Lenin, Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev and others argued for participating in the Duma while Alexander Bogdanov, Anatoly Lunacharsky, Mikhail Pokrovsky and others argued that the social democratic faction in the Duma should be recalled.

Kamenev and Zinoviev were dubious about the idea, but were willing to give it a try under pressure from " conciliator " Bolsheviks like Victor Nogin.

Following Lenin's forced departure due to ill health, a power struggle began, which involved Nikolai Bukharin, Lev Kamenev, Alexei Rykov, Joseph Stalin, Mikhail Tomsky, Leon Trotsky and Grigory Zinoviev.

Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev supported rapid industrialisation and a planned economy, while Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky supported keeping the NEP.

In 1925, Stalin began moving against Zinoviev and Kamenev.

At the 14th Party Congress ( 18 – 31 December 1925 ) Kamenev and Zinoviev were forced into the same position that Trotsky had been forced into previously ; they proclaimed that the center was usurping power from the regional branches, and that Stalin was a danger to inner-party democracy.

The Congress became divided between two factions, between the one supporting Stalin, and those who supported Kamenev and Zinoviev.

Even so, Kamenev and Zinoviev were crushed at the congress, and 559 voted in favour of the Soviet leadership and only 65 against.

However, the leadership was not opening up ; Kamenev and Zinoviev were arrested in 1932 ( or in the beginning of 1933 ), and set free in 1934, and than rearrested in 1935, accused of being part of an assassination plot which killed Sergei Kirov.

Frunze's position was compatible with the Troika ( Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev, Stalin ), but Stalin preferred to have a close ally in charge ( as opposed to Frunze, a " Zinovievite ").

He sided with Lenin against Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev when the Bolshevik Central Committee discussed staging an armed uprising, and he led the efforts to overthrow the Provisional Government headed by Aleksandr Kerensky.

Allied with Lenin, he defeated attempts by other Bolshevik Central Committee members ( Zinoviev, Kamenev, Alexey Rykov, etc.

After Lenin ’ s death ( 21 January 1924 ), Trotsky ideologically battled the influence of Stalin, who formed ruling blocs within the Russian Communist Party ( with Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev, then with Nikolai Bukharin, and then by himself ) and so determined soviet government policy from 1924 onwards.

Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev believed that the real threat to the party came from Trotsky, head of the Red Army, due to his association with the army and his powerful personality.

Kamenev and Zinoviev collaborated with Stalin in a power-sharing triumvirate where Stalin retained his position as General Secretary.

From 1925 to 1927, Stalin abandoned his triumvirate with Kamenev and Zinoviev and formed an alliance with the most right-wing elements of the party, Nikolai Bukharin, Alexei Rykov, and Mikhail Tomsky.

The 1927 Party Conference gave official endorsement to the policy of Socialism in One Country, while Trotsky along with Kamenev and Zinoviev ( both now allied with Trotsky against Stalin ) were expelled from the Party's Politburo.

In the subsequent power struggle among Leon Trotsky, Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev, and Stalin, Bukharin allied himself with Stalin, who positioned himself as centrist of the Party and supported NEP against the Left Opposition, which wanted more rapid industrialization, escalation of class struggle against the kulaks, and agitation for world revolution.

Trotsky, the prime force behind the Left Opposition, was defeated by a triumvirate formed by Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev, with the support of Bukharin.

By 1926, Stalin-Bukharin alliance ousted Zinoviev and Kamenev from the Party leadership, and Bukharin enjoyed the highest degree of power during the 1926-1928 period.

Bukharin attempted to gain support from earlier foes including Kamenev and Zinoviev who had fallen from power and held mid-level positions within the Communist party.

Following the trial and execution of Zinoviev, Kamenev, and other leftist Old Bolsheviks in 1936, Bukharin and Rykov were arrested on 27 February 1937 following a plenum of the Central Committee and were charged with conspiring to overthrow the Soviet state.

Dzerzhinsky died of heart failure on 20 July 1926 in Moscow, immediately after a two-hour long speech to the Bolshevik Central Committee during which, visibly quite ill, he violently denounced the United Opposition directed by Leon Trotsky, Grigory Zinoviev, and Lev Kamenev.

After Lenin's split with another senior Bolshevik leader, Alexander Bogdanov, in mid-1908, Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev became Lenin's main assistants abroad.

