Zinoviev Grigory Evseyevich: biography, photos and interesting facts

The famous Russian revolutionary Zinoviev Grigory (years of life 1883-1936) was also a Soviet statesman and politician. According to one source, his real name was Radomyslsky Ousei-Gershon (Evsei-Gershon) Aronovich; On other sources, his name is Hirsch (Hersh) Apfelbaum (on the mother). A brief biography of Grigory Zinoviev became the subject of our review.

Childhood and family

Zinoviev was born Grigory Yevseyevich (you will learn briefly about this person from the article) in 1883, on September 11 (23), in the city of Elisavetgrad (modern Kropivnitsky) in the Kherson province. Since 1924, his hometown for a whole decade was called Zinovievsk. His father Aaron Radomyslsky, who owned a dairy farm, gave him an elementary education.

By the age of 14, Zinoviev was forced to work as a clerk and give lessons, since his family was impoverished.

The first wife of Grigory Evseevich was a professional revolutionary, Ravich Sarra Naumovna, also known under the pseudonym Olga. She was a member of the RSDLP, temporarily replaced the Commissioner of the Interior of the Northern Region, was repeatedly arrested.

The next wife of Zinoviev was Lilina Zlata Ionovna, also known under the pseudonym Zina Levin. She also took part in the RSDLP, worked in the Petrosoviet, cooperated with the newspapers Pravda and Zvezda. She gave birth to Zinoviev's son - Radomyslsky Stefan Grigorievich. At the age of 29 he was arrested and sentenced to be shot.

The third wife of Radomyslsky was Evgenia Yakovlevna Lasman. She spent about 20 years in exile and prison.

Pre-revolutionary activity

Already at the age of 18 (1901), Zinoviev became a member of the RSDLP and began to participate in the revolutionary movement. He organized strike strikes in Novorossia, for which he was persecuted by the police. Avoiding persecution, in 1902 Radomyslsky left for Berlin, and then moved to Paris and Berne during the year. In 1903, it was there that he became acquainted with Lenin, and afterwards strongly approached him and began to represent in European socialist organizations.

In 1903, Grigory Zinoviev, whose photo you see in the article, joined the Bolsheviks, and at the Second Congress of the RSDLP supported Lenin. In the same year, the revolutionary returned to Ukraine, where he actively propagandized.

A year later, because of heart disease, Radomyslsky again left the country, returning to Bern. There he began to study, enrolled in the university for the chemical faculty, but a year later he was interrupted to participate in the revolution (1905-1907). In Russia, he was waiting for membership in the Petersburg Committee of the RSDLP. A new attack of illness caused Zinoviev to go back to Berne, but already to study at the Faculty of Law. In the spring of 1906, he returned to St. Petersburg, became part of the Central Committee (Lenin received only more votes) and began to work as an editor in the newspapers Vperyod and Sotsial-Demokrat (underground publications). For his work falls under arrest in 1908, due to illness after three months of being released and leaving for Austria Galicia with Lenin.

There Zinoviev Grigory Evseevich, whose biography is full of tragedy, received large sums of money for the Bolshevik Party through the famous adventurer Parvus. The Austrian police believed that Zinoviev had been recruited by French intelligence.

Revolution

In April 1917 Zinoviev with his second wife Zlatai Lilina, their son Stefan, Sarah Ravich's first wife and Lenin returned to Russia in a sealed car. After the July days, Radomyslsky and Lenin were hiding on Lake Razliv from the Provisional Government (now there is a monument and every year they erect a real hut). They were suspected of espionage and cooperation with Austria-Hungary.

In October 1917, a closed meeting of the Bolshevik Central Committee was held, where Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev announced the prematureness of the overthrow of the Provisional Government and disagreed with the Leninist resolution. Their performance in The New Life (the Mensheviks) almost led to an expulsion from the party, but they decided simply to forbid them to speak on its behalf.

When the Bolsheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries seized power in Petrograd, Zinoviev, with Lev Kamenev, Alexei Rykov, and Viktor Nogin spoke out for negotiations with Vigel and concession to his demand to unite the parties into one socialist government. Lenin and Trotsky stopped these negotiations, and on November 4 this four, with Vladimir Milyutin, who joined them, withdrew from the Central Committee. Lenin responded by declaring them deserters - he even mentioned this in his political will.

