Maxim Maximovich Litvinov (born Meer Wallach, 1876-1951) was People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union from July 21, 1930, to May 3, 1939, succeeding Georgy Chicherin. He led the Soviet push for collective security against Nazi Germany, secured U.S. diplomatic recognition in 1933 and took the Soviet Union into the League of Nations in 1934.

Stalin replaced him with Vyacheslav Molotov in May 1939, months before the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact; the removal of a Jewish, Western-oriented commissar was read at the time as a signal to Berlin, and NKVD troops surrounded the commissariat as the purge of his staff began. After the German invasion he returned as ambassador to the United States (1941-1943) and deputy commissar, and was sidelined after the war.

Sources

• Phillips, Hugh D. Between the Revolution and the West: A Political Biography of Maxim M. Litvinov. Westview Press, 1992.
• Andrew, Christopher, and Oleg Gordievsky. KGB: The Inside Story of Its Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev. HarperCollins, 1990.

Summary entry. A fuller, document-based profile is in preparation.