Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

ZINOV′EV, GRIGORII EVSEEVICH (23 September 1883–25 August 1936). The Soviet political leader G. E. Zinov′ev—a close associate of V. I. Lenin before the revolution, but one of his chief critics in 1917—was born at Elizavetgrad (renamed Zinov′esk from 1924 to 27 December 1934; now Kirovohrad), in Kherson oblast′, as Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich Radomysl′skii. (During his revolutionary career he was also known as Hirsch Apfelbaum.) He was of lower middle-class, Jewish origin (his parents ran a dairy farm), and apart from a few months spent at the Chemistry Faculty of Berlin University in 1906, had no formal education, having been educated at home. He joined the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party in 1901, and when the party split in 1903, he immediately sided with the Bolsheviks. During the 1905 Revolution, he was active as a political agitator in St. Petersburg, and in 1907 he was elected as a candidate member of the party Central Committee. He was briefly imprisoned by the tsarist authorities in 1908, but was released due to ill health and went abroad to join Lenin in exile. On 17 January 1912, he became a member of the first Central Committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party (Bolsheviks). After spending the First World War in exile in Switzerland, he returned to Russia, with Lenin, aboard the “sealed train” supplied by imperial Germany, arriving in Petrograd on 4 April 1917. He then edited the party newspaper, Pravda (“The Truth”), until that publication was banned by the Russian Provisional Government following the July Days. In this period, he often opposed Lenin’s policies and, during the October Revolution he (in collaboration with L. B. Kamenev) opposed the seizure of power, going so far as to publish a letter condemning the move in advance in Maxim Gorky’s newspaper. When presented with the fait accompli of the Bolsheviks’ toppling of the Provisional Government, he insisted on the inclusion in Sovnarkom of representatives of other socialist parties. When Lenin refused this (and then wrecked the Vikzhel′ talks), Zinov′ev (with four others) resigned from the Bolshevik Central Committee on 4 November 1917. He was reinstated a few days later, following the publication of an apologetic “Letter to Comrades” in Pravda, but never fully regained the trust of Lenin, who now tended to rely on his new right-hand man, L. D. Trotsky (much to Zinov′ev’s chagrin).

Nevertheless, in January 1919 Zinov′ev became head of the Soviet regime in Petrograd and head of party organizations in that region; in March 1919, he was elected to the chair of the Executive Committee of the Komintern. (In that last capacity, in September 1920, he also presided over the Congress of the Peoples of the East at Baku.) During the civil wars, he was responsible for the defense of Petrograd against the forces of General N. N. Iudenich, a task he performed badly, leading to clashes with Trotsky. During the debate on trade unions in 1920, he supported Lenin’s line and was rewarded with a place in the Politbiuro on 16 March 1921, despite the fact that his ruthless governance of Petrograd had led at this time to a great strike wave and, in part, to the Kronshtadt Revolt. He was also, as head of the Komintern, widely condemned by Leftists for the failure of the communist uprising in Germany in October 1923, but managed to deflect the criticism onto Karl Radek, the Komintern’s representative in Germany, and remained one of the most powerful figures in the party.