Sergey Kamenev was born into a family of military engineer. He graduated from the Aleksander Military School (1900) and the Nicholas General Staff Academy (1907). He was a participant of World War I with the rank of colonel (1915).

After the February Revolution of 1917, Kamenev supported the new government, became close to the revolutionary-minded soldiers, and took the post of elective commander of the 30th Poltava regiment. Since autumn, he was Chief-of-Staff of the 15th Army Corps. After the October coup, he supported the Bolsheviks and was elected Chief-of-Staff of the 3rd Army.

Since the spring of 1918, Kamenev served in the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army, he was the military leader of the Nevelsky district of the Western section of the Curtain forces. [The Western section of the Curtain forces was established on March 29, 1918, in accordance with the Directive by the Supreme Military Council to protect internal regions of the state from a possible invasion of German troops]. Since June, Kamenev was Commander of the 1st Vitebsk Infantry Division. In August, he was appointed a military leader of the Western section of the Curtain forces and a military instructor of the Smolensk district.

From September 1918 to July 1919, he was Commander of the Red Army’s Eastern Front, he led the offensive on the Volga and the Urals against Aleksander Kolchak’s Russian Army. In 1919–1924, Kamenev was Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Republic. He supervised operations to defeat the armies of Anton Denikin and Pyotr Wrangel, eliminate the remaining centers of resistance to the Bolsheviks in Karelia, Bukhara, and Fergana, suppress the uprising of Aleksander Antonov in Tambov governorate. In 1920, Kamenev developed a plan for an offensive on Poland. However, its implementation failed due to the underestimation of the enemy’s forces, and the opposition on the part of the command of the Southwestern Front (Aleksander Egorov and Joseph Stalin).

He held leading positions in the Red Army. Kamenev was a member of the Communist Party since 1930, the Commanding officer of the Army 1st class [Komandarm 1st rank] (1935). He died of a heart attack.