KAMENEV, LEO BORISOVICH (ROSENFELD), (1883-1936), Russian politician, born in 1883, son of an engineer, received a technical education, but in 1901 joined the Russian social-democratic party, and became a "professional revolution ary." While still a student in 1902 he was imprisoned for participa pation in a political demonstration. From 1903 he was a member of the Bolshevik section of the R.S.D.P., devoting himself to organising, lecturing and writing on their behalf. In 1908 he was interdicted from living in St. Petersburg, and went to Paris. At the beginning of 1914 he was sent back to Russia by the Bolshevik party central committee, and as their representative in St. Peters burg directed all the party activities in Russia. He adhered to Lenin's revolutionary policy on the war question, and (1915) was arrested and sent to perpetual banishment in Siberia. He returned at the outbreak of the February 1917 revolution, and from March to October 1917 was a member of the praesidium of the Petrograd Soviet. In October he, with Zinoviev and others, was in opposition
to Lenin on the question of the Bolshevik revolution, and also in his advocacy of a coalition government formed from all the social ist parties, and temporarily resigned his membership of the Bol shevik central committee. From 1918 he was president of the Moscow soviet, and in 1922 was elected vice-chairman of the soviet of people's commissars. On the death of Lenin in 1924 he was elected chairman of the council of labour and defence. On the development of the Trotskyist opposition in 1923 Kamenev was at first violently anti-Trotsky, but in 1926 he with Zinoviev and others went over to the opposition platform, being expelled from the communist party and losing his official positions in December 1927, for anti-party activities. Readmitted in 1928, and expelled in 1932, he was executed for alleged conspiracy Aug. 25, 1936.