Grigory Zinoviev

Grigory Yevseevich Zinoviev (Russian: Григо́рий Евсе́евич Зино́вьев, IPA: [ɡrʲɪˈɡorʲɪj jɪˈfʲsʲeɪvʲɪtɕ zʲɪˈnovʲjɪf]; September 23 [O.S. September 11] 1883 – August 25, 1936), born Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich Radomyslsky, known also under the name Hirsch Apfelbaum (Russian: Овсей-Гершен Аронович Радомысльский, and Апфельбаум), was a Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet Communist politician. He was one of the seven members of the first Politburo, founded in 1917 in order to manage the Bolshevik Revolution: Lenin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Trotsky, Stalin, Sokolnikov and Bubnov. Zinoviev is best remembered as the longtime head of the Communist International and the architect of several failed attempts to transform Germany into a communist country during the early 1920s. He was in competition against Joseph Stalin who eliminated him from the Soviet political leadership in 1926. He was the chief defendant in a 1936 show trial, the Trial of the Sixteen, that marked the start of the so-called Great Terror in the USSR and resulted in his execution the day after his conviction in August 1936.