People of the Revolution and the USSR

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1874–1946 ○ Natural causes

The diplomat who pronounced Poland dead, then became education commissar

At 3 a.m. on 17 September 1939, Potemkin read the Polish ambassador a note: "The Polish state has ceased to exist." The Red Army was already crossing the frontier.

A teacher turned Marxist propagandist turned diplomat, Vladimir Potemkin is remembered for handing the Polish ambassador the note declaring Poland's extinction on 17 September 1939. He then served as People's Commissar of Education of the RSFSR, founding the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences and editing the three-volume History of Diplomacy, which earned him two Stalin Prizes.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1876–1951 ○ Natural causes

The diplomat of collective security, removed in 1939

The slogan that came to symbolize his collective-security diplomacy was that peace is indivisible. The sources do not fix a single occasion: the League of Nations plenum speech whose title explicitly takes up the indivisibility of peace is dated 1 July 1936.

Russian revolutionary and Soviet diplomat. Born in 1876 in Białystok, Grodno Governorate of the Russian Empire (today Poland), into a Jewish merchant family, as Meir-Henoch Wallach. As People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs in 1930–1939 he championed collective security; in May 1939 Stalin dismissed him and installed Molotov. During the Great Purge he publicly endorsed the purges and the campaign against the Trotskyites, and, sitting on the committee that decided the fate of Bukharin and Rykov, voted to expel and try them but not to execute them. In 1940 the NKVD planned his secret killing; it was not carried out. After the German invasion he returned to service as Deputy People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs and was Soviet ambassador to the United States in 1941–1943, concurrently envoy to Cuba. He died in Moscow on 31 December 1951 and was buried at Novodevichy Cemetery.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1882–1955 ○ Natural causes

From tsarist artillery officer to Stalin's first ambassador to Washington: a Russian nobleman who crossed revolution and diplomacy

At a White House reception, Roosevelt declared: 'If Mr. Troyanovsky says, looking at the moon, that this is the sun, I personally, gentlemen, will believe him.'

Alexander Troyanovsky was the first Soviet plenipotentiary to the United States, appointed in 1933 upon the establishment of diplomatic relations, and the architect of early cooperative ties with the Roosevelt administration. Born to hereditary nobility, trained as a tsarist artillery officer, he joined the Bolsheviks in 1904, broke with them for the Mensheviks in 1914, served on the Menshevik Central Committee and in the Constituent Assembly, then joined the Bolshevik Party in 1923 and entered Stalin's foreign-trade and diplomatic apparatus. As plenipotentiary to Japan (1927–1933) and then Washington, he negotiated the 1935 US–Soviet trade agreement and repeatedly urged Stalin to pursue rapprochement with America against Nazi Germany. His son Oleg Troyanovsky later served as Soviet Permanent Representative to the UN, founding one of the Soviet era's most durable diplomatic dynasties.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1883–1954 ○ Natural causes

Stalin's Moscow-trial prosecutor who later carried hardline Soviet diplomacy to the UN

At the UN General Assembly on 18 September 1947, then only Deputy Foreign Minister, Vyshinsky denounced the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan for using relief "as an instrument of political pressure."

Born in Odessa into a Polish szlachta (gentry) family, he moved to Baku as a child and joined the Menshevik wing of the RSDLP in 1903; arrested twice in 1906–1907 and sentenced by a Tiflis court in 1908 to a year in Bailov prison, where he met Stalin. He graduated from Kiev University in 1913, practiced law, and joined the Bolsheviks in 1920. He was RSFSR prosecutor (1931), Deputy Procurator (1933) and Procurator of the USSR (1935–1939), and served as state prosecutor in all three Moscow processes of 1936–1938. From May 1939 he was Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, and from 1940 to 1946 First Deputy People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs; he effectively directed the Soviet delegation at Nuremberg. As Minister of Foreign Affairs (1949–1953) and then permanent representative to the UN (1953–1954), he died of a heart attack in New York on 22 November 1954.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1884–1975 ○ Natural causes

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.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1890–1986 ○ Natural causes

“Stone-arse”: the man who never changed his mind

His wife Polina Zhemchuzhina was arrested for treason in December 1948 and forced into divorce, and was released only after Stalin's death in 1953. Throughout, Molotov is said to have had dinner set for two every evening. 'She suffered because of me,' he said later.

An Old Bolshevik who joined the RSDLP in 1906 and was arrested and internally exiled twice before 1917. A full Politburo member from 1926, he became premier in 1930, overseeing collectivisation and the Great Purge; in 1939 he signed the Nazi–Soviet pact. As deputy chair of the State Defence Committee he attended the Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam conferences, and he initiated the 'Molotov Plan' against the Marshall Plan. In 1957 he failed to oust Khrushchev; sources date his expulsion to 1961 or 1962. Readmitted in 1984, he died in 1986.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1897–1942 ✕ Died in prison

The Soviet chargé d'affaires in Berlin who opened the secret channel to the Nazi-Soviet pact

At the 26 July dinner with Schnurre he noted in his diary that he 'felt the conversation was beginning to go too far', even then holding no instructions at all from Moscow.

