Lev Kamenev was born in Moscow, Russia, on 18th July, 1883. The son
of a Jewish engine-driver on the Moscow-Kursk
Railway. Both his parents had been active in the radical student movement
in the 1870s and had known the people involved in the assassination
of Alexander II..
Kamenev
became involved in radical politics while still at the Tiflis Gymnasium
and this appeared on his school reports and initially stopped him
from entering university. After an appeal to the Minister of Education,
Kamenev was allowed to study law at Moscow University.
At
university Kamenev had articles published in magazines calling for
students to join with workers to fight for democracy. In February
1902 Kamenev took part in student demonstrations against Nicholas
II. The following month he was arrested at another demonstration
and was imprisoned in Butyrki. He was released a few months later
but was not allowed to continue his university studies.
Kamenev
worked as a propagandist among railway workers in Russia before moving
to Paris in 1902. He met Vladimir Lenin
and together they moved to Geneva in Switzerland. Kamenev soon emerged
as one of the leaders of the Social Democratic
Party in exile.
At the
Second Congress of the Social Democratic Party in London
in 1903, there was a dispute between Vladimir
Lenin and Julius Martov, two of the
party's main leaders. Lenin argued for a small party of professional
revolutionaries with a large fringe of non-party sympathizers and
supporters. Martov disagreed believing it was better to have a large
party of activists. Martov won the vote 28-23 but Lenin was unwilling
to accept the result and formed a faction known as the Bolsheviks.
Those who remained loyal to Martov became known as Mensheviks.
Kamenev
joined the Bolsheviks. So also did
Gregory Zinoviev, Anatoli
Lunacharsky, Joseph Stalin, Mikhail
Lashevich, Nadezhda Krupskaya,
Alexei Rykov, Yakov
Sverdlov, Mikhail Frunze, Maxim
Litvinov, Vladimir Antonov, Felix
Dzerzhinsky, Gregory Ordzhonikidze,
and Alexander Bogdanov. Whereas George
Plekhanov, Pavel Axelrod, Leon
Trotsky, Lev Deich, Vladimir
Antonov-Ovseenko,
Irakli Tsereteli, Moisei
Uritsky, Noi Zhordania and Fedor
Dan supported Julius Martov.
After
the meeting in London Kamenev returned
to Tiflis where he organised a strike on the Transcaucasian Railway.
This resulted in his arrest by the Okhrana
and he remained in custody for five months before being deported from
Moscow. Although under police supervision in Tiflis he continued to
write for Bolshevik newspapers.
Kamenev
toured Russia making propaganda speeches in support of the Bolsheviks
and during the 1905 Revolution organised
railway strikes in St. Petersburg. Over the next couple of years he
played a prominent role in the campaign against the limited power
of the Duma.
In December,
1908, Kamenev moved to Geneva where he worked with Vladimir
Lenin and Gregory Zinoviev in the
publication of Proletary. He
also wrote a book, The Two Parties,
that explained the split between the Bolsheviks
and Mensheviks.
In
1912 Kamenev, Gregory Zinoviev and Vladimir
Lenin moved to Krakow in Galicia to be closer to Russia. On the
outbreak of the First
World War they were forced to move to the neutral Switzerland.
After the overthrow of Nicholas II in
1917, Kamenev,
Gregory Zinoviev and Vladimir
Lenin
returned to Russia and joined with Leon Trotsky
and others in plotting against the government being led by Alexander
Kerensky. Soon after arriving in St. Petersburg, Lenin and Kamenev
published their views on how to achieve a Marxist
revolution. Kamenev also joined Zinoviev as editor of Pravda.
At a meeting
of the Central Committee on 9th October, Kamenev and Gregory
Zinoviev
were the only members opposed to Lenin's call for revolution. He later
changed his mind and took part in the October
Revolution that brought the Bolsheviks
to power.
In December, 1918, Lenin sent Kamenev to London
to explain the policies of the new Soviet government. After one week
he was deported by the British government. He moved on the Finland
where he was arrested and imprisoned. Kamenev was held until January,
1918, when he was released in exchange for Finns imprisoned in Russia.
On his
return to Russia he was elected Chairman of the Moscow
Soviet and became a member of the party's five-man ruling Politburo.
He reached the peak of his power in 1923 when with Joseph
Stalin and Gregory
Zinoviev
he became one of the Triumvirate that planned to take over from Vladimir
Lenin when he died.
