Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

RUSSIA'S DISRAELI y\. True Portrait of Europe s Master Diplomat — Maxim Litvinoff F ROM synagogue to Soviet, from “chassid" to Communist and Bolshevik diplomat—such has been the fantastic transition of Maxim Litvinoff, the distinguished People’s Commissar tor Foreign Affairs, who is visiting this country, to straighten out the many important details in onnection with the resumption of diplomatic re lations between Washington and Moscow. Of all the leading figures produced in Russia oner Lenin’s October revolution 1 know of none who had a more remarkable and more adventurous career than Litvinoff. In his vouth before he became an ardent Com munist he was a pious Jew, wearing side curls and a long kapote. And long before he dreamt of a proletarian revolution he .taped a "revolution” of his own against •he Kotsker rabbi, whom he deserted for the Slonimer rabbi. From this ghetto chrysalis he emerged into one of the most daring revolutionists against the Czarist tyranny, later became one of the founders 4 the Bolshevik regime, and today he oc cupies a leading position among the success ful statesmen of the world. I p to quite recently Litvinoff’s ante- edents and pre-Communist background were shrouded in a veil of mystery. He himself has never made reference to it, so far as I am aware, and during my stay in Moscow as correspondent I found him ex tremely reticent on this point. However, from conversations with persons who have known Litvinoff for many years, I learned 'omc very interesting facts about his early life which have since been substantiated by revelations in the Polish press. Maxim Litvinoff’s real name is Meyer Mallach. He originates from Bialystok, Poland, where he has a number of relatives, among them a first cousin, Feiwel Wallach. An older brother, Abraham Jacob Wallach, a cloth merchant, resides in the city of LhI/. Litvinoff’s grandfather was for thirty years a rabbi in the town of Rudzi- now, near Slonim. His father, Moses Wallach, was em ployed as a clerk in a Bialystok bank, earn- >ng a salary of ten rubles a week. Phis was regarded in those days as a handsome income and it enabled Moses Wallach to give his child ren a good education. He engaged tutors to in>truct them not only in the Talmud but also in secular subjects. T appears, however, that Meyer (the future 'Ia\im Litvinoff) was not a very apt or assiduous >tud nt. His relatives recall him as a dreamy-eyed l’ 0 .' who neglected his studies. He was given to roaming the ghetto streets as if lost in a trance, or cise he would sit for hours in the synagogue d, hardly looking at the open book before him, r ' | i> ips clamped in tight silence, his eyes riveted n ie window, dreaming. Those who knew him rhei p U t him down as dull, but of course they since found reason to think otherwise, hat caused the youthful Meyer to rebel *£ a ist the Kotsker rabbi and to transfer his iance to the Slonimer rabbi, no one seems to cn mber. But that such a "revolution was ied out by him has been vouched for both by ” ,s mother and his cousin. By Leo M. Classman Maxim Litvinoff, Russia's Minister of foreign affairs, has hern instrumental in obtaining recognition of the l SSR by the l nited States. Litvinoff, Europe's most successful statesman, started life as a Yeshiva Rochur. His career is fascinating. Read it in this article by Leo M. Classman, foreign correspondent, who met Lit- vinoff on various occasions in the course of his work in .Moscow. When Litvinoff concluded his term of conscrip tion service in the Czar’s army his father found employment for him in the establishment of a cloth merchant in the city of Winitza. Litvinoff at that time must have been imbued already with revo lutionary ideas but his family was not aware of it until some months later, when a letter arrived from the Winitza cloth merchant to the effect that Meyer had been placed under arrest for seditious activities. Old Moses Wallach hastened to Winitza and after many frantic efforts costing a pretty penny he succeeded in having his son released on parole. But several weeks later Meyer was back behind prison bars. That was the beginning of the exciting and dangerous career of Maxim Litvinoff. From then on it was one continuous series of subrosa revo lutionary activities, punctuated by prison terms, Siberian exile, escapes abroad, persecution by the European police—all of which came to an end with the 'Ten Days that Shook the World, when Litvinoff became, instead of a hounded revolu tionist, a founder of a new social order and an important participant in the reshaping of Russia’s destinies. Long ago, when Litvinoff’s relatives realized that he had become a confirmed revolutionary, they turned their back on him; he was put down as the black sheep of the family. But when Litvi noff came to Warsaw several years back on as Vice Commissar of Foreign Affairs, his brother Abraham Jacob made a special trip from Lodz with the aim of renewing the broken fraternal bonds with his now distinguished kin. Litvinoff, however, refused to see his brother. This incident should not lead any one to think that Litvinoff has been metamor phosed into a cold unemotional Bolshevik whose doctrinaire ideology shuts out all feel ings of personal affection. I f his family could find it in their heart to forsake him for so many years simply because he was a noncon formist in their conventional view, then l suppose it is only natural that he should re turn the compliment. As a matter of fact, Litvinoff in his private life, like some of the other important Bolshevik leaders, is a very warm and thoroughly human person. Perhaps this is best illustrated in connection with his wife, Ivy Low Litvinoff. Madame Litvinoff is English, the niece of Sir Sidney Low', the historian and author of " The Political History of the Reign of Queen Victoria.” She is also re lated to the late Sir Maurice Low, w'ho was Washington correspondent of the Lon don Morning Post. She herself is a writer of some talent. She is the author of several novels and of numerous magazine articles. There is nothing particularly proletarian about Madame Litvinoff’s appearance or behavior, though no one can question the complete sincerity of her Bolshevist ideals. But she is primarily a well bred, though highly emotional, English lady, brilliant, witty and vivacious, who sometimes does and says things that cut against the grain of the more literal minded unhumorous Communists. I think it is a tribute to her character that despite her aristocratic background she has joyfully shared with her husband all the trying hardships and hazards of a revolutionary life both before and since the rise of the Soviet regime. 'This great loyalty and devotion on her part have been fully reciprocated by Litvinoff. Just how significant this is can be gathered from the fact that in some influential Communist cir cles there has been for years a very strong resent ment against the unproletarian Madame Litvinoff and pressure has been brought to bear time and again on the Foreign Affairs Commissar to di vorce her. In 1929 Madame Litvinoff aroused the special ire of the Communist press by pub lishing an article in the bourgeois Berliner Tage- blatt wherein she recorded her impressions of a visit to Berlin. She described with a tinge of sarcasm yet with an understone of unmistakable admiration, perhaps unconscious on her part, the fashionable shops of the German capital, the ele gant figures riding (Please turn to page 21) MAXIM LITVINOFF The black sheep of the family. TH SOUTHERN ISRAELITE * [5]