Civil War

By the end of 1917, Zinoviev was allowed to return to politics. During the Civil War, he held the posts of the chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, the Council of People's Commissars of the Union of Communes of the Northern Region, the Committee for the Revolutionary Defense of Petrograd.

Access to unlimited power corrupted Zinoviev. When everyone was starving, he arranged elegant banquets for his entourage. On his initiative, the bourgeoisie and the non-labor elements were deprived of grain cards. At that time, tens of thousands of people fell into this category. They were literally doomed to starvation.

Zinoviev Grigory Evseevich (whose brief biography is presented to your attention in the article) at first refused the "red terror" after the attempt on Lenin and the assassination of Volodarsky and Uritsky, for which he was severely criticized by Lenin. He also protested against the transfer of the capital to Moscow.

Zinoviev regained the position of Lenin, supporting the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and was soon returned to the ranks of the Central Committee with membership in the new Politburo. Trusted him and the post of chairman of the Executive Committee of the Comintern, where he introduced the concept of "social fascism".

Zinoviev participated in organizing the "red terror" of the intelligentsia of Petrograd, for which he was nicknamed "Grishka the Third" (in comparison with Otrepiev and Rasputin).

With the leadership of Petrograd Zinoviev, the city's population was reduced by more than 4 million people. Most of them just left the city, but a large part of them died because of hunger and shooting. Influenced and the fuel crisis - in winter the city simply did not import fuel.

There is an opinion that such actions of Zinoviev were a strategy to reduce "non-proletarian elements".

At that time people were shot by hundreds, Zinoviev's repressions were the most cruel and large-scale. There is an opinion that this was dictated by despair, fear for the death of the revolution.

Since 1921, Zinoviev was a member of the Politburo and aspired to leadership positions. At that time he promoted Lenin's heritage, printed many books, and his collection of works began to be printed.

Zinoviev actively participated in the persecution of the Orthodox clergy, when the Bolsheviks massively took away church values. In Petrograd, which he then ruled, a trial was held, where 10 priests were sentenced to be executed, including Archimandrite Sergius and later recognized as the holy martyrs Metropolitan Veniamin.

Zinoviev participated in the rise of Stalin, influenced the appointment of him as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the RCP in 1923. He did it not out of personal sympathy, but with the aim of attracting to the struggle with Trotsky.

After Lenin's death

After the death of Lenin, Trotsky and Zinoviev remained actual pretenders to power.

In those years, Zinoviev's positions were very tough. He called for the destruction of the peasantry and completely robbed the villages in order to speed up industrialization. It was he who cynically declared that it was necessary to destroy part of the Russian population, since the Bolsheviks could not retrain everyone in their own way.

Zinoviev sought to arrange a world revolution. The Communists tried to seize power in Hungary, Germany, Mongolia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Poland, Finland. All this led to a lot of deaths and unrealistic financial costs.

Through the Comintern, Zinoviev Grigory, a revolutionary, brought out insane amounts of money to Western banks.

Cult of personality

Although Zinoviev publicly rebuked Stalin, but his personality cult he created earlier and inflated it much more. He renamed his native city Zinovievsk to perpetuate his name. In many major cities, monuments and busts were installed by his order. He published a whole collection of his works (33 volumes).

The new opposition

After only 2 years, Zinoviev and Kamnev are opposing Stalin. As a result, he ceases to lead in the Executive Committee of the Comintern and the Lensoviet, is first deduced from the Politburo, and a year later from the Central Committee. Next comes the exclusion from the party and the link.

In 1928, Zinoviev Grigory, whose family also suffered, repented, and he was reinstated in the party, appointing a rector in Kazan University. After four years of literary and journalistic activities, arrest and exile again, but this time for nedoinoyatelstvo. In this reference, he translates Mein Kampf ("My Struggle") of Hitler. In 1933, a limited edition of this translation was published (studied by party workers).

Instead of four years of exile, a year later Zinoviev is reinstated in the party and sent to the Tsentrosoyuz. At the party congress, he repents and glorifies Stalin and his comrades-in-arms. It was Zinoviev who at the time called Stalin "the genius of all times and peoples."

