MAXIM LITVINOV

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 64, Issue 4536, 13 February 1942, Page 7

MAXIM LITVINOV

RUSSIA’S SHREWD DIPLOMAT MASTER OF RHETORIC (By E.F.) Maxim Maximovitch Litvinov, who has been made Russian ambassador in the United States of America, is one of the shrewdest diplomats in Europe. John Gunther, the well-known journalist, called him a few years ago “ the cleverest Foreign Minister alive.” His life has been one of conspiracies, dangers, and thrilling escapes. He has gone into every adventure casually, faced tremendous obstacles with resolute doggedness, met wile with counter wile, and handled cunning diplomats with amazing shrewdness. M. Litvinov, whose real name was Moysheev Valiokh, was born sixtyfive years ago in Bialystok, a town in Poland, into a Jewish, bourgeois family. After a high school education he was drafted into the army, where he served for five years as an ordinary soldier without rank. He did not like the Czarist army, and soon revolted against the conditions and brutal discipline. He was drawn toward revolutionaries, and on leaving the army became one of them. At twenty-five he was arrested and sentenced to exile in Siberia, but he was too clever for his guards, and escaped. He managed to reach Switzerland, and in 1903, after meeting Lenin, joined the Bolshevik party. REVOLUTIONARY EXILE In the meantime turbulent events were taking place in Russia under the Czarist regime. The people were restive. M. Litvinov returned to Russia, and assisted in the preparation of the armed insurrection of 1905, which was ruthlessly put down by the Czar. He was then given the job of shipping contraband arms to an island depot near Reval. Two years later, following Stalin’s successful raid on a bank in Tiflis in order to provide funds for the revolutionaries, Litvinov went to Paris to dispose of the stolen bonds and notes. This he did successfully, and then went to London in order to be near Lenin. For the next decade he was an underground revolutionary by night and a purchasing clerk by day; and he was employed by Siemens-Schucket and Company. In 1917, after the revolution, he was appointed the plenipotentiary representative of the Soviets in Great Britain. But he did not last long. He was arrested in 1918, and held hostage for Bruce Lockhart, the British agent, who was in prison in Moscow. When released he went to Moscow, where, having ended his career of revolutionary activity, he began his brilliant diplomatic career. He was at first despised, and then feared, by every statesman who went to Geneva. DIPLOMAT AT GENEVA From 1919 to 1930 M. Litvinov was Assistant Commissar for Foreign Affairs to Chickerin. He then became Commissar until Germany attacked Poland in September, 1939, when he was replaced by M. Molotov. In 1919 he was in Reval, in 1920 in Copenhagen, and Reval again in 1921, concluding agreements in all places. In 1925 on behalf of the Soviet Government he signed commercial treaties with Germany and Norway. In 1926 his visits to Geneva commenced, and he gradually acquired a reputation for his shrewd handling of foreign diplomats. He negotiated the agreement between the United States of America and the United States of Soviet Russia in Washington in 1933, and saw the Soviet join the League of Nations in 1934. M. Litvinov has a biting tongue and is a master of rhetoric. His speeches on the League condemning Japanese aggression in China, German aggression in Austria and Czechoslovakia, Italian aggression in Abyssinia, and German and Italian aggression in Spain were masterpieces in exposing the machinations of the Fascist States and moving appeals for the application of collective security. For his work at Geneva he was awarded the Order of Lenin, the highest honour in the land of the Soviets. In 1915, when living in London, Litvinov married Ivy, the daughter of Sir Sidney Low, a brilliant woman who has greatly assisted him in his work. All democrats will wish Maxim Litvinov well in Washington, and will share the widespread confidence that he will do a good job for the cause of the democracies. John Gunther appraised him thus: “ Litvinov is fat. He speaks English with a heavy accent. His chief quality is an inveterate stubbornness in argument, which arises from his unvarying point of view, plus an elasticity and sense of style in negotiation that few statesmen in Europe can equal. More and more he is sought on Geneva commissions for all sorts of business, because his stubborn and wary intelligence makes him useful in every kind of tangle.”