page_title: Maxim Litvinov
section_title: People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs
hierarchical_section_title: Maxim Litvinov / People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs
caption_attribution_description: English: Józef Beck and Maxim Litvinov during Beck visit in Moscow February 1934
context_page_description: Maxim Maximovich Litvinov, born Meir Henoch Wallach-Finkelstein was a Russian revolutionary and prominent Soviet Bolshevik politician.
  A strong advocate of diplomatic agreements leading towards disarmament, Litvinov was influential in making the Soviet Union a party to the Kellogg–Briand Pact of 1928 and was chiefly responsible in 1929 for adoption of the so-called Litvinov Protocol, a multilateral agreement bringing Kellogg-Briand into force between the Soviet Union and a number of neighboring states. In 1930, Litvinov was named as People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs, the top-ranking diplomatic position in the Soviet state.
  During the subsequent decade, Litvinov emerged as a leading voice for the official Soviet policy of collective security with the Western powers against Nazi Germany.
context_section_description: In 1930, Joseph Stalin appointed Litvinov People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs. A firm believer in collective security, Litvinov worked very hard to form a closer relationship with France and the United Kingdom, a policy seemingly at odds with the "class against class" line of the so-called Third Period being advocated by the Communist International. Litvinov remained the only leading official of Narkomindel in the mid-1930s who had direct personal access to Stalin and who could deal with Stalin's inner circle on terms approaching equality, in marked contrast to other top foreign affairs officials such as Litvinov's protégé Boris Stomonyakov and rival Nikolay Krestinsky, for whom access was limited to the level of occasional supplication.
  Stalin was largely detached from and uninterested in foreign policy throughout the first half of the 1930s, largely leaving the general operations of Narkomindel and the Comintern to their designated chiefs. This left Litvinov with fairly wide latitude to pursue policy objectives subject only to broad review and approval from the centre, with Stalin frequently delegating even that aspect of leadership to members of his personal secretariat, including Karl Radek, until the summer of 1936. As a result, Litvinov's Narkomindel was able to pursue a moderate foreign policy line, emphasising stable relations between governments leading towards general disarmament, which was, as one historian has called it, a "curious mismatch" with the revolutionary militance then vocalised by the Comintern.
  In 1933, Litvinov was instrumental in winning a long-sought diplomatic plum: formal diplomatic recognition by the United States of the Soviet government. US President Franklin  Roosevelt sent comedian Harpo Marx to the Soviet Union as a goodwill ambassador. Litvinov and Marx became friends and even performed a routine on stage together. Litvinov also actively facilitated the acceptance of the Soviet Union into the League of Nations, where he represented his country from 1934 to 1938. 
  In 1935, Litvinov negotiated treaties of mutual assistance with France and with Czechoslovakia with the aim of containing Nazi Germany's aggression.
caption: Józef Beck and Maxim Litvinov in February 1934
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