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.

Democracy became an important topic following Lenin's health leave ; Trotsky and Zinoviev were its main backers, but Zinoviev later changed his position when he aligned himself with Stalin.

In 1925, Stalin began moving against Zinoviev and Kamenev.

To make matters worse, Stalin began espousing his policy of socialism in one country – a policy often viewed, wrongly, as an attack on Trotsky, when it was really aimed at Zinoviev.

Zinoviev began attacking Stalin within a matter of months, while Trotsky began attacking Stalin for this stance in 1926.

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.

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 ").

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.

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.

Stalin felt that in the new situation the policies of his former foes – Trotsky, Zinoviev, and Kamenev-was the right one.

Bukharin's support of continuation of NEP was not popular with higher Party cadres, and his slogan to peasants, “ Enrich yourselves !” and proposal to achieve socialism “ at snail's pace ” left him vulnerable to attacks first by Zinoviev and later by Stalin.

Together with Zinoviev and Joseph Stalin, he formed a ruling ' triumvirate ' ( or ' troika ') in the Communist Party, and played a key role in the marginalization of Trotsky.

After Trotsky's defeat at the XIIIth Conference, tensions between Zinoviev and Kamenev on the one hand and Stalin on the other hand became more pronounced and threatened to end their fragile alliance.

Nevertheless, Zinoviev and especially Kamenev helped Stalin retain his position as General Secretary of the Central Committee at the XIIIth Party Congress in May – June 1924 during the first Lenin's Testament controversy.

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

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.

Her report showed that the letter contained statements similar to those made by Zinoviev to other communist parties and at other times to the CPGB, but at the time ( Anglo-Soviet trade talks and a general election ) when Zinoviev was being more restrained towards the British.

Sometime in 1918, while Ukraine was under German occupation, the rabbis of Odessa ceremonially anathematized ( pronounced herem against ) Trotsky, Zinoviev, and other Jewish Bolshevik leaders in the synagogue.

As a result, Zinoviev was made a full member of the Politburo after the Xth Party Congress on March 16, 1921, while members of other factions such as Nikolai Krestinsky were dropped from the Politburo and the Secretariat.

After Trotsky's defeat at the XIIIth Conference, tensions between Zinoviev and Kamenev on the one hand and Stalin on the other hand became more pronounced and threatened to end their fragile alliance.

Zinoviev and the other defendants were found guilty on August 24, 1936.

Nikitchenko presided over some of the most notorious of Joseph Stalin's show trials during the Great Purges of 1936 to 1938, where he among other things sentenced Kamenev and Zinoviev.

In the 1920s, there was a great debate between Bukharin, Tomsky and Rykov on the one hand, and Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev on the other.

In March 1921, he was sent to Germany to advise the Communist Party of Germany ( KPD ) and encouraged the KPD to follow the " Theory of the Offensive " as supported by Zinoviev and other Kunerists.

Sometime in 1918, while Ukraine was under German occupation, the rabbis of Odessa pronounced herem against Trotsky, Zinoviev, and other Jewish Bolshevik leaders in the synagogue.

Stalin used the purges to politically and physically destroy his other formal rivals ( and former allies ) accusing Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev of being behind Kirov's assassination and planning to overthrow Stalin.

Although there were other causations for his rise to power ( including the roles of Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin, Rykov, and Trotsky ), patronage no doubt helped him become leader of the USSR in 1929.

Originally, the battle lines were drawn between Trotsky and his supporters who signed The Declaration of 46 in October 1923, on the one hand, and a triumvirate ( known by its Russian name troika ) of Comintern chairman Grigory Zinoviev, Communist Party General Secretary Joseph Stalin and Politburo chairman Lev Kamenev on the other hand.

This followed the dispute between, on one side, Joseph Stalin, Zinoviev, Totsky and Kamenev, and, on the other, the leadership of the Georgian SSR ( see Georgian Affair ).

Immediately after the revolution, he supported Lenin and Trotsky against Zinoviev, Kamenev, Alexei Rykov and other Bolshevik Central Committee members who would have shared power with other socialist parties.

Zinoviev and Bukharin became concerned about Stalin's increasing power and proposed that the Orgburo which Stalin, but no other members of the Politburo, be abolished and that Zinoviev and Trotsky be added to the party secretariat thus diminishing Stalin's role as general secretary.

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.

Kamenev and Zinoviev had a falling out with Lenin over their opposition to Soviet seizure of power in October 1917 On 10 October 1917 ( Old Style ), Kamenev and Zinoviev were the only two Central Committee members to vote against an armed revolt.

Zinoviev and Kamenev remained politically inactive until October 1932, when they were expelled from the Communist Party for failure to inform on oppositionist party members during the Ryutin Affair.

Zinoviev and Kamenev remained politically inactive until October 1932 when they were expelled from the Communist Party for failure to inform on oppositionist party members during the Ryutin Affair.

By the time the Congress finally convened in December 1927 Zinoviev had capitulated to Stalin and denounced his previous adherence to the opposition as " anti-Leninist " and the few remaining members still loyal to the opposition were subjected to insults and humiliations.

* The first trial was of 16 members of the so-called " Trotskyite-Kamenevite-Zinovievite-Leftist-Counter-Revolutionary Bloc ", held in August 1936, at which the chief defendants were Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev, two of the most prominent former party leaders.

In October 1927, the last Opposition members were expelled from the Communist Party Central Committee, and in November 1927 Trotsky and Zinoviev were expelled from the Party itself.

As the Socialist Party of Romania delegation ( Gheorghe Cristescu, Eugen Rozvan, David Fabian, Constantin Popovici, Ioan Flueraş, and Alexandru Dobrogeanu-Gherea ) voted to adhere to the Comintern, Rakovsky and Grigory Zinoviev pressured the group to expel those of its members who supported Greater Romania ( including Flueraş and Popovici, as well as Iosif Jumanca and Leon Ghelerter ).

Two members of the Central Committee, Zinoviev and Kamenev, spoke and voted against this decision.

In October 1927 Trotsky and Zinoviev were expelled from the Central Committee and at the Fifteenth Party Congress held in December 1927 the remaining members of the left opposition were subjected to insults and humiliations and in 1928 Trotsky and the Left Opposition were expelled from the Communist Party itself.

Shortly after his arrival Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev, members of the ruling troika alongside Stalin, reconciled with Trotsky, and the United Opposition was formed.

The Bolshevik leaders of Petrograd, Grigory Zinoviev and Moisei Uritsky, decided to send the male members of the Romanov family into internal Russian exile.