Maxim Maximovich Litvinov

Maxim Maximovich Litvinov , 1876-1951, Russian revolutionary and Soviet diplomat. A Jew, he changed his name from Wallach after joining the Social Democratic party. He became a member of the Bolshevik wing after the party split (1903). He took part in the Revolution of 1905 and subsequently spent years in exile in Great Britain and Switzerland. Imprisoned in England after the Bolshevik Revolution, he was released in exchange for the British consul general, Bruce Lockhart, who had been arrested in Moscow. As chief assistant to the commissar for foreign affairs, Chicherin , he assumed much of his superior's work, and in 1930 he succeeded Chicherin. He pursued a policy of collective security and cooperation with the great powers. In 1933 he obtained American recognition of the USSR, and in 1934, Russia entered the League of Nations , where Litvinov continued to promote a peace policy and called for joint action against the aggression of Germany, Italy, and Japan. His policy was abandoned by Stalin after the Munich Pact of 1938, when Great Britain and France capitulated to German demands in Czechoslovakia, and in May, 1939, he was replaced by Molotov as foreign commissar. In 1941, Litvinov was named ambassador to the United States, where he served until 1943.

Litvinov, Maxim Maximovich (1876–1951) Soviet revolutionary politician. He joined the BOLSHEVIKS (1903), and from 1917 to 1918 was Soviet envoy in London, having married an Engishwoman, Ivy Low in 1916. He headed delegations to the disarmament conference of the League of Nations (1927–29), signed the KELLOGG-BRIAND PACT (1928), and negotiated diplomatic relations with the USA (1933). An advocate of collective security against Germany, Italy, and Japan, he was Soviet foreign minister from 1930 until he was dismissed (1939), before STALIN signed the Nazi-Soviet Pact.

Litvinov, Maxim Maximovich (b. 17 July 1876, d. 31 Dec. 1951). Soviet Foreign Commissar 1930–9 Born Max Wallach of a Jewish family in Belostok (Russian Poland), he joined the Russian Social Democratic (Workers') Party on its foundation in 1898. A firm supporter of Lenin, he was soon imprisoned, but escaped in 1902 and then acted abroad as an arms agent for the 1905 Russian Revolution. He returned to Russia but was deported and went to France and then London. After the Russian Revolution of October 1917 he was appointed the first Bolshevik representative in London, from where he was deported in 1918. He then worked in the Soviet Foreign Office and from 1926 was virtually in control of Soviet foreign policy, although not appointed Foreign Commissar until 1930. He brought the USSR into the League of Nations and, through his rhetorical emphasis on disarmament and anti-Fascism, played some part in portraying a more acceptable face of a country ravaged by Stalin's terror and the Great Purge. A strong advocate of collective security against the Axis Powers, he was replaced by Molotov before the signing of the Hitler-Stalin Pact. He was Soviet ambassador to the USA 1941–3.