The verdict and the court

In December 1934, Zinoviev was once again arrested, sentenced to 10 years in prison. The accusation was assistance in the murder of Kirov, according to many historians, this fact was rigged by Stalin. While in the Verkhneuralsk politicizer, he keeps records, appealing to Stalin with assurances that he is no longer an enemy to him and is ready to comply with any demands.

Stalin and his supporters actively used the origin of Zinoviev and Kamenev, spread rumors that the oppositionists are Jews and intellectuals.

This time, Zinoviev's rehabilitation was not followed, and in 1936 a "trial of sixteen" was held, where the former leaders of the party were tried. August 24, they decided to execute the execution - the highest penalty. In a day the verdict was executed.

It is noteworthy that in 1988 this sentence was canceled, recognizing the absence of the convicted offenders in action.

There is evidence that during the investigation Zinoviev was being asked to return the money of the Comintern. He returned part of the amount, which he personally kidnapped and did not have time to spend or invest. After that, he was not needed by Stalin.

After learning about Zinoviev's behavior before the execution, Stalin spat contemptuously on the floor, saying that it was a lot of trouble to put others on the wall.

During the arrest Zinoviev was kept in terrible conditions. In the heat in the cell, heating was turned on as much as possible. Problems with the kidneys and liver and such conditions led the prisoner to severe attacks - from pain he rolled on the floor and begged for transfer to the hospital. Instead of the necessary help, doctors gave him drugs that further aggravated the disease.

In terrible prison conditions after a comfortable and prosperous life, Grigory Evseyevich Zinoviev broke down and with tears begged Stalin to abolish the court.

Stalin promised Zinoviev and Kamenev to let them live with their families if they would agree to the trial with all the accusations and stipulate some of the old Bolsheviks. This farce was held in court, but life did not save the condemned.

Death

Zinoviev was shot on the night of August 26, 1936. This happened in the building of the VKVS (Moscow). Witnesses remembered that Zinoviev humiliated and begged for mercy, kissed the boots of the executors of the verdict, and in the end he could not even walk himself, so the last meters simply dragged him. Before the execution, he began to read prayers in his native Hebrew. Kamenev, sentenced along with him, urged him to stop humiliated and die with dignity. There is another version, according to which Zinoviev had to be carried on a stretcher for execution.

After the rehabilitation of Zinoviev in 1988, he was praised for several years, as without the guilt of the victim under the Stalinist repressions.

Repressions of relatives

All three wives of Zinoviev were subjected to repression. The first wife of Sarah Ravich was arrested three times, finally rehabilitating and releasing because of a serious illness only three years before his death, in 1954.

The second wife Zlata Lilina was arrested twice and sent into exile, but unlike her son, she escaped death. The son of Zinoviev died the following year after him. After the shooting of Gregory, all the works of Lilina (mostly works on social and labor education) were withdrawn from the libraries.

Zinoviev's third wife Evgenia Lyasman was arrested for almost two decades. It was only released in 1954, and was rehabilitated in the next century - in 2006. About her husband, she wrote memories, but they were forbidden to publish by relatives.

Cinema

The significance of Zinoviev in historical and political events was repeatedly reflected in the films. The first film was "October" - the silent creation of Eisenstein. It is noteworthy that Zinoviev was played by Apfelbaum - his own brother. Among other films known as "Blue Notebook", "In the Days of October", "Red", "Red Bells", "Lenin. Train "," Stalin "," Under the sign of the Scorpion "and the TV series" Yesenin ".

Opinion of contemporaries

A brief biography of Grigory Zinoviev, one way or another, is interesting to many contemporaries. What is the opinion of the public about this person? Basically contemporaries were not very well tuned against Zinoviev. They recognized his intelligence and culture, but also noted that he was a decent coward and intriguer.

People close to Zinoviev spoke of his lack of self-control, of excessive vanity and ambition, and noted barbaric habits.

Party comrades criticized Zinoviev for rudeness in polemics and unprincipled choice of means to achieve personal and political success.

During the famine in Petrograd, various delicacies were brought to the table of Zinoviev. It was said that the leanness and modest manner of the prerevolutionary Gregory developed into the importance and insolence of the "obese canal", which squeezed money out of the hungry people.

In the memoirs of contemporaries Zinoviev there are words about the existence in Leningrad of the cult of his personality.