People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs
edit.
.
.
.
Writing in A History of the League of Nations in 1952, F. P. Walters expressed "astonished admiration", praising Litvinov's farsighted analysis:[1]
No future historian will lightly disagree with any views expressed by Litvinov on international questions... Nothing in the annals of the League can compare with them in frankness, in debating power, in the acute diagnosis of each situation. No contemporary statesman could point to such a record of criticisms justified and prophecies fulfilled.
Litvinov has been considered to concentrate on taking strong measures against Italy, Japan and Germany and being little interested in other matters.[2] However, he did praise the achievements of the Soviet Union,[3] although he may not have agreed with collective farming.[4] At the time of the Moscow Trials, Litvinov was appointed to a committee deciding the fate of Bukharin and Rykov, voting for them to be expelled and tried without application of the death penalty, although in the end they were handed over to the NKVD.[5] During the Great Purge, the Foreign Commissariat lacked ambassadors in nine capitals, which Litvinov reported to Stalin, noting the damage without criticising the cause. Indeed, Litvinov publicly endorsed the Purges and the campaign against the Trotskyites, although this may have been for reasons of self-preservation.[6]
- ^ Walters, Francis Paul (1952). A History of the League of Nations. Oxford University Press. p. 712.
- ^ Roberts, Henry (1994), "Maxim Litvinov", in Craig, Gordon; Gilbert, Felix (eds.), The Diplomats, 1919-1939, Princeton University Press, p. 352
- ^ Holroyd-Doveton, John (2013). Maxim Litvinov: A Biography. Woodland Publications. p. 413.
- ^ Sheinis, Zinovy (1990). Maxim Litvinov. Moscow: Progress Publishers. p. 269. ISBN 978-5010019310.
- ^ Holroyd-Doveton, John (2013). Maxim Litvinov: A Biography. Woodland Publications. p. 414.
- ^ Holroyd-Doveton, John (2013). Maxim Litvinov: A Biography. Woodland Publications. pp. 417–418.