Grigory Zinoviev in the context of "Stalin's rise to power"

Joseph Stalin, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1952 and Chairman of the Council of Ministers from 1941 until his death in 1953, governed the country as its General Secretary from the late 1920s until his death. He had initially been part of the country's informal collective leadership with Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev after the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924, but consolidated his power within the party and state, especially against the influences of Leon Trotsky and Nikolai Bukharin, in the mid-to-late 1920s.

Prior to the October Revolution of 1917, Stalin was a revolutionary who had joined the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) led by Vladimir Lenin, in 1903. In Lenin's first government, Stalin was appointed leader of the People's Commissariat of Nationalities. He also took military positions in the Russian Civil War and Polish-Soviet War. Stalin was one of the Bolsheviks' chief operatives in the Caucasus and grew closer to Lenin, who saw him as tough, loyal, and capable of getting things done behind the scenes. Stalin played a decisive role in engineering the 1921 Red Army invasion of Georgia. His successes in Georgia propelled him into the ranks of the Politburo in late 1921. At the 11th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in 1922, the leaders decided to expand the party's Central Committee. This decision led to the creation of the office of the General Secretary which Stalin assumed on 3 April. Stalin soon learned how to use his new office to gain advantages over key persons within the party. He prepared the agenda for the Politburo meetings, directing the course of meetings. As General Secretary, he appointed new local party leaders, establishing a patronage network loyal to him.

The Moscow trials were a series of show trials held by the Soviet Union between 1936 and 1938 at the instigation of Joseph Stalin. They were nominally directed against "Trotskyists" and members of the "Right Opposition" of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

1. The "Case of the Trotskyite–Zinovievite Terrorist Center" (or Zinoviev–Kamenev Trial, also known as the 'Trial of the Sixteen', August 1936);
2. The "Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center" (or Pyatakov–Radek Trial, also known as the 'Trial of the Seventeen', January 1937); and
3. The "Case of the Anti-Soviet 'Bloc of Rightists and Trotskyites'" (or the Bukharin–Rykov Trial, also known as the 'Trial of the Twenty-One', March 1938).

The defendants were Old Bolshevik Party leaders and top officials of the Soviet secret police. Most were charged under Article 58 of the RSFSR Penal Code with conspiring with imperialist powers to assassinate Stalin and other Soviet leaders, dismember the Soviet Union, and restore capitalism. Several prominent figures (such as Andrei Bubnov, Alexander Beloborodov, Nikolai Yezhov) were sentenced to death during the Stalin era outside these trials.

Genrikh Grigoryevich Yagoda (Russian: Ге́нрих Григо́рьевич Яго́да, romanized: Genrikh Grigor'yevich Yagoda, born Yenokh Gershevich Iyeguda; 7 November 1891 – 15 March 1938) was a Soviet secret police official who served as director of the NKVD, the Soviet Union's security and intelligence agency, from 1934 to 1936. Appointed by Joseph Stalin, Yagoda supervised arrests, show trials, and executions of the Old Bolsheviks Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev, climactic events of the Great Purge. Yagoda also supervised the construction of the White Sea–Baltic Canal with Naftaly Frenkel, using penal labor from the gulag system, during which 12,000–25,000 laborers died.

Like many NKVD officers who oversaw political repression under Stalin's rule, Yagoda himself ultimately became a victim of the regime's purges. He was demoted from the directorship of the NKVD in favor of Nikolai Yezhov in 1936 and arrested in 1937. Charged with crimes of wrecking, espionage, Trotskyism and conspiracy, Yagoda was a defendant at the Trial of the Twenty-One, the last of the major Soviet show trials of the 1930s. Following his confession at the trial, Yagoda was found guilty and shot.

Lev Borisovich Kamenev (né Rozenfeld; 18 July [O.S. 6 July] 1883 – 25 August 1936) was a Russian-Soviet revolutionary 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.

Kropyvnytskyi (Ukrainian: Кропивницький, IPA: [kropɪu̯ˈnɪtsʲkɪj] ) is a city in central Ukraine, situated on the Inhul River. It serves as the administrative center of Kirovohrad Oblast. Population: 219,676 (2022 estimate).

Over its history, Kropyvnytskyi has changed its name several times. The settlement was known as Yelysavethrad after Empress Elizabeth of Russia from 1752 to 1924, or simply Elysavet. In 1924, as part of the Soviet Union, it became known as Zinovievsk after the revolutionary Grigory Zinoviev, who was born there. Following the assassination of Sergei Kirov in 1934, the town was renamed Kirovo.

The 2nd World Congress of the Communist International was a gathering of approximately 220 voting and non-voting representatives of communist and revolutionary socialist political parties from around the world, held in Petrograd and Moscow from July 19 to August 7, 1920. The 2nd Congress is best remembered for formulating and implementing the 21 Conditions for membership in the Communist International.