born Nov. 24, 1872, Tambov province, Russia
died July 7, 1936, Moscow, Russia, U.S.S.R.
Russian diplomat.
An aristocrat by birth, he entered the imperial diplomatic service in 1897 but resigned to join the revolutionary movement and the Menshevik faction (1905). In 1918 he joined the Bolshevik s and resumed his diplomatic career, helping negotiate the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk . As people's commissar for foreign affairs (191828), he led the Soviet delegation to the Conference of Genoa and later secretly negotiated the Treaty of Rapallo with Germany.