Lev Kamenev

Lev Borisovich Kamenev (né Rozenfeld; 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 Soviet Russia. 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 1926–1927. 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. He coincidentally died on the same day as Sergey Kamenev, with whom he was not related.