See also: Zinoviev

Grigoriy Evseïevitch Zinoviev (in Cyrillic Григо́рийЕвсе́евичЗино́вьев ), of its true name Ovsel Gershon Aronov Radomyslsky (Радомысльский), so known under the name of Hirsch Apfelbaum , is a Révolutionnaire Bolshevik. He was born on September 23rd 1883 and died on August 25th 1936.

Biography

Autodidact, Zinoviev militate, initially, in the south of Russia. Emigrated in 1902, it meets in Suisse Georgui Plekhanov and Lénine: this last pushes it with becoming Bolshevik the following year. He plays a big role in the organization of PCUS to Saint-Pétersbourg. After the failure of the revolution of 1905, its principal activity concentrates in the journalism and the publications of the party.

Continued by the police force, it leaves Russia of 1908 to 1917. He is elected at the central committee in 1907 in London. He joined Lénine in Geneva the following year to become his right-hand man until 1912, in Cracow, territory pertaining to Austria-Hungary, where part of the direction of the Party took refuge. The war still brings them closer. They return together to Russia in famous “the leaded convoy” organized by the Germans in April 1917.

In the preparation of the seizure of power, whereas it entered clandestinity, Zinoviev is opposed, with Kamenev, with the armed rising prepared by Lénine. More still, after the victory of October, he decides for a bringing together with Menchéviques and SR. These hazardous choices, repudiated by the facts, like in Kamenev, will highly be reproached to him when comes the moment from the purgings.

President of the Soviet of Petrograd in December, it firmly holds the reins of this organization, most important of the country. He directs, also, since 1919, with his creation, the Executive committee of the International Communist (Komintern) in whom his influence will be important in the evolution of the European Communist parties, in particular in France. Certain strategies are, however, not very happy, as shows it the debatable support which it brings to the general secretary Albert Treint within the PCF until the ousting of this last, or its imprudent analysis of the German situation, which will lead to the bitter failure of the insurrection of 1920.

Very early, not hiding its ambitions, Zinoviev strongly contributed to évincer Trotski of the capacity in 1921, and constituted during the long illness of Lénine a troika with Kamenev and Stalin making block against the organizer of the Red Army . He is considered then, not without presumption, the legitimate heir to the chief of the party Bolshevik which really cannot, as from 1922, to take again the direction of the government.

Not without inconsistency, after the death of Lénine, in the middle of the fight for the capacity, it approaches Trotski, in 1926, to form with Kamenev the “Troïka of pure the” , hostile with NEP and favorable to the introduction of the socialism in several countries . Stalin quickly gave up them. This last is opposed to their strategy while preaching, on the contrary, the maintenance of the NEP installation by Lénine. This posture is worth with the general secretary a certain popularity in the country and the Party which gives him the means of eliminating these adversaries. After their setting except play, it adopts, not without cynicism, the collectivization and the industrialization which were in good place in the program of the Troïka .

Indeed, the Unified Opposition holds little time in the bastion of Leningrad. The energetic purification of Kirov in the old capital deprives it of its strongest supports. A little later Zinoviev is forced to give up the direction of the Internationale while it is excluded from the Communist party in 1927. It will not find any more its preceding audience in spite of its rehabilitation in 1929, probably moved by tactical considerations partisanes on behalf of Stalin.

A lawsuit with large spectacle (1935-1936)

The murder of Kirov on December 1st, 1934 marks the beginning of the Grandes Purgings of Stalin, Zinoviev, Kamenev and their closest associates are shown fixed price. They are expelled of the Communist party and decrees in December 1934. They pass in judgment in January of the following year. One them constrained to admit their “moral complicity” in the assassination of Kirov. Zinoviev is condemned to 10 years of prison and its partisans with various sorrows of imprisonment.

In August 1936, after months of meticulous preparation in the prisons of the Soviet secret police, Zinoviev, Kamenev and fourteen others, primarily of the Old Bolsheviks , found themselves again in front of the court. This time one shows them to have trained an terrorist organization which one supposes that it is responsible for the assassination of Kirov and attempted murder d' against Stalin and against of other chiefs of the Soviet government. The lawsuit led to the death sentence defendants, of which Zinoviev and Kamenev, carried out at once after the sentence, on August 25th, 1936.

This judgment (known as of the “terrorist group trotskyste-zinovievist”) is the first of the lawsuits with large spectacle of Moscow. It opens the way with all those which will follow, astonishing spectacle which strikes, as the reading of the newspapers of the time shows it, including Humanity , the majority of the foreign observers. Of the “Old Bolsheviks” worse crimes mutually then the ones acknowledge them show after the others and finish these incredible consents by self-criticisms which are as many lyrical flights to the glory of Stalin.

Contradictions and failures of a disciple of Lénine

There is in Zinoviev of qualities and of through which make of this leader Bolshevik a symbol of the Soviet mode in the process of stabilization.

Friend very close to Lénine - which would even have, fault of having some, with Nadejda Kroupskaïa planned to adopt one of his/her children - endowed with obvious intellectual abilities, in particular oratorical, it was intended to play an eminent role in the history of the country after the Revolution of October. Of Vladimir Illitch, like that of the Party Bolshevik, it never missed the support, as the importance of the responsibilities proves it which were them his of 1917 to 1927.

For as much, the strategic choices of Zinoviev, throughout its rise in the direction of the party and more still to the orders of the Comintern, did not enable him to strengthen its positions. Its through were underlined, like Boris Souvarine in his Stalin does it when it quotes the doubtful homages to his personality which result for example to its birthplace (Elisabethgrad, become Kirovograd during the Soviet era) in changing name with its honor and to be called Zinovievsk . Out these anecdotic aspects, the errors which it made are more serious. Considered and still criticized more for an authoritarianism without pity, it little by little constituted against him an opposition which will crystallize around Stalin which, by using the same weapons that its adversary, will appear a frightening expert in the fight for the capacity.

The behavior of Zinoviev at the time of the lawsuit of Moscow, recognizing its wrongs, greeting qualities of Stalin, is undoubtedly explained by the promise to obtain the safe life in exchange of its active collaboration. This engagement, of course, was not held. The execution, which followed the delivery of the sentence immediately, gave place, according to several sources, with pathetic supplications on behalf of the former chief of the Comintern. An agent of the NKVD, after having with difficulty put it at the variation, then killed it out of a ball in the head. Stalin, rancorous as for the contempt which it received from Zinoviev at the time of its glory, will adore then that its driver parodies on a humorous mode the end of his enemy, asking for grace of a falsetto voice tinted of accent Yiddish.

In 1988, within the framework of the Perestroika, Zinoviev and its co-defendants were officially washed of all their charges by the Soviet government.

Reference