Lev Kamenev Lev Kamenev Lev Borisovich Kamenev (born Leo Rosenfeld or Lev Borisovich Rozenfeld; – 25 August 1936) was a Bolshevik revolutionary and a prominent Soviet politician. He was one of the seven members of the first Politburo, founded in 1917 to manage the Bolshevik Revolution: Lenin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Trotsky, Stalin, Sokolnikov and Bubnov. Kamenev was the brother-in-law of Leon Trotsky. He served briefly as the equivalent of the first head of state of Soviet Russia in 1917, and from 1923-24 as acting Premier in the last year of Vladimir Lenin's life. Joseph Stalin viewed him as a source of discontent and
David Bronstein pressure. In his final book, published in 2007, shortly after his death, Bronstein went further and alleged that he and Keres were pressured to draw their games with Smyslov, in order to ensure that Smyslov would win ahead of Reshevsky (see World Chess Championship 1954#Allegations of Soviet collusion). It is sometimes further alleged that Smyslov was favoured over Bronstein and Keres because he was Russian and they were not (Jewish-Ukrainian and Estonian respectively). The 1953 Candidates result qualified him directly for the 1955 Gothenburg Interzonal, which he won with an unbeaten score. From there it was on to another near