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Maxim Litvinov

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Diplomat

The Resume

    (July 17, 1876-December 31, 1951)
    Born in Bialystok, Poland
    Birth name was Meir Henoch Wallach
    Founding member of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP; 1903)
    People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs (1930-39)
    Soviet ambassador to the United States (1941-43)

Why he might be annoying:

    He also used the pseudonyms M.G. Harrison and David Mordecai Finkelstein.
    He was one of the organizers of the Tiflis bank robbery, weeks after the RSDLP had prohibited such activities at its Fifth Congress (1907).
    He bought weapons for the Bolsheviks by posing as an Ecuadoran army officer and as a Belgian businessman.
    While in exile in Britain during World War I, he encouraged American and Commonwealth soldiers, especially Jewish ones, to bring Bolshevik propaganda to spread among the troops.
    He endorsed Stalin's purges. (Granted, probably due to self-preservation.)

Why he might not be annoying:

    He organized the mass escape of himself and ten other political prisoners from Lukyanivska Prison in Kyiv (1902).
    He was instrumental in securing formal recognition of the Soviet Union by the US (1933) and Soviet admission to the League of Nations (1934).
    He recommended that the USSR join Great Britain and France in a security pact to oppose Nazi Germany.
    He was replaced by Vyacheslav Molotov when the Soviets decided to pursue a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany, as Stalin figured negotiations would proceed more smoothly with a Foreign Minister who (a) had not been trying to form an anti-Nazi alliance, and (b) was not Jewish.

Credit: C. Fishel


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    In 2023, Out of 10 Votes: 100% Annoying