After the
death of Lenin 1924, Kamenev
joined
forces with Gregory
Zinoviev
and Joseph Stalin to keep Leon
Trotsky from power. In 1925 Stalin was able to arrange for Trotsky
to be dismissed as commissar of war and the following year the Politburo.
With the
decline of Trotsky, Joseph Stalin felt
strong enough to stop sharing power with Kamenev and Zinoviev. Stalin
now began to attack Trotsky's belief in the need for world revolution.
He argued that the party's main priority should be to defend the communist
system that had been developed in the Soviet Union. This put Zinoviev
and Kamenev in an awkward position. They had for a long time been
strong supporters of Trotsky's theory that if revolution did not spread
to other countries, the communist system in the Soviet Union was likely
to be overthrown by hostile, capitalist nations. However, they were
reluctant to speak out in favour of a man whom they had been in conflict
with for so long.
When Joseph Stalin was finally convinced
that Kamenev and Gregory
Zinoviev
were unwilling to join forces with Leon Trotsky
against him, he began to support openly the economic policies of right-wing
members of the Politburo like Nikolay Bukharin,
Mikhail Tomsky and Alexei
Rykov. They now realized what Stalin was up to but it took them
to summer of 1926 before they could swallow their pride and join with
Trotsky against Stalin.
When Kamenev and Gregory
Zinoviev
eventually began attacking his policies, Joseph
Stalin argued they were creating disunity in the party and managed
to have them expelled from the Central Committee. The belief that
the party would split into two opposing factions was a strong fear
amongst active communists in the Soviet Union. They were convinced
that if this happened, western countries would take advantage of the
situation and invade the Soviet Union.
Under pressure from the Central Committee, Kamenev and Gregory
Zinoviev
agreed to sign statements promising not to create conflict in the
movement by making speeches attacking official policies. Leon
Trotsky refused to sign and was banished to the remote area of
Kazhakstan.
In 1935
Kamenev was arrested and charged with being involved in the assassination
of Sergy Kirov. Found guilty he was sentenced
to 10 years' imprisonment. The following year he was charged with
forming a terrorist organization to kill Joseph
Stalin and other leaders of the government. Lev
Kamenev
was found guilty and executed in Moscow on 25th August, 1936.
(1) The Granat Encyclopaedia of
the Russian Revolution was published by the Soviet government in
1924. The encyclopaedia included a collection of autobiographies and
biographies of over two hundred people involved in the Russian Revolution.
Kamenev's
acquaintance with Lenin and the impression made by the series of lectures
and papers the latter gave during the visit, had a decisive influence
on his future career. Learning that Iskra would in future be published
by Lenin in Geneva rather than London, Kamenev left Paris for Switzerland,
where he spent several months on a detailed study of revolutionary
social democratic literature.
(2)
Victor Serge, Year One of the Russian
Revolution (1930)
In the
last days of September the Central Committee of the Bolsheviks (Lenin,
Trotsky, Stalin, Sverdlov, Yakovleva, Oppokov, Zinoviev, Kamenev)
met in Petrograd, in the apartment of Sukhanov. Even the principle
of the insurrection was in dispute. Kamenev and Zinoviev (Nogin and
Rykov, who were of the same opinion, being absent from this meeting)
stated their view that the insurrection might perhaps itself be successful,
but that it would be almost impossible to maintain power afterwards
owing to the economic pressures and crisis in the food supply. The
majority voted for the insurrection, and actually fixed the date for
15 October.
(3)
In his book Stalin, Isaac Deutscher
described the way Lev Kamenev and Gregory Zinoviev defended Joseph
Stalin from the attacks made on him by Lenin just before his death.
Zinoviev
addressed the Central Committee, "Comrades, every word of Lenin
is law to us. We have sworn to fulfill everything the dying Lenin
ordered us to do. You know perfectly well that we shall keep that
vow. But we are happy to say that in one point Lenin's fears have
proved baseless. I have in mind the point about our General Secretary
(Stalin). You have all witnessed our harmonious cooperation in the
last few months; and, like myself, you will be happy to say that Lenin's
fears have proved baseless."
Kamenev
followed with an appeal to the Central Committee that Stalin be left
in office. But if this was to happen it was not advisable to publish
Lenin's will at the congress. Krupskaya protested against the suppression
of her husband's testament, but in vain. Trotsky, present at the meeting,
was too proud to intervene in a situation which affected his own standing
too.
