2-378-280 - Historica Graphica Collection/Heritage Images

Grigory Zinoviev, Russian Bolshevik revolutionary and Soviet politician, 1924. Grigory Yevseevich Zinoviev (1883-1936) became one of the most powerful figures in the Soviet leadership after the Russian Revolution. In 1924 he was said to have written a letter to British Communists telling them to prepare for revolution. Generally now accepted as having been a forgery, it was published in the Conservative-supporting newspaper the Daily Mail four days before a general election and played a part in the defeat suffered by the Labour Party. Zinoviev fell foul of the intrigues at the top of the Soviet government and was expelled from the Central Committee of the Communist Party in October 1927. In August 1936 he was executed after a show trial during one of Stalin's purges.