35 Facts About Maxim Litvinov

1.

Maxim Maximovich Litvinov was a Russian revolutionary and prominent Soviet statesman and diplomat who served as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs from 1930 to 1939.

2.

Maxim Litvinov was responsible for the 1929 Litvinov Protocol, a multilateral agreement to implement the Kellogg-Briand Pact between the Soviet Union and several neighboring states.

3.

In 1930, Maxim Litvinov was appointed People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs, the highest diplomatic position in the USSR.

4.

In 1900, Maxim Litvinov became a member of the Kiev party committee, all of whom were arrested in 1901.

5.

In July 1903, Maxim Litvinov was in London for the party's second congress when the RSDLP split.

6.

Maxim Litvinov returned to Russia during the 1905 Revolution, when he became editor of the RSDLP's first legal newspaper Novaya Zhizn in Saint Petersburg.

7.

The Russian government demanded his extradition and the French Minister for Justice Aristide Briand ruled Maxim Litvinov's crime was political and ordered him to be deported.

8.

Maxim Litvinov moved to England in 1910 and lived there for eight years.

9.

In February 1915, Maxim Litvinov, uninvited, attended a conference of socialists from the Triple Entente that included Keir Hardie, Ramsay MacDonald and Emile Vandervelde; and the Mensheviks Yuri Martov and Ivan Maisky.

10.

In England, Maxim Litvinov met and in 1916 married Ivy Low, the daughter of a Jewish university professor.

11.

Maxim Litvinov's accreditation was never officially formalised and his position as an unofficial diplomatic contact was analogous to that of Bruce Lockhart, Britain's unofficial agent in Soviet Russia.

12.

In January 1918, Maxim Litvinov addressed the Labour Party Conference, praising the achievements of the Revolution.

13.

Hodgson, who was privately sympathetic to some of Maxim Litvinov's complaints, communicated with the Foreign Office, giving four reasons for criticising Britain's position:.

14.

Maxim Litvinov supported disarmament, actively attending the Disarmament Preparatory Commission from 30 November 1927 until it was replaced by the World Disarmament Conference in Geneva in 1932.

15.

Maxim Litvinov's proposals won him favourable publicity in radical circles in Western countries that were eager for disarmament and impatient at the Commission's slow progress.

16.

Maxim Litvinov favoured Soviet participation in the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, which pledged signatories to the elimination of the use of war as a tool of foreign policy, a position opposite to that of his nominal superior Chicherin.

17.

Maxim Litvinov, who was a firm believer in collective security, worked to form a closer relationship with France and the United Kingdom, a policy seemingly at odds with the "class against class" line of the Third Period being advocated by Communist International.

18.

Maxim Litvinov remained the only leading official of Narkomindel in the mid-1930s who had direct personal access to Stalin and who could deal with Stalin's inner circle on terms approaching equality; this was in contrast to other top foreign-affairs officials such as Boris Stomonyakov and Nikolay Krestinsky, for whom access was limited to occasional supplication.

19.

On 6 February 1933, Maxim Litvinov made the most-significant speech of his career, in which he tried to define aggression.

20.

In 1933, Maxim Litvinov was instrumental in winning a long-sought formal diplomatic recognition of the Soviet government by the United States.

21.

Maxim Litvinov facilitated the acceptance of the Soviet Union into the League of Nations, where he represented his country from 1934 to 1938.

22.

In 1935, Maxim Litvinov negotiated the Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance and another treaty with Czechoslovakia with the aim of containing Nazi Germany's aggression.

23.

On 15 April 1939, Maxim Litvinov sent a comprehensive proposal to Stalin for a tripartite agreement with Britain and France.

24.

On 3 May 1939, Stalin replaced Maxim Litvinov, who was closely identified with the anti-German position, with Vyacheslav Molotov.

25.

Many of Maxim Litvinov's aides were arrested and beaten, possibly to extract compromising information.

26.

One British official wrote Maxim Litvinov's disappearance meant the loss of an admirable technician or shock-absorber, while Molotov's modus operandi was "more truly Bolshevik than diplomatic or cosmopolitan".

27.

Hitler wrote to Benito Mussolini that Maxim Litvinov's dismissal demonstrated the Kremlin's readiness to alter relations with Berlin, which led to "the most extensive nonaggression pact in existence".

28.

The British Embassy records confirm Maxim Litvinov was conspicuous at the 1939 anniversary of the Revolution by Lenin's Mausoleum.

29.

Maxim Litvinov was in a conspicuous place at the 1940 celebration of the Russian Revolution.

30.

On 21 February 1941, Maxim Litvinov was dismissed from the Central Committee of the Communist Party on the pretext of his inability to discharge his obligations as a member of the Committee.

31.

The Soviet leaders, as well as Maxim Litvinov, were concerned Britain might come to an agreement with Germany.

32.

Early in November 1941, Maxim Litvinov was summoned to see Stalin and told his services were required as ambassador to the United States.

33.

President Roosevelt stated Maxim Litvinov's appointment was "most fortunate that the Soviet Government have deemed it advisable to send as ambassador a statesman who has already held high office in his own country".

34.

Maxim Litvinov, speaking in English, told of the suffering in the Soviet Union.

35.

Maxim Litvinov was dismissed from his post after an interview given to Richard C Hottelet on 18 June 1946 in which he said a war between the West and the Soviet Union was inevitable.