Grigory Yevsejewitsch Zinoviev

Grigory Zinoviev

Grigory Zinoviev ( Russian Григорий Евсеевич Зиновьев ., Scientific transliteration Grigory Evseevič Zinov'ev , actually: Owsej-Gerschen Aronowitsch Radomyslski apple tree ; born September 11 ^{. Jul} / 23. September  1883 ^greg. In Nowomirgorod in Kherson Gubernia ; † 25th August 1936 in Moscow ) was a Soviet politician. From 1921 to 1926 he was a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union . Originally a close companion of Josef Stalin , he was executed in the course of the Stalinist purges .

Life

Zinoviev during a speech

His parents moved to Jelisavetgrad, Ukraine, in his earliest childhood . Zinoviev, of Jewish descent , with original family name Radomyslski ( Russian Радомысльский) - the name apple tree is considered by some sources generally disputed - was a close confidant of Lenin , with whom he a long time together in exile spent and with which he also before the October Revolution of had returned to Switzerland . In December 1917 he was the successor of the People's Commissar appointed Leon Trotsky as chairman of the Petrograd Soviet elected, which he remained until 1926th

In September 1918, at a meeting of communists in Petrograd , according to the anti-communist historian Robert Conquest , Zinoviev expressed the implicit readiness for mass murder contained in the attitude of the Bolsheviks towards the class struggle when he declared: “We must 90 of the 100 million Russia won for our cause, the rest of us have nothing to say, they must be destroyed. ”According to Richard Pipes , these words on the part of one of the highest officials in the country were the death sentence for millions of people. At the same time, according to Izvestia , Zinoviev had 512 hostages killed in Petrograd before the public proclamation of the Red Terror .

Despite his openly expressed contradiction with Kamenev to some of Lenin's views up to the presumed betrayal of insurrection plans in the context of the October Revolution, he retained his trust and remained his closest collaborator and spokesman. As chairman of the Petrograd and Leningrad Soviets and head of the Executive Committee of the Comintern , he gained great influence.

As the latter, he also exerted great influence on the German communists in the German October in the Weimar Republic of 1923 .

After Lenin's illness and death, together with Stalin and Kamenev, he initially formed the so-called triumvirate , the Communist Party's closest circle of power , in order to keep the common inner-party adversary Leon Trotsky , the military leader of the revolution and people's commissar for the army and navy , out of power.

In the annual report of the Central Committee of the KPR (B) from 1923, Zinoviev noted: “We are forced to replace Lenin's instructions with collective work.” However, he wisely concealed the fact that Lenin had already written a letter to the party congress at the end of 1922 had denied the suitability of the current members of the Politburo as his successors. Only in 1924, after Lenin's death, did Zinoviev read this letter; however, to stifle resistance, only each delegation individually.

At the same time, however, Zinoviev, alarmed by Stalin's increasing power, secretly overthrew him. In 1923 he met with other leading officials for a secret conference in the Caucasus to discuss appropriate measures against both Stalin and Trotsky. The plan failed due to resistance from some Stalin supporters and was brought to the Secretary General.

In an effort to rehabilitate themselves, Zinoviev and Kamenev demanded the expulsion of Trotsky, who continued to oppose the triumvirate . Zinoviev said of Trotsky before the Central Committee: “Why do you tolerate this dog carcass in the Politburo ?” Stalin saw his chance to get rid of all opponents by playing them off against each other. At a plenary session in 1925 he officially distanced himself from Zinoviev, Kamenev and their demands, but at the same time withdrew Trotsky from his post as army chief. Zinoviev saw his mistake too late. An alliance of convenience with Kamenev and Trotsky, which he sought from 1926 to put a stop to the “dictator”, was thwarted by other functionaries.

Zinoviev lost his functions as chairman of the Comintern and Leningrad party leader in 1926, was expelled from the party in 1927 as the alleged mastermind of a conspiracy in the Politburo, later resumed, expelled again and exiled to Siberia . After forced public renunciation of any opposition , he was allowed to return to the party in 1933 and was appointed rector of the university in Sverdlovsk (Urals) in early 1934 , while Stalin was already planning his definitive extermination.

For this purpose, Stalin constructed the conspiracy theory that there was a “ Trotskyist- Sinovievian bloc”, which he later expanded with anti-Semitic attacks - with a view to the descent of the attacked .

1936 Zinoviev was opposed Stalin's commitments under absurd, under torture extorted "confessions" (he had to u. A. Themselves as fascists call) along with others in a first staged show trial sentenced to death and in the Moscow Lubyanka shot . As Khrushchev later reported, the judgments had been personally approved by Stalin before the trial. Zinoviev's family members and the others who were murdered were deported to labor camps or were also killed.

The bullets with which Kamenev and Zinoviev were killed were placed in a small glass box with the victim's name written on it and kept private by the secret service chief Genrich Jagoda . After Yagoda was executed, his successor Nikolai Jeschow took over the bullets, which passed into the possession of his successor Lavrenti Beria , who was later also executed after his execution .

Honors

Between 1924 and 1934 the Ukrainian city of Yelizavetgrad (now Kropywnyzkyj ) was named Zinovievsk in his honor.

