What good news did Litvinov bring to his mentor? Quite simply, normal diplomatic relations between the United States and the Soviet Union were restored. Yes, in the twenties and early thirties, diplomatic relations between the United States and the Soviet Union were blank, and it was only in 1933 that normal diplomatic relations between the two countries were restored.

And in this time and space, I don't know if it was because of the butterfly effect of a certain immortal, so that the Jewish financial consortium exerted great pressure on the US government on this issue, so that this work was at a stalemate for a while.

Fortunately, with the promotion of Roosevelt's New Deal, the financial consortium finally overturned, and by the end of 1933, the two sides had basically reached an agreement in diplomatic negotiations, and all that was needed was the approval of the two governments and parliaments.

At the beginning of 1934, this transition was finally completed, that is, almost 17 years later, the relations between the United States and the Soviet Union finally returned to normal. The Mentor was very satisfied and happy with this, and he was very appreciative of Litvinov, who had made important contributions to this work, and he specially summoned the current Deputy People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs to commend him.

"Comrade Maxim, I personally and the Politburo are very satisfied with your work, and in the coming year, diplomatic work may be restructured, do you have the confidence to shoulder greater responsibilities?"

Litvinov was taken aback, he had been negotiating in the United States for most of the past six months, and he did not know much about the situation at home, although he vaguely heard a little rumor, but he did not believe that Bukharin and Rykov would fall so lightly.

Now, Lenin's words made him realize that the fall of Bukharin and Rykov was inevitable, otherwise the Mentor should not have asked him if he had the confidence to take on greater responsibility. This responsibility, of course, refers to the takeover of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs.

Anyone wants a promotion and a raise. Litvinov is no exception. But this news was indeed a bit sudden for her, and he couldn't help but be stunned for a while!

Fortunately, this is just a stunned effort, and Litvinov quickly came to his senses, otherwise the mentor might think that he was not very decisive and unsuitable for holding diplomatic power.

"I'm ready, Comrade Lenin, the Politburo can trust me completely!"

Lenin nodded, in fact, it doesn't matter whether Litvinov is confident or not. Because Rykov's ouster was inevitable. Of course, it would be best if Litvinov could be more confident.

"Comrade Rykov's health has always been not very good, and his health is greatly endangered by overwork and excessive pressure. According to the opinion of the Central Medical Department and the Politburo, it is hoped that he will go to recuperate for a while, and during the time when Comrade Rykov is gone, his work will be replaced by you. ”

Litvinov was a little excited and a little regretful, excited that he could finally be the head of the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, but unfortunately, this was only temporary. Of course, as long as he has a little bit of political wisdom, he should know. Rykov may be forced to take sick leave, if he can use this window period to satisfy the central government. Then Rykov will not be temporarily sick and retired, but forever retired.

Thinking of this, Litvinov expressed his position very firmly: "Comrade Lenin, please rest assured that I will do a good job in diplomacy wholeheartedly and will never let you down!" ”

Lenin nodded slowly, there is nothing wrong with such a statement, as long as it is not two hundred and five, he can say such a thing. He would like to know more about Litvinov's views on diplomatic work, to see the attitude of this man.

"In the coming period, China's diplomatic work will face three major challenges, the first is the provocation of the Japanese in the Far East, the second is the rise of the German Nazis, and the third is how to establish good relations with Britain, France, the United States, Italy and other imperialist countries. What are your thoughts on these three issues? ”

Litvinov did not rush to answer Lenin's question, but thought carefully about it, and then replied confidently: "On the question of Japan, I think that our country should take a tough stance and not condone Japan's ambitions, and I think that our country is capable of doing this regardless of economic strength or military strength!" As for the question of relations with Germany, we must pay close attention to the movements of the Nazis, maintain the status quo for the time being, and not excessively provoke the Nazis. As for the last question, for the time being, it seems that our national strength is limited, and the use of Western technology to complete industrialization should be given top priority......"

Litvinov briefly stated his opinions, and it should be said that Lenin was quite satisfied with this, and on the whole Litvinov's attitude towards the Central Committee was basically the same, unlike Rykov, who always had to go against the Central Committee and was too weak in handling foreign affairs.

Even Lenin was already somewhat looking forward to seeing Litvinov's expression, because since Tsicherin, the Soviet Union had basically had a greater say in foreign affairs, and the ideas of Bukharin and Trotsky could hardly be completely satisfactory to Lenin.

Speaking of Tsicherin, Lenin had some regrets, compared with his predecessor Trotsky, Titchlin was more like a diplomat, he was the one who took the trouble to clean up the mess left by Trotsky on the issue of the Brest Treaty, and then he made great contributions to breaking the joint imperialist blockade and strangulation of the Soviet Union.

