavetgrad, Russian Empire
Date of Death: August 25, 1936 (aged 52)
Death Place: Moscow, Soviet Union
Cause of Death: Execution

Occupation: Politician
Gender: Male
Religion: Jewish
Race or Ethnicity: White
Nationality: Russia, Soviet
Education: University of Heme

Author of Books: Leninism (1925)

The Soviet politician Grigori Zinoviev was born September 23, 1883, in Yelizavetgrad, and served the Russian Communist party in several high positions between 1901 and 1927. Opposed by Stalin, he was executed after a dramatic purge trial. Gregory Zinoviev was found guilty and executed in Moscow on 25th August 1936.

Early Life: The Soviet politician Grigori Zinoviev was born September 23, 1883, in Yelizavetgrad, Ukraine, Russia. The son of Jewish diary farmers, Zinoviev received no formal schooling and was educated at home. He studied philosophy, literature and history. At the age of fourteen, he found work as a clerk. He became interested in politics and joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1901. He became involved in trade union activities and as a result of police persecution, he left Russia and went to live in Berlin before moving on to Paris. In 1903 Zinoviev met Vladimir Lenin and George Plekhanov in Switzerland and become a close disciple of Lenin. 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. In 1912 Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev and Vladimir Lenin moved to Krakow in Galicia to be closer to Russia. At the outbreak of the First World War, they were forced to move to neutral Switzerland. Zinoviev remained Lenin's constant aide-de-camp and representative in various socialist organizations until 1917. From that time until the Revolution of 1917, Zinoviev is generally believed to have followed Lenin more closely than any other member of the Bolshevik political leadership.

Later Life: In 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 Krestinsky 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 most of the blame for the failures of the several Communist attempts at seizing power in Germany during the early 1920s, but he managed to shift it to Karl Radek, the Comintern's representative in Germany at the time.

When Vladimir Lenin died in 1924, no single personality immediately succeeded in his position of leadership. Instead, a triumvirate of leaders, Grigory Zinoviev, Joseph Stalin, and Kamenev, combined to prevent the strongest individual claimant, Leon Trotsky, from succeeding to power. Stalin now began to attack Trotsky's belief in the need for a world revolution. In 1925 Joseph Stalin switched his support from Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev to Bukharin and now began advocating the economic policies of Bukharin, Mikhail Tomsky and Alexei Rykov. By 1926-1927 Kamenev held the relatively insignificant position of ambassador to Italy. This was followed by exclusion, readmission, and, again, exclusion from the party (1927-1932).

Death: In December 1934 Sergei Kirov with Stalin in arranging the downfall of Zinoviev was assassinated. Almost immediately Zinoviev was expelled again from the party. Having admitted to the most humiliating and demeaning acts against the Soviet state and the party, Zinoviev was condemned and executed in Moscow on the 25th of August 1936.