Grigory Zinoviev speaking.

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.

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

Yet, at the 5th Congress of the Communist International ( July 1924 ), Grigory Zinoviev formally denounced Georg Lukács's heterodox definition of orthodox Marxism as exclusively derived from fidelity to the " Marxist method ", and not to Communist party dogmas ; and denounced the Marxism developments of the German theorist Karl Korsch.

At subsequent congresses of the Russian Communist Party and meetings of the ECCI, Radek and Brandler were made the scapegoats for the defeat of the revolution by Zinoviev, with Radek being removed from the ECCI at the Fifth Congress of the Comintern

Two years later, in July 1924, at the fifth congress of the Communist International ( Comintern ), Grigory Zinoviev popularized the use of the term Leninism to denote vanguard-party revolution.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Kamenev and, indirectly, Zinoviev, were courted by Bukharin, then at the beginning of his short and ill-fated struggle with Stalin, in the summer of 1928, something that was soon reported to Joseph Stalin and used against Bukharin as proof of his factionalism.

Gregory Zinoviev was born in Yelizavetgrad, Russian Empire ( now Kirovohrad, Ukraine ), to Jewish dairy farmers, who educated him at home.

Zinoviev soon returned to the fold and was once again elected to the Central Committee at the VII Party Congress on March 8, 1918.

As head of the Comintern, Zinoviev deserved most of the blame for the failures of the several Communist attempts at seizing power in Germany during the early 1920s, but he managed to shift it to Karl Radek, the Comintern's representative in Germany at the time.

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 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.

Zinoviev demanded Trotsky's expulsion from the Communist Party, but Stalin refused to go along at that time and skillfully played the role of a moderate.

Bukharin, then at the beginning of his short and ill-fated struggle with Stalin, courted Kamenev and, indirectly, Zinoviev during the summer of 1928.

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.

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.

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 ").

Radek was expelled from the Party in 1927 after helping organise an independent demonstration on the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution with Grigory Zinoviev in Leningrad.

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.

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.

Inspired by the idealism of the Revolution, Reed attempts to bring the spirit of Communism to the United States, because he is disillusioned with the policies imposed upon Communist Russia by Grigory Zinoviev and the Bolsheviks.

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 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.

His personal relationship with his brother-in-law Trotsky, which was good in the aftermath of the 1917 revolution and during the Russian Civil War, soured after 1920 and for the next 15 years he was a friend and close ally of Grigory Zinoviev, a more ambitious man than Kamenev.

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.

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.

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

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.

Zinoviev, from his position as Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Communist International ( Comintern ), opposed Stalin's policy.

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.

In April 1926 Zinoviev was removed from the Politburo and in December, Trotsky lost his membership too.

For instance, Bukharin, Zinoviev, Yevgeni Preobrazhensky and Georgy Pyatakov were all rehabilitated.

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.

A forged document, the Zinoviev Letter brought about the downfall of the first Labour Government in Britain.

He also played the role of Bolshevik revolutionary and Politburo member Grigory Zinoviev in Warren Beatty's film Reds.

By the end of 1917, Trotsky was unquestionably the second man in the Bolshevik Party after Lenin, overshadowing the ambitious Zinoviev, who had been Lenin's top lieutenant over the previous decade, but whose star appeared to be fading.