Grigory Zinoviev Григо́рий Евсе́евич Зино́вьев |
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Full member of the 6th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th Politburo | |
In office 16 March 1921 – 23 July 1926 |
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In office 10 October – 29 November 1917 |
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Candidate member of the 8th, 9th Politburo | |
In office 16 March 1921 – 2 June 1924 |
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Personal details | |
Born |
Hirsch Apfelbaum September 23, 1883 Yelizavetgrad, Russian Empire |
Died | August 25, 1936 Moscow, Soviet Union |
(aged 52)
Grigory Yevseevich Zinoviev (Russian: Григо́рий Евсе́евич Зино́вьев, IPA: [ɡrʲɪˈɡorʲɪj jɪˈfʲsʲeɪvʲɪtɕ zʲɪˈnovʲjɪf]; September 23 [O.S. September 11] 1883 – August 25, 1936), born Hirsch Apfelbaum, known also under the name Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich Radomyslsky (Russian: Гирш Апфельбаум and Овсей-Гершон Аронович Радомысльский), was a Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet Communist politician.
Zinoviev was one of the seven members of the first Politburo, founded in 1917 in order to manage the Bolshevik Revolution: Lenin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Trotsky, Stalin, Sokolnikov and Bubnov. Zinoviev is best remembered as the longtime head of the Communist International and the architect of several failed attempts to transform Germany into a communist country during the early 1920s. He was in competition against Joseph Stalin who eliminated him from the Soviet political leadership in 1926.
Zinoviev was the chief defendant in a 1936 show trial, the Trial of the Sixteen, that marked the start of the so-called Great Terror in the USSR and resulted in his execution the day after his conviction in August 1936.