The diplomat of collective security, removed in 1939
At the League of Nations in 1935, Litvinov summed up his diplomatic philosophy in two words: "Peace is indivisible." No nation could be secure in its own peace and tranquillity while the peace of neighbours — near and far — remained unguaranteed. The phrase became his trademark.
A Bolshevik revolutionary turned diplomat, as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs in the 1930s he championed anti-fascist collective security at the League of Nations and secured US-Soviet diplomatic recognition in 1933. Seeking a broad front against fascism, he was dismissed by Stalin in May 1939 and replaced by Molotov: the removal of the Jewish foreign commissar was itself the signal of a foreign-policy pivot toward accommodation with Germany. Rehabilitated after the German invasion, he served as ambassador to the United States and deputy foreign commissar in the wartime alliance.
Career Timeline
- 1930–1939People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs
Related historical events
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- 1934.01–07The Fascist Riot of 6 February 1934Soviet foreign commissar of the collective-security lineThe collective-security diplomacy he pursued toward France was the foreign-policy counterpart of the popular front line, and led to the Franco-Soviet treaty of mutual assistance in May 1935.
- 1934–1938The French Popular Front and the Strikes of 1936Soviet foreign commissar of collective securityHe drove the collective-security diplomacy that produced the Franco-Soviet pact, the diplomatic twin of the popular-front line.
- 1936–1939The Spanish Civil WarSoviet People's Commissar for Foreign AffairsPressed the German and Italian violations of the agreement at the Non-Intervention Committee as part of the collective security line
- 1939.08–1940.08The Nazi-Soviet Pact and the Partition of Eastern EuropeArchitect of collective security, dismissed 3 May 1939As Foreign Commissar (1930–1939) he drove anti-fascist collective security. Stalin dismissed him on 3 May 1939: the removal of the Jewish commissar signalled a foreign-policy pivot toward Germany.
- 1941–1945The Great Patriotic WarWartime diplomatAs wartime ambassador to Washington, he opened a channel for Allied cooperation.
From Underground Bolshevik to the Litvinov-Lockhart Exchange — The Revolutionary Years (1898–1918)
Maxim Litvinov was born Meir-Henoch Wallach, the son of a Jewish merchant in Białystok, then part of the Russian Empire. He joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1898 and ran an underground printing press for the Kyiv Committee in 1900. Arrested in 1901, he helped organize and personally took part in the dramatic 1902 escape of eleven 'Iskra-ists' from Kyiv's Lukyanivska Prison. Fleeing to Switzerland, he became the agent responsible for smuggling the Iskra newspaper back into Russia. During the 1905 Revolution, he set up a special bureau in Paris with Kamo and other Caucasian comrades to purchase and deliver arms to revolutionary organizations. That summer he arranged for the British steamer John Grafton to deliver weapons near Tallinn, but the ship ran aground. In 1906, with the help of Macedonian revolutionary Naum Tyufekchiev, he shipped a large arms consignment to Varna on the Black Sea. But a storm beached the yacht and Romanian fishermen made off with the cargo. Only the failed operations are recorded; how many shipments actually got through remains unknown. In 1908 he was arrested in France for trying to exchange banknotes stolen in Kamo's Tiflis expropriation and was deported. He spent the next decade in London, serving as secretary of the Bolshevik group there. After the October Revolution he became Soviet Russia's first diplomatic representative to Britain. But in September 1918 the British arrested Lockhart's Bolshevik contact, Litvinov, in retaliation for the Bolshevik arrest of British diplomat Robert Bruce Lockhart in Moscow. Litvinov spent ten days in Brixton Prison. A month later, the two men were exchanged: the first spy swap in Soviet diplomatic history.
Collective Security and the 1939 Dismissal
Litvinov's diplomacy in the 1930s is summed up in two words: collective security. At the League of Nations he championed an anti-fascist coalition of the non-aggressor states, and in 1933 he secured US-Soviet diplomatic recognition. The 1935 mutual assistance pacts with France and Czechoslovakia marked the zenith of this line. But on 3 May 1939 Stalin dismissed Litvinov and installed Molotov as Foreign Commissar. Litvinov was Jewish; his removal signaled that Moscow was now open to negotiations with Berlin: the Nazi regime would not talk to a 'Jewish foreign minister.' Three months later came the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Litvinov's dismissal was itself the signal of a fundamental reorientation of Soviet foreign policy.