Leo Borisovich Kamenev (1883-1936)

Kamenev was one of the initial leaders of the Russian Communist Party and the Soviet state; a prominent representative of the new opposition within the Communist Party (Bolshevik). Born on July 18, 1883, to an engineer’s family in Moscow, his former surname was Rosenfeld, due to his Jewish origin.

In 1896, Kamenev moved to Tbilisi with his parents. After entering Moscow University to study law, he began to read the Iskra newspaper founded by Lenin and actively participated in the student movement. In 1901, he joined the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party. In 1902, he joined Lenin’s Iskra newspaper in Paris. In 1903, at the Second Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party, Kamenev stood on the side of Bolsheviks. At the beginning of 1904, he moved to Moscow, engaged in propaganda work under the leadership of the Moscow Committee of the Party, and firmly stood by the Bolsheviks in their struggle against Mensheviks. During 1905-1907, Kamenev engaged in revolutionary activities in St. Petersburg and kept close contact with Lenin. In 1908, he was arrested again for preparing to print the May Day flyer and was released in July. At the end of the same year, by the invitation of Lenin, he participated in the work of the editorial department of the Bolshevik central organ Proletary newspaper in Geneva. He attended the Congress of the Second International in 1910 and the 6th Party conference in 1912.

Lenin sent him back to Russia in 1914 to lead the editorial department of Pravda and lead the Bolshevik faction’s work in the Fourth Duma. In November of the same year, Kamenev was arrested by the Tsar government and then exiled to Siberia. After Russia’s February Revolution in 1917, Kamenev returned to Petrograd as the representative of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party (Bolshevik) in the Petrograd Soviet. He was elected as a member of the Central Committee at the party congress in April and elected as a member of the Political Bureau in October. He and Zinoviev published a statement in the Menshevik magazine New Life opposing the decision of armed uprising by the Party Central Committee, this statement revealed the secrecy of the armed uprising which the party was preparing for.

Severely criticized by Lenin, Kamenev corrected his mistakes and participated in the preparations for the uprising. After the victory of the October revolution, he presided over the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets. Kamenev was elected as the first chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets. Later, because of accepting the requests of the Social Revolutionary Party and the establishment of the so called “All-Socialist Government” by Mensheviks, the Party Central Committee rejected the idea and Kamenev was relieved from the post of chairman of the All-Russian Executive Committee of the Central Committee. At the beginning of 1918, entrusted by Lenin, he secretly went to Britain and France to introduce the situation and tasks of Soviet Russia. He fell into the hands of the White Army on his way home and was imprisoned. He was released and exchanged with Finnish prisoners of war in August 1918. After returning to Moscow, he was elected as the co-president of the Russian Soviet Union. In 1919, he was elected as a full member of the Party Central Committee at the 8th Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) Congress and entered the Political Bureau. After Lenin fell ill in 1922, he presided over the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee and served as deputy chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars. Since 1924, he was the chairman of the Commission of Labor and Defense.

During 1923-1924, Kamenev opposed Trotskyism and published his report titled “Trotskyism or Leninism”, “Is Lenin the True Leader of the Proletariat and the Revolution?” He was the first president of Lenin Research Institute. In 1925, he formed a new opposition with Zinoviev and others, so he was criticized and demoted within the Political Bureau. In 1926, he was expelled from the Party Central Committee and the Political Bureau because of his participation in the organization of Trotsky-Zinoviev’s “anti-party alliance”. He was expelled from the party in 1927, rejoined in 1928 and was expelled again in 1932. After Kirov’s assassination in December 1934, Kamenev was arrested and convicted along with Zinoviev for “indirect participation” to the conspirative plot. He was trialed again in August 1936 with Zinoviev, were accused of “plotting to assassinate Stalin and other Soviet leaders” consequently Kamenev was executed on August 1925. On June 13, 1988, the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union annulled the 1936 judgment on Kamenev and restored his reputation.