A Soviet diplomat who began as a writer of noble birth. He joined the Bolsheviks in 1918, moved between press work and diplomacy, and in 1928 concluded the USSR's first treaty with an Arab state, Yemen. He is remembered above all for serving as chargé d'affaires in Berlin in the spring of 1939, when his meetings with Weizsäcker, Schnurre, and Ribbentrop carried the early signals of a German-Soviet rapprochement; after Molotov authorized him on 29 July to signal Soviet readiness, he was recalled to Moscow on the eve of the pact, then arrested in February 1940 and died in the camp.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1898–1937 ✕ Executed

Second Soviet ambassador to Spain, recalled and shot barely three months after taking the post

Kollontai wrote in her diary in Mexico, 1927: 'I wonder how I can work when I only have two senior staff members: Gaikis and myself. We do our own ciphering. We are terribly isolated.'

Born in Warsaw in 1898 to a Jewish family, Gaikis was active in Polish socialist parties before joining the Bolsheviks in 1917. After serving as Chicherin's secretary, first secretary in Mexico, and consul-general in Istanbul, he was posted to Madrid in 1936 as counsellor to the Soviet embassy and succeeded Marcel Rosenberg as ambassador in February 1937. Barely three months later he was recalled to Moscow, arrested on arrival, and shot on 21 August 1937 on charges of 'betrayal of the Fatherland'; he was posthumously rehabilitated in 1955. His execution left the Soviet embassy in Spain effectively vacant for the remainder of the Civil War, with no ambassador appointed again until after Franco's death.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1902–1945 ✕ Air crash

From TASS correspondent to youngest ambassador in Washington. The sharp, combative face of Stalin's wartime diplomacy

Roosevelt told his Cabinet: 'When the unpalatable Soviet ambassador, Konstantin Oumansky, proved stubborn, unaccommodating and unwilling to acknowledge that gold reserves could be used to cover payments, an angry and frustrated Roosevelt described him as "a dirty little liar."'

Konstantin Umansky was the Soviet ambassador to the United States from 1939 to 1941 and the youngest ambassador in Washington at the time. A former TASS correspondent who rose to head the Press and Information Department of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, he controlled censorship of all foreign dispatches from Moscow while multiple sources suggest his journalistic career also served as cover for NKVD intelligence work. His abrasive negotiating style over war materiel so infuriated Franklin Roosevelt that the president called him 'a dirty little liar' in a Cabinet meeting. Posted to Mexico in 1943, he mastered Spanish in three months and became the country's most popular diplomat, but died in an air crash en route to Costa Rica in 1945.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1903–1989 ○ Natural causes

Soviet diplomat whose Novikov Telegram answered Kennan's Long Telegram, framing US policy as imperialist expansion

He wrote to Moscow in his 4,004-word dispatch: 'Such a development would mean a serious strengthening of the economic position of the United States in the whole world and would be a stage on the road to world domination.'

Soviet diplomat and ambassador to the United States (1946–1947). In September 1946, responding to George Kennan's 'Long Telegram,' he wrote the 4,004-word Novikov Telegram, analyzing US postwar foreign policy as driven by monopolistic capital seeking world domination and viewing the USSR as its main obstacle. Drafted at Molotov's behest and substantially co-authored by the foreign minister, the telegram remained secret until declassified during glasnost in 1990, when it was recognized as a foundational Cold War document. He had earlier served as ambassador to Egypt (1943–1944) and helped establish diplomatic relations with Syria and Lebanon. Recalled abruptly from Washington in 1947, he was quietly removed from diplomatic service.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1905–1987 ○ Natural causes

Soviet diplomat who shuttled between the Big Three wartime summits as Molotov's deputy

Asked about Gusev by Churchill, British ambassador Clark Kerr replied: 'He is a rude, inexperienced, and ill-mannered man.'

Fyodor Gusev was a Stalin-era diplomat who served as Soviet ambassador to the United Kingdom (1943–1946) during World War II, attending all three Big Three conferences: Tehran, Yalta, and Potsdam. A Leningrad law graduate who joined the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs in 1935, he rose through the European desks before a posting as envoy to Canada (1942–1943) positioned him for the key wartime ambassadorship. The British side dismissed him as 'rude, inexperienced, and ill-mannered,' but Stalin and Molotov wanted tough enforcers, not the supplicant style of Litvinov and Maisky, for the negotiations that would shape the postwar order. After the war he served as Deputy Foreign Minister (1946–1952) during the opening phase of the Cold War, and ended his career as ambassador to Sweden (1956–1962).