Kamenev and Zinoviev were dubious about the idea, but were willing to give it a try under pressure from " conciliator " Bolsheviks like Victor Nogin.

Kamenev married a fellow Marxist ( and Leon Trotsky's sister ), Olga Kameneva, in the early 1900s and the couple had two sons.

Zinoviev, Kamenev and their allies in the Bolshevik Central Committee argued that the Bolsheviks had no choice but to start negotiations since a railroad strike would cripple their government's ability to fight the forces that were still loyal to the overthrown Provisional Government.

Although Zinoviev and Kamenev briefly had the support of a Central Committee majority and negotiations were started, a quick collapse of the anti-Bolshevik forces outside Petrograd allowed Lenin and Trotsky to convince the Central Committee to abandon the negotiating process.

Zinoviev was re-elected to the Politburo, but Kamenev was demoted from a full member to a non-voting member and Sokolnikov was dropped altogether, while Stalin had more of his allies elected to the Politburo.

The execution of Zinoviev, Kamenev and their associates was notable because no Old Bolsheviks, much less prominent ones, had been put to death by Stalin's government until then.

Zinoviev, Kamenev, and their allies in the Bolshevik Central Committee argued that the Bolsheviks had no choice but to start negotiations since a railroad strike would cripple their government's ability to fight the forces that were still loyal to the overthrown Provisional Government.

Although Zinoviev and Kamenev briefly had the support of a Central Committee majority and negotiations were started, a quick collapse of the anti-Bolshevik forces outside Petrograd allowed Lenin and Trotsky to convince the Central Committee to abandon the negotiating process.

Zinoviev was re-elected to the Politburo, but his ally Kamenev was demoted from a full member to a non-voting member and Sokolnikov was dropped altogether, while Stalin had more of his allies elected to the Politburo.

Prior to the trial, Zinoviev and Kamenev had agreed to plead guilty to the false charges on the condition that they not be executed, a condition that Stalin accepted, stating " that goes without saying.

This was the position, contrary to that of " Classical Marxism " which by that time had been further illuminated by active life, shared by Trotsky and Lenin and the Bolsheviks until 1924 when Joseph Stalin, who along with Kamenev in February 1917 had taken the Menshevik position of first the bourgeois revolution, only to be confronted by Lenin and his famous April Thesis on Lenin's return to Russia, after the death of Lenin and seeking to consolidate his growing bureaucratic control of the Bolshevik Party began to put forward the slogan of " Socialism in one country ".

Lenin died in January 1924 and in May his Testament was read aloud at the Central Committee but Zinoviev and Kamenev argued that Lenin's objections had proven groundless and that Stalin should remain General Secretary.

The conflict erupted at the Fourteenth Party Congress held in December 1925 with Zinoviev and Kamenev now protesting against the dictatorial policies of Stalin and trying to revive the issue of Lenin's Testament which they had previously buried.

Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev formed a United Opposition against the policies of Stalin and Bukharin but they had lost influence as a result of the inner party disputes and in October 1927 Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev were expelled from the Central Committee.

With Trotsky largely marginalized, Kamenev and Zinoviev had a falling out with Stalin in early 1925.

Later, Stalin even used the Kirov assassination to eliminate the remainder of the Opposition leadership against him, accusing Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev, Abram Prigozhin, and others who had stood with Kirov in opposing Stalin ( or simply failed to acquiese to Stalin's views ), of having connections with Nikolaev and facilitating the assassination.

Lenin died in January 1924 and in May his Testament was read aloud at the Central Committee but Zinoviev and Kamenev argued that Lenin's objections had proven groundless and that Stalin should remain General Secretary.

The conflict erupted at the Fourteenth Party Congress held in December 1925 with Zinoviev and Kamenev now protesting against the dictatorial policies of Stalin and trying to revive the issue of Lenin's Testament which they had previously buried.

Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev formed a United Opposition against the policies of Stalin and Bukharin but they had lost influence as a result of the party struggles and no longer posed a serious threat to Stalin.

In the 1930s other senior Communists, many of whom had been Stalin's allies were removed and many of them were executed or died in mysterious circumstances, including Lev Kamenev, Grigory Zinoviev and Nikolai Bukharin.