Lev Kamenev

Leninism or Trotskyism? Lev Kamenev

"The subject of my speech will be Comrade Trotsky?s latest publication, the article which appeared on the eve of the seventh anniversary of the October revolution, and entitled by its author 'The Lessons of October.' Trotsky presents the Party with books fairly frequently. Hitherto we have not thought it necessary to pay much attention to these books, although it is not difficult to find in many of them various deviations from Bolshevism, from the official ideology of our Party. But this book must be accorded special attention, and subjected to a thorough analysis, the more that Comrade Trotsky has selected the theme of the 'Lessons of October' for his last publication. Lev Borisovich Kamenev (1883 ? 1936), born Rozenfeld, was a Bolshevik revolutionary and a prominent Soviet politician. He was briefly head of state of the new republic in 1917, and from 1923-24 the acting Premier in the last year of Lenin's life. During Lenin's illness, Kamenev was the acting Council of People's Commissars and Politburo chairman. Together with Zinoviev and Joseph Stalin, he formed a ruling 'triumvirate' (or 'troika') in the Communist Party, and played a key role in the marginalization of Trotsky. The triumvirate carefully managed the intra-party debate and delegate selection process in the fall of 1923 during the runup to the XIIIth Party Conference and secured a vast majority of the seats. The Conference, held in January 1924 immediately prior to Lenin's death, denounced Trotsky and "Trotskyism".