Adolph Joffe - Diplomatic Career

Diplomatic Career

In 1919–1920, Joffe was a member of the Council of Labor and Defense and People's Commissar (minister) of State Control of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic. He wasn't re-elected to the Central Committee at the VIII Party Congress in March 1919 and would never again occupy a major leadership position. He negotiated a ceasefire with Poland in October 1920 and peace treaties with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in late 1920. In 1921 he signed the Peace of Riga with Poland ending the Polish-Soviet War and was made deputy chairman of the Turkestan Commission of the VTsIK and Sovnarkom.

Joffe was one of the Soviet delegates at the Genoa Conference in February 1922 and, after the Soviet walkout, was made ambassador to China, as the Soviet troubleshooter (or Kuznetsov) of those days. In 1923, Joffe signed an agreement with Sun Yat-Sen in Shanghai on aid to Kuomintang on the assumption that the latter would cooperate with Chinese Communists, presumably with Lenin's approval. While in China, Joffe traveled to Japan in June 1923 to settle Soviet-Japanese relations. The negotiations proved long and difficult and were aborted when Joffe became gravely ill and had to be sent back to Moscow. After a partial recovery, he served as a member of the Soviet delegation to Great Britain in 1924 and as Soviet representative in Austria in 1924–1926. In 1926 his declining health and disagreements with the ruling Bolshevik faction forced his semi-retirement. He tried to concentrate on teaching, but it also proved difficult due to his illness.