ABSTRACT
In December 1920, Maxim Litvinov was named deputy commissar of foreign affairs and given direct supervision of all organizational work—including, presumably, a strong voice in diplomatic appointments—and the Western Section of the Foreign Commissariat. Litvinov had to wait until the western countries were again ready to talk with Soviet Russia; that was to occur at the Genoa Conference in April 1922. The Soviet representative in Revel, Estonia, a man named Gukovskii, had died, and Litvinov’s efforts to obtain the government funds deposited in his name had proved unsuccessful. Z. S. Sheinis concludes his archival-based account of Litvinov’s early pro-British proposals to the supreme authorities of Soviet Russia with the remark that Litvinov also “gave great significance to relations and an agreement with the German government.” Litvinov bemoaned his own ignorance about the details of financial and industrial issues and complained of a lack of technical help from Moscow.