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1906–1980 ○ Natural causes

The Soviet UN diplomat who enabled Korean War intervention by boycott, and then proposed the armistice

On 23 June 1951, Malik told UN radio listeners: "Discussions should be started between the belligerents for a cease-fire and an armistice providing for the mutual withdrawal of forces from the thirty-eighth parallel. Surely that is not too great a price to pay in order to achieve peace in Korea."

Yakov Malik served two terms as Soviet Permanent Representative to the UN (1948–1952, 1967–1976). Born to a peasant family in Kharkov Governorate, he studied economics, worked as a party functionary, and joined the foreign service in 1937. In a June 1951 UN radio broadcast he proposed a Korean War ceasefire with mutual withdrawal from the 38th parallel, breaking the military deadlock; in 1968 he defended the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia before the Security Council. He also served as ambassador to Japan and the United Kingdom, and twice as Deputy Foreign Minister. His UN career, spanning Stalin to Brezhnev, made him one of the Cold War's most recognizable Soviet voices.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1906–1998 ○ Natural causes

The RSFSR premier who opposed the Crimea transfer and silently let Kim Il Sung consolidate one-man rule

After Kim Il Sung insisted on staying premier, Puzanov wrote: "I got the impression that Kim Il-sung himself also does not want to quit the premier's office. I offered no opinion on the subject."

A peasant's son who rose through state control agencies, Puzanov was tapped by Stalin in 1952 as RSFSR premier and candidate member of the CPSU CC Presidium. Dropped from the Presidium after Stalin's death and demoted in 1956 for opposing Khrushchev's Crimea transfer to Ukraine, he turned to diplomacy, serving as ambassador to North Korea, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Afghanistan. In Pyongyang his failure to press collective-leadership demands on Kim Il Sung helped Kim consolidate one-man rule. In Kabul his dispatches portraying Hafizullah Amin as a tyrant swayed Moscow toward military intervention, and he was recalled on the eve of the Soviet invasion.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1907–1964 ○ Natural causes

Soviet occupation chief in North Korea and first ambassador; he conveyed Kim Il Sung's unification plan to Stalin, brokered approval for war

Andrei Lankov assessed that Shtykov 'made more impact on Korean history than any foreigner other than Japanese colonial politicians' and was 'the actual architect of the North Korean state as it emerged in 1945–50.'

A Soviet military-political leader born to a Belarusian peasant family who rose through the Komsomol in Leningrad under Zhdanov, became Second Secretary of the Leningrad Regional Committee; during World War II he served as political commissar on several fronts, reaching Colonel-General, and entered northern Korea in August 1945 for Japan's surrender. As de facto head of the Soviet occupation (1945–1948) he organized the Soviet Civil Administration, installed Kim Il Sung in power, designed the land reform, and as first Soviet ambassador to the DPRK (1948–1950) transmitted Kim's plan for armed unification to Stalin and secured approval for the invasion. When the war turned, he was blamed for intelligence failure, dismissed and demoted in December 1950; rehabilitated under Khrushchev, he served as party secretary of Novgorod and Primorye and ambassador to Hungary before dying in 1964.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1908–1963 ○ Died in UN service

The Soviet envoy in Budapest who distrusted Rákosi

He became UN Under-Secretary for Political and Security Council Affairs in March 1962. After his death the next year, the Security Council paid tribute to his diplomatic career and UN service on 18 April.

A graduate of the Plekhanov Institute of the National Economy and the school for diplomats, he joined the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs in 1938, served as consul general in Königsberg and New York and as political representative in Austria, and was ambassador to Hungary in 1949–54. Kept in the dark about Rákosi's confidential talks with Stalin, he sent Moscow critical reports on Hungarian living standards, repression and the mood of the intelligentsia, which Molotov studied after Stalin's death to prepare the June 1953 talks. He later served as ambassador to Egypt and as UN Under-Secretary.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1916–1998 ○ Natural causes

Stalin's personal interpreter at Tehran, Yalta, and Potsdam who became the Soviet Union's leading Americanist

At the Tehran conference dinner, when Berezhkov stuffed a piece of steak into his mouth just as Churchill began to speak, Stalin muttered into his ear: 'You weren't invited here to eat.'

Soviet diplomat who served as Stalin and Molotov's personal translator at Tehran (1943), Yalta (1945), and Potsdam (1945), witnessing the Big Three diplomacy that shaped the postwar order. As first secretary at the Soviet embassy in Berlin (1940–1941), he interpreted at the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact signing and was present when Ribbentrop read Germany's declaration of war. Sidelined over his parents' wartime fate, he became deputy chief editor of Novoye Vremya and founding editor of USA: Economics, Politics, Ideology, the USSR's flagship journal of American studies. Returning to diplomacy as first secretary in Washington (1979–1983), after the Soviet collapse he taught at the Monterey Institute and published candid memoirs of his years at the summit of power.