Maxim Litvinov / Zinovy Sheinis ; translated from the Russian by Vic Schneierson.

Translation of: Maksim Maksimovich Litvinov.

Title on t.p. verso: Maksim Litvinov. (written in cyrillic)

A banner on the dust jacket says "This dramatic story owes its appearance in print to GLASNOST."

An unavoidable introduction -- Part one. The making of a revolutionary -- Chapter 1. An agent of the Iskra -- Chapter 2. Underground in Russia -- Chapter 3. The gun-runner -- Chapter 4. Berlin and Paris -- Chapter 5. The London years -- Part two. The diplomat -- Chapter 1. People's ambassador -- Chapter 2. Herald of peace -- Chapter 3. The Copenhagen assignment -- Chapter 4. The Estonia assignment -- Chapter 5. In Genoa and The Hague -- Chapter 6. On the upgrade -- Chapter 7. New objectives -- Chapter 8. The Washington mission -- Chapter 9. The League of Nations -- Chapter 10. Hard times -- Chapter 11. The comeback -- THE EPILOGUE. Litvinov's last years

Maxim Maximovich Litvinov was born Meer Genokh Moisevich Vallakh in Bialystok, a small city in what is now Poland. He joined the socialist movement in the 1890s and sided with Vladimir Lenin when the Social Democratic Party split into Bolshevik and Menshevik factions. From 1898 to 1908, he smuggled guns and propaganda into the empire, but having achieved little, he emigrated to Britain. There he married an English woman and led a quiet, conventional life, even becoming a British subject. During the October Revolution, he served briefly as the Soviet representative to London but was expelled from Britain for "revolutionary activities" in October 1918. In Moscow he became a deputy commissar for foreign affairs and frequently negotiated with the Western powers for normal diplomatic relations, to little success. However, Litvinov did conclude a 1929 nonaggression pact with the USSR's western neighbors, including Poland and the Baltic states.

From 1930 to 1939 Litvinov served as commissar for foreign affairs. In 1931 he negotiated a nonaggression treaty with France, an extremely anti-Soviet state that had become worried about an increasingly unstable Germany. Soon after Adolf Hitler came to power, Litvinov initiated alliance talks with France, finding a partner in Louis Barthou, the foreign minister. In December 1933, the Soviet Communist Party leadership formally approved Litvinov's proposal both for a military alliance with France and for the Soviet Union's entrance into the League of Nations. Talks took a tortuous course, but in June 1934, Barthou and Litvinov agreed on a eastern pact of mutual assistance that would be guaranteed by a separate Franco-Soviet treaty of mutual assistance.

For several reasons, however, these treaties proved ineffectual. First of all, Barthou was assassinated in October 1934, and Pierre Laval, an advocate of good relations with Germany, replaced him. Moreover, the British were hostile to close relations with Moscow, and France was generally unwilling to act without London's support. Finally, in 1937, Stalin ordered the decimation of the Red Army's leadership at the same time he was terrorizing the entire nation. To the already suspicious West, it seemed clear that the USSR could not possibly be a reliable ally. Litvinov realized the damage the Great Terror wrought on Soviet foreign policy but was powerless in domestic politics. Ignored and rebuffed at virtually every turn by the West, Litvinov was replaced by Stalin's close associate, Vyacheslav Molotov, in May 1939, four months before the signing of the Nazi-Soviet Pact.

With the German invasion of the USSR in June 1941, Stalin appointed Litvinov ambassador to the United States. For the next two years, Litvinov constantly urged the West to open a second front in France. Angered at Litvinov's lack of success, Stalin recalled him in 1943. He served as a deputy commissar for foreign affairs, making many proposals to Stalin advocating Great Power cooperation after the war. This effort failed, and Litvinov eventually understood that Stalin saw security not in terms of cooperation with the West, but in the building of a bulwark of satellite states on the USSR's western border. Two months before his final dismissal in August 1946, Litvinov told the American journalist Richard C. Hottelet that it was pointless for the West to hope for good relations with Stalin. Perhaps the most remarkable and mysterious fact of Litvinov's long career is that he died a natural death.
(https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/history/russian-soviet-and-cis-history-biographies/maxim-maximovich-litvinov)

Translated from Russian to English.