Zinovy Alekseyevich Peshkov (, or Pechkov, 16 October 1884 – 27 November 1966) was a Russian-born French general and diplomat. Early life Born as Zalman or as Yeshua Zalman Sverdlov (in Russian: Zinovy Mikhailovich Sverdlov), the future Zinovy Peshkov was the second child and eldest son in a Jewish family in Nizhny Novgorod. His father, Mikail Izraylevich (1846?-1921), was a relatively prosperous itinerant coppersmith and copper engraver from the region of Bialystok in the Kingdom of Poland, in an area of Belarusian and Lithuanian influence. His mother, Elizaveta Solomonovna Averbach (1864-1900), was related to merchant families of a city which, since the beginning of the 19th century, had experienced vigorous economic development. Zinovy's generation was emblematic of the fate of Jewish families who were in contact with the principal powers at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. In fact, out of the eight known children of Mikhail and Elisabeth, some settled in Soviet Russia – sometimes by adopting the new regime – while others, having chosen emigration, after crossing Western Europe, settled in the United States. Thus Sarah, the oldest daughter, born in Polotsk, near Vitebsk (in present-day Belarus) in 1876, emigrated to New York around 1913. She died there in 1947. Zinovy, the oldest of the sons, born in 1884, was followed by Yakov (1885-1919), the future political colleague of Lenin. Following these two brothers, who had singular and opposite destinies, several sons and daughters arrived who in their turn, were separated by politics and emigration. These include, other than Sarah, Zinovy, Sophie (who died in 1951 in Saratov), Sore (died in 1964), Lev (born 1893, died in 1914 in Russia) and (, born 1886, emigrated to the USA, returned to Soviet Russia in 1918, shot in 1939). The protege of Gorky Reluctant to pursue his studies and prepared from adolescence for any adventure, the young Zinovy trolled the streets of Nizhny Novgorod on the fringes of legality, spending his time with the many thugs on the banks of the Volga. In 1896, salvation came upon his meeting a character who undoubtedly had ties to the Sverdlov family, although we have no knowledge of the exact relations between them. Originally from the region where he was placed under house arrest (Nizhny Novgorod, his home town, is 100 km north of Arzamas, where he was exiled), Maxim Gorky – who was then 28 years old – took under