DEATH OF JOFFE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19799, 21 November 1927, Page 9

DEATH OF JOFFE.

FORMER SOVIET DIPLOMAT. GERMAN TREATY NEGOTIATOR. (Received November 20, 5.5 p.m.) A. and N.Z. MOSCOW. Nov. 19. It is reported that tho Soviet, diplomatist Joffe, who negotiated the Treaty of Brest Litovsk in 1917, between Russia and Germany, has committed suicide. Joffe suffered* from an incurable disease of the nerves which was believed to have been aggravated as the result of the downfall of Trotzky. After achieving fame for negotiating the treaty, Joffe was generally "tipped" to be the Soviet Ambassador to Britain, which country he visited with the Soviet delegation in 1924. After that visit he was obsessed with the idea that Britain was on the verge of collapse. A pet theme of his speeches in Russia was the sunset of the British Empire.

Adolf Joffe was leader of the Russian Bolshevik Delegation at Brest Litovsk in 1917 to 1918, which ended in February, 1918 in practically the unconditional capitulation of the Russian armies to Germany. No formal treaty was signed til! later on, hut. a declaration was made that the state of war with the Central Powers was at an end, and an order was issued for the demobilisation of the Russian Army. This was in effect, an unconditional surrender, and left the peoples of ocupied Russia to their fate. As a result Germany massed all her forces on the French front and hurled her great massed attack on the Allies in March, 1918. p , . . Joffe was born at Simferopol in the Crimea in October, 1883. When 17 he joined the Socialists and so made his attendance at a Russian university lmpossible. He therefore went to Berlin, where he studied medicine from 1903 to 1906, then in 1907 to Zurich where he took a law course, and finally to Vienna, where he studied both law and medicine. He had kent up his connection with .the Russian Socialists, and during the first revolution in 1905 he was active in South Russia, moving later to Moscow and Petrograd. In 1906 he became a member of the foreign department of the Central Committee of the Socialist party, and in the same vear was expelled from Germany as an undesirable alien. At Vienna ti 1908 lie became acquainted with Trotzkv, with whom be founded the paper Pravda. As lie could not visit Russia openly he did so several times under a pseudonym. On one trip in 1912 he vvas arrested in Odessa and exiled to the north of Siberia, where he received a life sentence. „ , The March revolution of 1917 liberated him He went to Petrograd and worked with- the Bolsheviks against the war With Trotzky he issued the paper V peried. He was elected Jto the Petro grad Workmen's and Soldiers' Council and to the central executive of the Soviet. During the Kerensky regime joffo was a member of the Petrograd Municipal Council and was later elected to the Constituent Assembly. He was chairman of the War Council which organised the Bolshevik victory. When lie became Ambassador in Berlin he took part in the preparations for the German revolution and this led to his being given his passport by tho Imperial German Government, which thus broke off relations with the Soviet. Thereafter he was made "Commissary for Foreign Affairs and for Social Insurance. From this post he passed to that of Commissary for Soviet Inspection in the Ukraine and later held a similar post in Petrograd. In 1922 lie went to Turkestan on a tour ot investigation. He also attended the Genoa" Conference. As Ambassador to China and Japan he conducted the negotiations with these States. In the Far East he had a severe illness, and it was not till 1924 'hat he was restored to health by Viennese doctors. Joffe vas theu sent to Vienna as Soviet Minister, but was soon recalled and replaced by Berzine. In October. 1925, a society was formed in Moscow under his chairmanship in aid of the Sun Yat Sen University there, whose object is to instil Bolshevik principles into the Chinese.