born Dec. 10, 1883, Odessa, Russia
died Nov. 22, 1954, New York, N.Y., U.S.
Soviet politician and diplomat.
A public prosecutor, he taught at Moscow State University. Appointed chief prosecutor of the Soviet Union (1935), he gained worldwide notoriety for his zeal in prosecuting the purge trials . As deputy commissar of foreign affairs, he supervised the annexation of Latvia (1940) and established a communist regime in Romania (1945). He later served as Soviet foreign minister (1949–53) and representative to the UN (1949–54), where he frequently launched bitter attacks on the U.S.