From Menshevik to Soviet envoy to the British Empire: a convert and survivor who stood at the center of world-war diplomacy
In November 1918 he wrote to the Menshevik Central Committee that he was "fortunate to have the great honor of taking part in the last heroic-desperate attempt of democracy to save the revolution." Two years later he joined the Bolsheviks.
A Soviet diplomat and historian who crossed from Menshevism to Bolshevism. As ambassador to Britain for eleven years from 1932, he served as a central channel of wartime Allied diplomacy and signed the Maisky–Sikorski agreement restoring Soviet-Polish relations. After the war, as Deputy People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, he took part in the Yalta and Potsdam conferences and led the commission on German reparations. His London diplomatic diary is regarded as an unparalleled source on the inner workings of interwar and wartime Soviet diplomacy.
Career Timeline
- 1903Joined RSDLP, Menshevik faction
- 1906–1908Arrested for 1905 revolution activity, exiled to Tobolsk
- 1912Graduated in economics from Munich University; moved to London
- 1917Deputy Minister of Labour, Provisional Government
- 1918Minister of Labour, Samara KOMUCh government; expelled from Menshevik party
- 1920–1921Declared conversion to Bolshevism; admitted to RKP(b)
- 1922–1923Head of Press Department, People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs
- 1929–1932Plenipotentiary Representative of the USSR to Finland
- 1932–1943Plenipotentiary Representative / Ambassador of the USSR to the United Kingdom
- 1941Signed Maisky–Sikorski agreement restoring Soviet-Polish diplomatic relations
- 1943–1946Deputy People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs; participated in Yalta and Potsdam conferences
- 1946Elected full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences
- 1953–1955Arrested on espionage charges; released and rehabilitated after Stalin's death
- 1957–1975Restored party membership; resumed scholarship; wrote memoirs and diplomatic diaries
Related historical events
- 1905–1907The Revolution of 1905Saratov Menshevik organizerHe participated in the 1905 Revolution in Saratov and was arrested and exiled to Tobolsk for his involvement. At the time he belonged to the Menshevik faction.
- 1939.08–1940.08The Nazi-Soviet Pact and the Partition of Eastern EuropeSoviet ambassador to Britain, channel for Anglo-Soviet talksAs Soviet ambassador in London (1932-1943), he was the key intermediary in Anglo-Soviet negotiations during 1939. His memoir was titled 'Who Helped Hitler?'
- 1941–1945The Great Patriotic WarSoviet Ambassador to the UK, Deputy Foreign CommissarAs Soviet ambassador in London from 1932 to 1943, he functioned as a central channel of wartime Allied diplomacy. He signed the Maisky–Sikorski agreement in July 1941 restoring Soviet-Polish diplomatic relations and led negotiations on arms supplies and Lend-Lease with Britain. After returning to Moscow in 1943, as Deputy People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs he took part in the Yalta and Potsdam conferences and chaired the commission on German reparations.
The Spanish Civil War and the Non-Intervention Committee
Soon after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, Maisky was appointed the Soviet representative on the Non-Intervention Committee in London. The committee was established to monitor the international pledge by European powers not to intervene in Spain, but it was a fiction from the start: Germany and Italy were already sending troops and arms to Franco's side.
At the first meeting on 9 September 1936, Maisky argued that Soviet intervention was justified because Germany and Italy had intervened first. The committee soon degenerated into political theater, with the assembled ambassadors, Maisky, Joachim von Ribbentrop (Germany), and Dino Grandi (Italy), trading barbs before the press over which power was intervening the most. Maisky held the line that the Soviet Union would observe non-intervention only insofar as the other powers did.
For Maisky, Spain was more than a diplomatic assignment. He later became a leading Soviet authority on modern Spanish history, publishing Spain: 1808–1917 (1957) and Spanish Notebooks (1962). His time on the Non-Intervention Committee was the crossroads where his scholarly interests met diplomatic practice, and it gave him a front-row seat to the frustration of Soviet efforts to aid the Spanish Republic as Western appeasement of fascism prevailed.