Kamenev, Lev Borisovich

Kamenev, Lev Borisovich

(lyĕf bərē`səvĭch kä`mĭnyĭf), 1883–1936, Soviet Communist leader. His original name was Rosenfeld. He joined (1901) the Social Democratic party and sided with the Bolshevik wing when the party split (1903). Banished (1915) to Siberia for his revolutionary activities, he returned after the February Revolution of 1917 and became a member of the first Politburo of the Communist party. On Lenin's death (1924), Kamenev, StalinStalin, Joseph Vissarionovich
, 1879–1953, Soviet Communist leader and head of the USSR from the death of V. I. Lenin (1924) until his own death, b. Gori, Georgia.
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, and ZinovievZinoviev, Grigori Evseyevich
, 1883–1936, Soviet Communist leader, originally named Radomyslsky. He joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor party in 1901 and sided with Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction after 1903 (see Bolshevism and Menshevism).
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 formed a triumvirate of successors and excluded TrotskyTrotsky, Leon
, 1879–1940, Russian Communist revolutionary, one of the principal leaders in the establishment of the USSR; his original name was Lev Davidovich Bronstein. Early Career

Trotsky was born of Jewish parents in the S Ukraine.
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, Kamenev's brother-in-law, from power. In 1925 the Stalinist majority in the party defeated Kamenev and Zinoviev, who joined (1926) Trotsky's opposition. Kamenev was expelled from the party in 1927, but he recanted, was readmitted, and held minor offices. He was arrested late in 1934 on charges of complicity in the murder of KirovKirov, Sergei Mironovich
, 1888–1934, Russian Soviet leader. He fought in the civil war of 1918–20 and rose to power as one of Stalin's most trusted aides. A member of the Communist party Politburo from 1930, he was secretary of the party at Leningrad (now St.
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 and was sentenced to imprisonment. In 1936 he, Zinoviev, and 14 others were tried for treason in the first big public purge trial. They confessed and were executed. Both he and Zinoviev were posthumously rehabilitated in 1988.