Lev Kamenev

Lev Borisovich Kamenev (né Rozenfeld; 18 July [O.S. 6 July] 1883 – 25 August 1936) was a Russian revolutionary and Soviet politician. A prominent Old Bolshevik, Kamenev was a leading figure in the early Soviet government and served as a deputy premier of the Soviet Union from 1923 to 1926.

Born in Moscow to a family active in revolutionary politics, Lev Kamenev joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1901 and sided with Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction after the party's 1903 split. He was arrested several times and participated in the failed Revolution of 1905, after which he moved abroad and became one of Lenin's close associates. In 1914, Kamenev was arrested upon returning to Saint Petersburg and exiled to Siberia. He returned after the February Revolution of 1917, which overthrew the monarchy, and joined Grigory Zinoviev in opposing Lenin's "April Theses" and an armed seizure of power within the former Russian Empire. Nevertheless, when Lenin came to power in Russia following the success of the October Revolution, Kamenev briefly served as chairman of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets along with a number of senior posts, including chairman of the Moscow Soviet and Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars. In 1919, he was elected as a full member of the first Central Committee Politburo, the supreme decision-making body of the emerging Communist Party of the Soviet Union.