Zinoviev Grigory Evseevich (real name - Radomyslsky; born September 11 (23), 1883 - death on August 25, 1936) - politician, professional revolutionary, party nickname Grigory; Social Democrat, Bolshevik, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI); member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party; Chairman of the Leningrad Council and the Provincial Executive Committee, close associate of V. I. Lenin.
Origin. early years
Born in the city of Elizavetgrad (in 1927-1934 in his honor, he was also renamed Zinovievsk, now Kirovograd) of the Kherson province in a poor petty-bourgeois family (his father owned a small dairy farm). From the age of 14 he began to live by his own labor. Received education at home.
At the end of the 1890s. participated in the first self-education circles and is closely related to the group that organized the first economic strikes of workers and employees in the south of Russia.
Political activity (Biography briefly)
1901 - joined the RSDLP. 1903 - joined the Bolsheviks immediately after the Second Congress. 1907 - became a member of the Central Committee at the London Congress. Participated in the Zimmerwald and Kienthal conferences. Closest associate of V. Lenin from 1903 to 1917, co-author of Lenin in writing the book "Socialism and War". Returning from exile with Vladimir Ilyich in the so-called "sealed carriage", Zinoviev opposed the "April Theses", and then against the October uprising. He was a member of the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, was a member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, at the 1st Petrograd City Conference he was elected chairman of the Petrograd Bolshevik organization.
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He opposed unification with the Mensheviks, for the transfer of power to the Soviets. In the course of the July events, he supported the proposal to contain the masses, later joined the opinion that the necessary support for their movement, but insisted on the peaceful nature of the demonstration.
In November, Zinoviev organized a protest against the first one-party Bolshevik government. He defiantly left the Central Committee. 1917, December - Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet. 1919-1926 - Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Comintern. 1907 - 1927 - Member of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b). 1919-1921 - candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee. 1921-1926 - Member of the Politburo of the Party Central Committee. Member of the Central Executive Committee and the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. Member of the "triumvirate" (Zinoviev, Kamenev and Stalin), who fought against Trotsky and the Left Opposition in 1923-25. He was expelled from the party twice - in 1927 and 1934.
Last years. Death
1934, December 16 - Zinoviev was arrested and soon sentenced to 10 years in prison in the Moscow Center case. Was in the Verkhneuralsk political isolator. 1935 - kept notes, with an appeal to Stalin. In particular, he wrote: “A desire burns in my soul: to prove to you that I am no longer an enemy. There are no such requirements that I would not fulfill in order to prove this … I get to the point where I stare at you and other members of the Politburo for a long time, portraits in newspapers with the thought: relatives, look into my soul, can you really not see that I not your enemy anymore, that I am your soul and body, that I have realized everything, that I am ready to do everything to deserve forgiveness, indulgence …"
1936, August 24 - Zinoviev Grigory Evseevich was sentenced to capital punishment in the case of the Anti-Soviet United Trotskyite-Zinoviev Center. They were shot on August 25 in Moscow in the building of the HCVS. In the past, an employee of the NKVD A. Orlov wrote in his book "The Secret History of Stalin's Crimes" that the head of the NKVD Genrikh Grigorievich Yagoda, deputy heads of the NKVD Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov and K. V. Pauker (chief of Stalin's security) were present during the execution. the consequence will be shot.
He was rehabilitated and reinstated in the party in 1988.
Contemporaries about Zinoviev
Zinoviev was a born agitator. Opponents called him the greatest demagogue among the Bolshevik leaders. At party meetings, he was good at persuading, conquering, bewitching. People who knew him spoke of his lack of self-control, exorbitant vanity and ambition, and noted the manly habits. Party comrades criticized Grigory Evseevich for his rudeness in polemics and unprincipled choice of means in achieving personal and political success.
A. Kuusinen, an employee of the Comintern, recalled in her book "The Lord Cast Down His Angels":
Zinoviev's personality did not arouse much respect, people from his inner circle did not like him. He was ambitious, cunning, rude and uncouth with people … He was a frivolous womanizer, he was convinced that he was irresistible. He was too demanding with his subordinates, with his superiors he was a toady. V. Lenin patronized Zinoviev, but after his death, when Stalin began to make his way to power, his career began to crumble.
Cult of personality
And although Zinoviev publicly reproached Stalin, he created his own cult of personality earlier and inflated it much more. The city in which he was born was renamed Zinovievsk, so as to perpetuate his name. Monuments and busts were erected in many large cities by his order. He published a whole collection of his works (33 volumes).
Personal life
The first wife was a professional revolutionary Sarra Naumovna Ravich (1879-1957), her pseudonym is Olga. Member of the RSDLP since 1903 1917 - together with Lenin, Zinoviev, Zinoviev's second wife Zlata Lilina and her son Stefan arrived in Russia in a sealed carriage. After the death of M. S. Uritsky, she acted as the Commissioner of Internal Affairs of the Northern Region.
Second wife - Zlata Ionovna Lilina (1882-1929), pseudonym Levina Zina (employee of the newspapers Pravda, Zvezda, employee of the Petrosovet). Member of the RSDLP since 1902. The son from his second marriage - Stefan Grigorievich Radomyslsky (1913-1937), arrested and shot.
Lasman Evgenia Yakovlevna (1894-1985) became his third wife. She was in exile and prisons from 1936 to 1954. 2006, March 17 - rehabilitated by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation.
Interesting Facts
• During the famine in Petrograd, various delicacies were delivered to the Zinoviev's table. It was said that the thinness and modest manners of the pre-revolutionary Gregory mutated into the importance and insolence of the "fat canal" taking money from the hungry people.
• Historian V. Lyulechnik argued that even Uritsky sometimes objected to Zinoviev's cruelty, although it would seem that it should be the other way around.