(4) Leon Trotsky,
Zinoviev and Kamenev (December, 1936)
Zinoviev
and Kamenev are two profoundly different types. Zinoviev is an agitator.
Kamenev a propagandist. Zinoviev was guided in the main by a subtle
political instinct. Kamenev was given to reasoning and analyzing. Zinoviev
was always inclined to fly off at a tangent. Kamenev, on the contrary,
erred on the side of excessive caution. Zinoviev was entirely absorbed
by politics, cultivating no other interests and appetites. In Kamenev
there sat a sybarite and a aesthete. Zinoviev was vindictive. Kamenev
was good nature personified.
I do not
know what their mutual relations were in emigration. In 1917 they
were brought close together for a time by their opposition to the
October revolution. In the first few years after the victory, Kamenev's
attitude toward Zinoviev was rather ironical. They were subsequently
drawn together by their opposition to me, and later, to Stalin. Throughout
the last thirteen years of their lives, they marched side by side
and their names were always mentioned together.
With all
their individual differences, outside of their common schooling gained
by them in emigration under Lenin's guidance, they were endowed with
almost an identical range of intellect and will. Kamenev's analytical
capacity served to compliment Zinoviev's instinct; and they would
jointly explore for a common decision. Both of them were deeply and
unreservedly devoted to the cause of socialism. Such is the explanation
for their tragic union.
(5) Lev Kamenev, speech at his trial (August,
1936)
I
Kamenev, together with Zinoviev and Trotsky, organised and guided this
conspiracy. My motives? I had become convinced that the party's - Stalin's
policy - was successful and victorious. We, the opposition, had banked
on a split in the party; but this hope proved groundless. We could no
longer count on any serious domestic difficulties to allow us to overthrow.
Stalin's leadership we were actuated by boundless hatred and by lust
of power.
(6) The Observer, (23rd
August, 1936)
It is futile to think the trial was staged and the charges trumped up.
The government's case against the defendants (Zinoviev and Kamenev)
is genuine.
(7) The New
Republic (2nd September, 1936)
Some
commentators, writing at a long distance from the scene, profess doubt
that the executed men (Zinoviev and Kamenev) were guilty. It is suggested
that they may have participated in a piece of stage play for the sake
of friends or members of their families, held by the Soviet government
as hostages and to be set free in exchange for this sacrifice. We see
no reason to accept any of these laboured hypotheses, or to take the
trial in other than its face value. Foreign correspondents present at
the trial pointed out that the stories of these sixteen defendants,
covering a series of complicated happenings over nearly five years,
corroborated each other to an extent that would be quite impossible
if they were not substantially true. The defendants gave no evidence
of having been coached, parroting confessions painfully memorized in
advance, or of being under any sort of duress.
(8) The New Statesman
(5th September, 1936)
Very
likely there was a plot. We complain because, in the absence of independent
witnesses, there is no way of knowing. It is their (Zinoviev and Kamenev)
confession and decision to demand the death sentence for themselves
that constitutes the mystery. If they had a hope of acquittal, why confess?
If they were guilty of trying to murder Stalin and knew they would be
shot in any case, why cringe and crawl instead of defiantly justifying
their plot on revolutionary grounds? We would be glad to hear the explanation.
(9) Leon Trotsky,
interviewed by St. Louis Post-Dispatch (17th January, 1937)
The Western
attorneys of the GPU represent the confessions of Zinoviev and the
others as spontaneous expressions of their sincere repentance. This
is the most shameless deception of public opinion that can be imagined.
For almost 10 years, Zinoviev, Kamenev and the others found themselves
under almost insupportable moral pressure with the menace of death
approaching ever closer and closer. If an inquisitor judge were to
put questions to this victim and inspire the answers, his success
would be guaranteed in advance. Human nerves, even the strongest,
have a limited capacity to endure moral torture.
(10)
Victor Serge,
Memoirs of a Revolutionary (1945)
And on 14 August, like a thunderbolt, came the announcement
of the Trial of the Sixteen, concluded on the 25th - eleven days later
- by the execution of Zinoviev, Kamenev, Ivan Smirnov, and all their
fellow-defendants. I understood, and wrote at once, that this marked
the beginning of the extermination of all the old revolutionary generation.
It was impossible to murder only some, and allow the others to live,
their brothers, impotent witnesses maybe, but witnesses who understood
what was going on.
Available
from Amazon Books (order below)
|