See also

• Left opposition in the Soviet Union

Works in German

• Report of the Executive Committee of the Communist International to the Second World Congress of the Communist International , Schwarz, Berlin 1920.
• Burning issues of the day of the international labor movement , Communist International, Petrograd 1920.
• The tasks of the workers and farmers youth , Internationaler Jugend-Verlag, Berlin 1920.
• The role of the Communist Party in the proletarian revolution , Western European Secretariat of the Communist International, Berlin 1920.
• The Russian Revolution and the International Proletariat. On the second anniversary of the proletarian upheaval in Russia , Publishing House of the Communist International, Hamburg 1920. (digitized version)
• The world revolution and the III. Communist International. Speech at the party conference of the USPD in Halle on October 14, 1920 , Verlag der Kommunistische Internationale, Hamburg 1920.
• Army and people. Soviet power and officers' status , Publishing House of the Communist International, Petrograd 1920.
• N. Lenin. His life and activities , Malik-Verlag , Berlin 1920. (digitized version)
• On the development of our party , Publishing House of the Communist International, Hamburg 1920.
• What the Communist International was up to now and what it must become now , Verlag der Kommunistische Internationale, Hamburg 1920.
• The development of the national economy and Soviet power , Publishing House of the Communist International, Hamburg 1921.
• The struggles of the Communist International. Report on the activities of the executive, given on the III. World Congress of the Communist International , Publishing House of the Communist International, Hamburg 1921.
• The tactics of the Communist International. Review of the work of the III. World Congress , Publishing House of the Communist International, Hamburg 1921.
• Against the current. Articles from the years 1914–1916 , Hoym, Hamburg, 1921. (with Vladimir Lenin)
• From the bourgeois to the proletarian revolution , Franke, Leipzig 1921.
• Twelve Days in Germany , Publishing House of the Communist International, Hamburg 1921.
• Old goals, new paths. On the Proletarian United Front , Publishing House of the Communist International, Hamburg 1922.
• The Communist International and the Proletarian United Front , Publishing House of the Communist International, Hamburg 1922.
• On the anti-Soviet parties and currents , Hoym, Hamburg 1922.
• The Communist International on the advance , Hoym, Hamburg 1923.
• History of the Communist Party of Russia (Bolsheviks) , Hoym, Hamburg 1923.
• Problems of the German Revolution , Hoym, Hamburg 1923. (digitized version)
• The war and the crisis of socialism , Verlag für Literatur und Politik, Vienna 1924.
• The current situation of Soviet power and communism , Hoym, Hamburg 1924.
• The world party of Leninism , Hoym, Hamburg 1924.
• Five years of the Communist International , Hoym, Hamburg 1924.
• Lenin , Publishing House for Literature and Politics, Vienna 1924. (digitized version)
• About the tasks of the KPR , Hoym, Hamburg 1924.
• About the Bolshevization of the parties. Speeches before the Extended Executive, March / April 1925 , Hoym, Hamburg 1925.
• On the current tasks of our politics , Hoym, Hamburg, 1925.
• The new course , Association of International Publishing Houses, Berlin 1926. (with Nikolai Bukharin )
• Zinoviev, Kamenev, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Bukharin, and others. a. (Original texts) in: Ulf Wolter (Ed.): The Left Opposition in the Soviet Union 1923–1928 , 5 volumes; Verlag Olle & Wolter, Berlin 1975–1978; ISBN 3-921241-08-1

literature

• Oscar Blum : Russian heads. Kerensky, Plekhanov, Martov, Chernov, Savinkov-Ropschin, Lenin, Trotsky, Radek, Lunacharsky, Dzerzhinsky, Chicherin, Zinoviev, Kamenev. With 9 portraits. Schneider, Berlin 1923.
• Trial report on the criminal case of the Trotskyist-Zinovievist terrorist center, heard before the Military College of the Supreme Court of the USSR August 19-24, 1936 against GJ Zinoviev [u. a.]. People's Commissariat for Justice of the USSR, Moscow 1936
• "Non-persons". Who were they really? Bukharin, Rykov, Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1990 ISBN 3-320-01547-8

Web links

Commons : Grigory Yevsejewitsch Zinoviev  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Grigori Jewsejewitsch Sinowjew in the catalog of the German National Library
• Zinoviev's statement from his cell, January 13, 1935 ( Memento of May 10, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
• Steffen Dietzsch: Bukharin, Nikolai Iwanowitsch, Karl Radek et al . , in: Kurt Groenewold , Alexander Ignor, Arnd Koch (Eds.): Lexicon of Political Criminal Trials , Online, as of September 2015

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Joachim Fest: The owed memory. On the controversy about the incomparability of the National Socialist mass crimes. In: FAZ , September 6, 1986; Reprinted in: Historikerstreit. Documentation of the controversy about the uniqueness of the National Socialist extermination of the Jews. Piper, Munich / Zurich 1987, p. 107.
2. ^ Conquest, Robert: The Harvest of Sorrow. Arrow edition 1988, ISBN 0-09-956960-4 , p. 24.
3. ^ Richard Pipes: Russia under the Bolshevik Regime. 1994, ISBN 0-679-76184-5 , p. 499.
4. ^ Richard Pipes: The Russian Revolution. First Vintage Books 1991, ISBN 0-679-73660-3 , p. 820.
5. ↑ George Leggett: The Cheka: Lenin's Political Police. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1981, ISBN 0-19-822552-0 , p. 111.
6. ^ Richard Pipes: The Russian Revolution. First Vintage Books 1991, ISBN 0-679-73660-3 , p. 819.