Maxim Litvinov was an ethnic Jewish Russian revolutionary and prominent Soviet diplomat.
Background
Meir Henoch Wallach-Finkelstein was born into a wealthy Polish Jewish banking family in Białystok, Grodno Governorate of the Russian Empire, formerly part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (now Bialystok, Poland), he was the second son of Moses and Anna Wallach.
Education
Maxim Litvinov was educated locally.
Career
Having been influenced by Marxism while serving in the Imperial Russian Army, Litvinov joined the Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party in 1898. He was arrested for his revolutionary activity in 1901 but escaped and fled to Great Britain (1902). Aligned with the Bolshevik faction after 1903, Litvinov was involved in party activities throughout Europe.
With the Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia (October 1917), Litvinov was appointed diplomatic representative in London. Arrested in October 1918 for engaging in propaganda activities, he was released the following January in exchange for Robert Bruce Lockhart, the British journalist who led a special mission to the Soviet Union in 1918. Litvinov then returned to Russia and joined the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. He achieved prominence when he led the Soviet delegation to the preparatory commission for the League of Nations’ World Disarmament Conference (1927–1930) and proposed sweeping disarmament programs. Having become commissar for foreign affairs (July 21, 1930), he was the principal Soviet delegate to the World Disarmament Conference held at Geneva in 1932. He also led the Soviet delegation to the World Economic Conference in London (1933) and conducted negotiations for establishing diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and the United States (1934).
When the power of Nazi Germany became a threat, Litvinov urged the League of Nations to make plans for collective resistance against Germany (1934–1938) and negotiated anti-German treaties with France (signed May 2, 1935) and Czechoslovakia (signed May 16, 1935). The Western democracies’ appeasement of Germany eventually prompted the Soviet leaders to change their policy and dismiss Litvinov, who was Jewish and closely identified with the anti-German position (May 3, 1939), before concluding the German-Soviet Treaty of Nonaggression (August 1939). Litvinov returned to active duty in 1941 after the Germans invaded the Soviet Union. He served first as ambassador to the United States (November 1941–August 1943), then as deputy commissar for foreign affairs. He retired in August 1946.
Politics
He joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (SDLP) in 1898 at which time the party was considered an illegal organization, and it was customary for its members to use pseudonyms. He changed his name to Maxim Litvinov (a common Litvak surname), but was also known as Papasha and Maximovich. Litvinov also wrote articles under the names M.G. Harrison and David Mordecai Finkelstein.
His early responsibilities included carrying out propaganda work in the Chernigov Governorate. In 1900, Litvinov became a member of Kiev party committee, but the entire committee was arrested in 1901. After 18 months of captivity, he led an escape of 11 inmates from Lukyanovskaya prison and lived in exile in Switzerland, where he was an editor for the revolutionary newspaper Iskra.
In 1903, he joined the Bolshevik faction and returned to Russia. After the 1905 Revolution he became editor of the SDLP's first legal newspaper, Novaya Zhizn (New Life), in St. Petersburg.