Lev Kamenev

Lev Kamenev
Lev Kamenev
Лев Каменев
	Kamenev, c. 1920s
Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union
	In office; 6 July 1923 – 16 January 1926
Premier	Vladimir Lenin; Alexey Rykov;
Director of the Lenin Institute of the Central Committee
	In office; 31 March 1923 – 1926
Preceded by	Post established
Succeeded by	Ivan Skvortsov-Stepanov
Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets
	In office; 9 – 21 November 1917
Preceded by	Nikolai Chkheidze
Succeeded by	Yakov Sverdlov
Full member of the 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th Politburo
	In office; 8 March 1919 – 1 January 1926
	In office; 10 October – 29 November 1917
Candidate member of the 14th Politburo
	In office; 1 January – 23 October 1926
Full member of the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th Central Committee
	In office; 17 January 1912 – 14 November 1927
Personal details
Born	Leo Rosenfeld; 18 July [O.S. 6 July] 1883; Moscow, Russian Empire
Died	25 August 1936 (aged 53); Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Cause of death	Execution by firing squad
Political party	RSDLP (1901–1903); RSDLP (Bolsheviks) (1903–1918); Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (1918–1927, 1928–1932, 1933–1934);
Spouses	Olga Bronstein; Tatiana Glebova;
Alma mater	Moscow State University

Lev Borisovich Kamenev^[a] (né Rozenfeld;^[b] 18 July [O.S. 6 July] 1883 – 25 August 1936) was a Russian revolutionary and Soviet politician. He was born in Moscow to parents who had both been involved in revolutionary politics in the 1870s. He joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) in 1901 and was active in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Kamenev participated in the failed Russian Revolution of 1905. Relocating abroad in 1908, he became an early member of the Bolsheviks and a close associate of the exiled Vladimir Lenin. In 1914, he was arrested upon returning to Saint Petersburg and exiled to Siberia. Kamenev was able to return after the February Revolution of 1917, which overthrew the Tsarist monarchy. In 1917, he served briefly as the equivalent of the first head of state of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets. He disagreed with Lenin's strategy of armed uprising during the October Revolution but nevertheless remained in a position of power after the fall of the Provisional Government. In 1919, Kamenev was elected a full member of the first Politburo.

During Lenin's final illness in 1923–1924, he was the acting leader of the Soviet Union, forming a troika with Grigory Zinoviev and Joseph Stalin which led to Leon Trotsky's downfall. Stalin subsequently turned against his former allies and ousted Kamenev from the Soviet leadership. Kamenev and Zinoviev would later align with Trotsky and form the United Opposition from 1926 to 1927. Along with Zinoviev, he was expelled from the party three times. Kamenev was arrested in 1935 following the assassination of Sergei Kirov and made a chief defendant in 1936 Trial of the Sixteen, which marked the start of the Great Purge. He was found guilty during the show trial and executed by a firing squad on August 25.
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).

[a]

[b]