Home – Home – Jornals – Humanitarian sciences in Siberia 2017 number

Under new conditions established in Russia after the February revolution agitation activities of political parties, including the RSDLP(b), obtained a special value, which was specially emphasized by V.I. Lenin in his “April Theses”. Thus it seems actual to focus on the activity of one of the most talented orators of the Bolshevist party G.Ye. Zinoviev, who was the closest associate of Lenin and a member of the Central Committee of the RSDRP(b). The current topic relevance is also determined by the fact that G.Ye. Zinoviev’s role in the events of 1917 was covered with prejudice in the Soviet historiography for ideological reasons, and it didn’t attract any scientific interest in the Post Soviet period. However, according to his contemporaries, political propaganda was one of the most important aspects of Zinoviev’s work between two Revolutions. The author of the current article strives to investigate the propagandist activities of G.Ye. Zinoviev since his return from the exile to Petrograd and up to the historical events of June. The study is based on the preserved transcripts of G.Ye. Zinoviev’s speeches and newspaper reports about them, archival documents, as well as his contemporaries’ memoirs. Studying G.Ye. Zinoviev’s activities and his ideas the author attempts to draw a conclusion, whether the assumption that Zinoviev had opposed V.I. Lenin since spring of 1917 is true. Being an outstanding public speaker, Zinoviev played a prominent role in the propaganda of Bolshevist ideas during April-June, 1917. The party entrusted Zinoviev with participating in rallies that were the most difficult in terms of agitation and propaganda, because of the lack of sympathy for the Bolshevist movement. With that, the ideas propagated by Zinoviev did not come into collision with those of V.I. Lenin. This in turn indicates, that the reason why Zinoviev fell into opposition to Lenin should be searched in later revolutionary events.