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.

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.

After the Congress, Stalin began making veiled public remarks apparently aimed at Kamenev and Zinoviev, which all but destroyed the troika.

Zinoviev and Kamenev again began to fear Stalin's power and felt that their positions were threatened.

More prominent figures such as Vladimir Lenin, Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev and Joseph Stalin were abroad or in Siberian exile when the February Revolution began.

Zinoviev and Kamenev again began to fear Stalin's power and felt that their positions were threatened.

In March 1919 he began working for Grigory Zinoviev, who had been appointed as President of the Executive of the Third International.

The following year, after defeating opponents from both the left ( led by Trotsky and Grigory Zinoviev ) and the right ( led by Nikolai Bukharin ), Stalin began the wholesale collectivization of Soviet agriculture, accompanied by a major program of planned industrialization.

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.

Zinoviev, Stalin and other members of the Soviet leadership then accused him of factionalism.

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.

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.

During a lull in the intra-party fighting in the spring of 1926, Zinoviev, Kamenev and their supporters gravitated closer to Trotsky's supporters and the two groups soon formed an alliance, which also incorporated some smaller opposition groups within the Communist Party.

After the expulsion of Zinoviev and Trotsky from the Communist Party on 12 November 1927, Kamenev remained the Opposition's chief spokesman within the Party and represented its position at the XVth Party Congress in December 1927.

During a lull in the intra-party fighting in the spring of 1926, Zinoviev, Kamenev and their supporters gravitated closer to Trotsky's supporters and the two groups soon formed an alliance, which also incorporated some smaller opposition groups within the Communist Party.

Although aligned with Zinoviev within the Comintern the Polish party was independently minded and made efforts to defend both Leon Trotsky and Heinrich Brandler, the leader of the Communist Party of Germany, in the Polish Commission conconvened at the Comintern ’ s Fifth Congress.

Zinoviev, too, opposed Lenin at the conference ; it was on the question whether the Bolshevik Party should remain within the Zimmerwald alliance, or break with it and form a new International.

Zinoviev proposed that the Party should have remained within the Zimmerwald alliance.

In August 1936, after months of careful preparations and rehearsals in Soviet secret police prisons, Zinoviev, Kamenev and 14 others, mostly Old Bolsheviks, were put on trial again.

In August 1936, after months of careful preparations and rehearsals in Soviet secret police prisons, Zinoviev, Kamenev, and 14 others, mostly Old Bolsheviks, were put on trial again.

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.

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

With only the Leningrad delegation ( controlled by Zinoviev ) behind them, Zinoviev and Kamenev found themselves in a tiny minority and were soundly defeated while Trotsky remained silent during the Congress.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Sten gave copies to Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev, while Slepkov provided the documents to a group of Trotskyists in Kharkov.

Petrograd Communist Party leader Grigory Zinoviev took the lead at a conference of " proletarian writers " held in that city in the fall of 1919, declaring that while previously " we allowed the most nonsensical futurism to get a reputation almost as the official school of Communist art " and let " doubtful elements attach themselves to our Proletkults.