Grigory Zinoviev (1883-1936)

The first chairman of the Executive Committee of the Communist International; one of the earliest leaders of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union; one of the main representatives of the opposition within the Communist Party (Bolshevik). Born on September 23, 1883, to a dairy farmer’s family in Ukraine, the family name was Radomysisky, a Jewish family.

In the late 1890s, he began to attend workers’ movement in south Russia. In 1901, he joined the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party. In 1902, he was engaged in the International Workers’ movement in Berlin, Paris, Bern and other places. At the second congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party in 1903, as a result of his stand on the side of Bolsheviks, his long-term cooperation with Lenin began. During the 1905 revolution, he returned to Russia, engaged in revolutionary propaganda in Petersburg, and organized a sailor uprising in Kronstadt. He was elected as a member of the Petersburg Party committee in 1906. The following year, on behalf of the Petersburg party organization, he attended the Fifth Party Congress, at which he was elected as a member of the Party Central Committee. After the failure of the revolution in 1905-1907, Zinoviev was mainly engaged in the editing work of Social Democrat, a journal of the party central organ. Arrested in 1908, he was soon released. Once again, he went abroad to participate in the editing work of the Bolshevik newspaper Proletary under the leadership of Lenin. Later, he lived in France and Austria. During the World War I, he went to Switzerland to participate in the work of the Social Democrat newspaper and co-authored Socialism and War with Lenin.

After the victory of Russia’s February Revolution in April 1917, he returned to Russia with Lenin and worked in Petrograd Soviet. At the same time, he also worked as the deputy editor of the Pravda newspaper, the central organ of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party. In October of the same year, he was elected as a member of the Political Bureau of the RSDLP Central Committee. During the preparation stage of the October Revolution, Zinoviev and Lenin had major differences on the issue of holding an armed uprising. Lenin insisted that the Bolsheviks should seize power, while he and Kamenev opposed Lenin’s ideas and specific plans for the armed uprising and made the difference public. His behavior was severely condemned by Lenin. After the October Revolution, he was once again criticized by the party for advocating the establishment of a coalition government which would include Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionary Party. In March, he was elected as the first chairman of the Executive Committee of the Comintern at the First World Congress of the Comintern.

In 1921, he became the leader of Petrograd party organization, chairman of Petrograd Soviet and member of the Political Bureau of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Central Committee.

In 1925, Zinoviev and Kamenev formed a new opposition. In September of that year, Zinoviev published a book Leninism, stating his views on Leninist theory and on a series of major issues.

For the first time, the book clearly puts forward the conclusion that “a single country cannot build socialism”. He criticized the current policy for being too tolerant to the rich peasants, and argued that the new economic policy could not lead to socialism, but only to state capitalism.

At the plenary session of the Russian Communist Party (B) Central Committee held in October, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Sokolnikov and Krupskaya jointly sent a letter to the Communist Party Central Committee, requesting for an internal party debate. The majority of Central Committee refused this request. The united opposition decided to appeal their ideas at the upcoming party congress for deliberation. As Zinoviev has long been the leader of the Leningrad party organization with a considerable influence in Leningrad, the opposition took Leningrad as its base of activity, he kept criticizing and resisting on many major policies of the Central Committee (mainly on rural policies). This new opposition is also called “Leningrad Opposition”. The Fourteenth Congress of the Communist Party criticized the new opposition. After the meeting, Zinoviev was removed from the leading position of Leningrad Party Committee. At the turn of spring and summer in 1926, he formed an alliance with Trotsky, and carried out factional activities in Moscow and Leningrad. In June of the same year, at the plenary session of the Communist Party (Bolshevik), Central Committee decided to expel him from the Political Bureau of the Central Committee. He was also relieved from his chairman position of the executive committee of the Comintern. In the summer of 1927, he published the “Declaration of the Eighty-three” with Trotsky and others and continued to oppose the guidelines and policies of the Central Committee and was expelled from the Central Committee. In 1934-1935 he was expelled from the Party and sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment as “the main organizer and most active leader of the underground counter-revolutionary group”, accused of being the instigator of the assassination of Kirov, and on 25 August 1936 he was executed together with Kamenev for, among other things, selling out state secrets to a fascist spy agency.

On June 13, 1988, the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union revoked the 1936 judgment on Zinoviev and declared him innocent before the law, the state and the people.