He lost the trust of Lenin, who began relying on Leon Trotsky, but was nevertheless elected chairman of the Petrograd Soviet and the Comintern, and a full member of the Politburo in 1921.

In 1934 Zinoviev was accused of complicity in the assassination of Sergei Kirov, a close ally of Stalin, and was sentenced to ten years in prison.

Grigory Zinoviev was born in Yelizavetgrad, Russian Empire (now Kropyvnytskyi, Ukraine), to Jewish dairy farmers, who educated him at home.

[2] Zinoviev studied philosophy, literature and history, and became interested in politics, joining the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) in 1901.

Between 1903 and the fall of the Russian Empire in February 1917, he was a leading Bolshevik and one of Vladimir Lenin's closest associates, working both within Russia during the 1905 Revolution and abroad as he moved across Europe.

After the Russian monarchy was overthrown during the February Revolution, he returned to Russia in April 1917 in a sealed train with Lenin and other revolutionaries opposed to the war.

He remained a part of the Bolshevik leadership throughout most of that year and spent time with Lenin after being forced into hiding in the period following the July Days.

In response, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Alexei Rykov, Vladimir Milyutin, and Victor Nogin resigned from the Central Committee on 4 November 1917 (Julian calendar).

Sometime in 1918, while Ukraine was under German occupation, the rabbis of Odessa ceremonially anathematized (pronounced herem against) Trotsky, Zinoviev, and other Bolshevik leaders of Jewish descent in the synagogue.

Shortly after the assassination of Petrograd Cheka leader Moisei Uritsky in August 1918 and the commencement of the five-year Red Terror period of political repression and mass killings, Zinoviev said: To overcome our enemies we must have our own socialist militarism.

Trotsky, who was in overall charge of the Red Army during the Russian Civil War, thought little of Zinoviev's leadership, which aggravated their strained relationship.

[citation needed] One of the main functions of the Comintern was Bolshevization, whereby the proletarian revolution was postponed, and an emphasis was put on unconditional support for the Kremlin's foreign policy.

[15] During Lenin's final illness, Zinoviev, his close associate Kamenev and Joseph Stalin formed a ruling Triumvirate (also known by its Russian name Troika) in the Communist Party, playing a key role in marginalization of Leon Trotsky.

[16] The triumvirate carefully managed the intra-party debate and delegate-selection process in autumn 1923, during the run-up to the XIIIth Party Conference, and secured the vast majority of the seats.

After Trotsky's defeat at the XIIIth Conference, tensions between Zinoviev and Kamenev, on the one hand, and Stalin on the other became more pronounced and threatened to end their alliance.

Nevertheless, Zinoviev and Kamenev helped Stalin retain his position as General Secretary of the Central Committee at the XIIIth Party Congress in May–June 1924 during the first Lenin's Testament controversy.

They and their supporters accused Trotsky of various mistakes during the Russian Civil War in order to damage his reputation, and alleged that he was plotting a military coup.

Stalin struck an alliance with a Communist Party theoretician and Pravda editor Nikolai Bukharin and Soviet prime minister Alexei Rykov.

Zinoviev and Kamenev allied with Lenin's widow, Nadezhda Krupskaya, and Grigory Sokolnikov, the Soviet Commissar of Finance and a non-voting Politburo member.

[17] “We say that there can now be no doubt whatever that, as the evolution of the directing line of the faction (i.e., the majority of the Central Committee) has shown, the main core of the 1923 opposition correctly warned against the danger of a shift from the proletarian line, and against the ominous growth of the apparatus regime.” During a lull in the intra-party fighting in the spring of 1926, Zinoviev, Kamenev and their supporters gravitated closer to Trotsky's supporters and the two groups soon formed an alliance, which also incorporated some smaller opposition groups within the Communist Party.

Their leading supporters, from Kamenev down, were expelled in December 1927 by the XVth Party Congress, which paved the way for mass expulsions of rank-and-file oppositionists as well as internal exile of opposition leaders in early 1928.

While Trotsky remained firm in his opposition to Stalin after his expulsion from the Party and subsequent exile, Zinoviev and Kamenev capitulated almost immediately and called on their supporters to follow suit.

They were forced to make self-flagellating speeches at the XVIIth Party Congress in January 1934, with Stalin parading his erstwhile political opponents, now defeated and outwardly contrite.

Zinoviev allegedly struggled against the guards escorting him so fiercely that instead of taking him to the appointed execution room, he was simply dragged into a nearby cell and shot there.

[21] Stalin was described to have "laughed immoderately on seeing an imitation of the old Bolshevik leader Grigori Zinoviev being dragged to his execution, making pleas for mercy with obscenities".

Apparently they seriously thought they would be able, at the last minute before the elections, to create confusion in the ranks of those electors who sincerely sympathise with the Treaty between England and the Soviet Union.