Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

During the closing stages of Lenin’s illness and (initially) following his death, Zinov′ev, together with Kamenev and J. V. Stalin, formed a triumvirate party leadership to oppose the alleged ambitions of Trotsky to become party leader. Once Trotsky was defeated in 1925, though, Stalin turned against his erstwhile partners, and Zinov′ev and Kamenev formed a brief alliance with Trotsky (the United Opposition). However, in 1926 Stalin prized from Zinov′ev his control of Leningrad (as Petrograd had been renamed in 1924, on Zinov′ev’s suggestion), his Politbiuro seat, and the chairmanship of the Komintern; on 14 November 1927, he was expelled from the party and exiled to Voronezh. Zinov′ev, like Kamenev, immediately recanted; in 1928, he was given back his party card and was thereafter granted various middling jobs in the Soviet bureaucracy: as rector of Kazan′ University (1928–1931), member of the collegium of the People’s Commissariat for Education (December 1931–1932), and (following a second arrest and a brief period of exile in Kustanai) (from 1933) a member of the board of the Tsentrosoiuz cooperative and of the editorial board of the journal Bol′shevik.

On 16 December 1934, Zinov′ev, with Kamenev and others, was arrested for “moral complicity” in the recent assassination of his successor as Leningrad party boss, S. M. Kirov. He was tried in secret and sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment on 16 January 1935. Finally, on 19–24 August 1936, Zinov′ev was among those arraigned at the first great show trial (the “Trial of the 16,” or the “Trial of the Trotskyite–Zinov′evite Terrorist Center”). He pleaded guilty to all the (patently false) charges of treason, espionage, and terrorism laid against him and was immediately executed. (This was the first such execution of Old Bolsheviks under Stalin, paving the way for the mass terror that was to follow.) He was posthumously rehabilitated by a plenum of the Supreme Court of the USSR on 13 June 1988.

Źmicier, Žyłunovič.See Hartny, Ciška (Źmicier, Žyłunovič).

ZVERGINTSOV, NIKOLAI IVANOVICH (14 April 1877–27 November 1932). Colonel (26 August 1912), major general (1917). A prominent White commander in North Russia (sometimes referred to as “Zvegintsev” by British forces in that region), N. I. Zvergintsov was a graduate of the Corps of Pages (1898) and the Officer Cavalry School. In the opening months of the First World War, he served in His Majesty’s Hussars Life Guards Regiment and then commanded a Cossack regiment and then a cavalry division. From 1915 to 1918, he was head of all armed forces in the Murmansk region.

After joining the White movement, from 1 June to 3 October 1918 Zvergintsov served as the successful commander of the Murmansk Volunteer Army, later named the Forces of the Murmansk (Northern) Region, clearing Soviet forces from Soroka, Kem, and other population centers. At this time, he was also responsible for a number of appeals to the Allies to intervene in North Russia (although he came to be distrusted by the British when they arrived). From August to December 1918, he was also attached to the war ministry of the Provisional Government of the Northern Region, and from December 1918 to January 1920, he was in the reserve of the Northern Army. Together with other Whites, he was evacuated from North Russia in February 1920 and taken, initially, to Tromsø, in Norway. In emigration he settled in Paris, which is where he died.

Appendix 1: Red Governing Institutions

Council of People’s Commissars (Sovnarkom/SNK) of the RSFSR, 1917–1921

Chair: V. I. Lenin (26 October 1917–21 January 1924)

Deputy Chair: A. I. Rykov (May 1921–?); A. D. Tsiurupa (5 December 1921–?); L. B. Kamenev (January 1922–?)

People’s Commissars

Foreign Affairs (Narkomindel): L. D. Trotsky (26 October 1917–8 April 1918); G. V. Chicherin (30 May 1918–6 July 1923)

Military and Naval Affairs (Narkomvoenmor): N. I. Podvoiskii (to 14 March 1918); V. A. Antonov-Ovseenko (26 October 1917–?); N. V. Krylenko (26 October 1917–14 March 1918); P. E. Dybenko (26 October 1917–14 March 1918); L. D. Trotsky (14 March 1918–6 July 1923)

Internal Affairs (NKVD, Narkomvnudel): A. I. Rykov (26 October–4 November 1917); G. I. Petrovskii (17 November 1917–25 March 1919); V. A. Algasov, Left-SR—“People’s Commissar without Portfolio but with a Casting Vote” (12 December 1917–18 March 1918); F. E. Dzierżyński (30 March 1919–7 July 1923)