Diplomacy and Revolution: G.V. Chicherin and Soviet Foreign Affairs, 1918-1930

Review by Choice Review O'Connor argues that although Georgii Chicherin, Trotsky's successor as Commissar of Foreign Affairs, may not have directly shaped Soviet foreign policy, he played an important role in its implementation. Unfortunately, O'Connor goes to tedious length trying to demonstrate the truth of this not very debatable proposition. Most of the book consists of the author's recounting of Chicherin's position on numerous foreign policy issues that confronted the Soviet Union during the 1920s. Strangely, for a book with the word "revolution" in its title, the relationship between the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs and the Communist International is mentioned only near the end of the study, and O'Connor's comments on the issue do not contribute new knowledge or understanding of this relationship. The most interesting and informative part of the work concerns Chicherin's life before the revolution. The reader searches in vain for fresh insights or novel interpretations in the remaining three-quarters of the text. -F. J. Breit, Whitman College