At the Genoa Conference, Titchherin first opened a breakthrough with Germany, signed the Treaty of Raballo with Germany, turned the two countries from enemies into mutually beneficial trading partners, and in the next two years, broke through Britain, Italy, Norway, France, and Japan, and reversed the isolation of the Soviet Union in a very short time.

Lenin admired Chicherin's diplomatic methods and sincerely hoped that this diplomat would continue to work for a long time. But God is cruel, and Zicchirin's ability and talent are unquestionable, but his personality and body have always had problems.

From the perspective of the contemporaries, Zicherin is an out-and-out otaku, rarely going out to attend important meetings that must be attended, and his biggest hobbies are alcohol and playing the piano. After the former was ruthlessly deprived by the doctors, Zicherin could only play the piano at home day after day.

And the most interesting thing is that Zicherin never married. It's not just unmarried. In fact, he didn't even love. He was not interested in either women or men. This otaku only likes to live diligently and lonely in his little world.

From 1928 onwards, Zicherin basically said goodbye to diplomatic work, because of the collapse of his body, but according to the views of other old revolutionaries at that time, the biggest disease of Chicherin was paranoia, he stubbornly believed that he was sick and liked the feeling of being surrounded by doctors.

This makes people have to sigh that geniuses may be a bit of a middle two. God will not create a perfect person like zào. Of course, for Lenin, none of Zicherin's problems were faults, he didn't care if Cicherin was an otaku or not, and if he was a little nervous and suspicious, as long as Chicherin could do his job, then it would not be a problem. It is a pity that Tsicherin's successors did not do this, at least not Rykov.

And in the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs at that time, there was only one person who could do as well as Tsycherin. Interestingly, this man is quite at odds with Tsicherin, and this person is the protagonist of our chapter, Litvinov. Let's put it this way. At that time, Tsicherin and Litvinov could be said to be incompatible, and whoever supported Tsicherin would oppose it. In the same way, if Litvinov opposes, Tsicherin will also resolutely support it. All in all, these two people are natural rivals, and they can't pee together.

So why was the relationship between Tsicherin and Litvinov so bad? The fundamental reason is that these two philosophies do not agree. As mentioned earlier, Tsicherin broke the imperialist diplomatic blockade against the Soviet Union by using Germany and Asia as a breakthrough, but at that time Litvinov believed that the Soviet Union should not mingle with Germany and the poor ghosts of Asia, but should actively move closer to Britain and the United States, and advocated directly doing the work of connecting Britain and the United States and directly smashing the blockade.

At that time, Lenin accepted Tsicherin's proposal, which was tantamount to shelving Litvinov's proposal, and it is strange that Litvinov was comfortable. Not only are they incompatible in concept, but these two people are completely opposite in personality. The aristocratic Zicherins Sven has the flavor of a literary youth, and he seems to follow the rules in his work; Litvinov, on the other hand, is quite active by nature, and even seems a little rude.

Two people who are completely incompatible in concept and personality can be considered good if they don't fight. In fact, Litvinov has been calling Tsicherin an "old virgin" behind his back. Of course, Tsicherin naturally doesn't like this subordinate who likes to give himself a nickname, but in history, Litvinov quickly became Stalin's celebrity because of the world economic crisis, and he had nothing to do with the other party, and in this time and space, on the stage dominated by Lenin, as Lenin's celebrity, he had enough ability to make Litvinov deflated.

Just before his illness and retirement, when the tutor asked him who could succeed him, Chicherin categorically excluded Litvinov and directly asked the tutor to ask Rykov to take over. This directly led Litvinov to continue to be the second-in-command of diplomacy for seven or eight years, and it is only now that Rykov is about to fall that he will come to the fore.

However, Litvinov was able to come to power not only because of the fall of Rykov, but more importantly, because of the transformation of the world, the world economic crisis completely destroyed the international order that had just been established in World War I, and forced British, American, French and other imperialists, who advocated the stifling of communism, to loosen their hinges. And this gave Litvinov, who was good at dealing with Britain and the United States, an opportunity, so to speak, even if Rykov did not fall, Litvinov would come out sooner or later, it was only a matter of time.

Of course, in history, Litvinov will soon be thrown into the cold because of his foreign policy, in the year of time to 1938, in the year when World War II was about to break out, as Soviet-German relations approached again, with the signing of the Soviet-German non-aggression pact, Litvinov, who had Jewish blood and did not like Germany very much, was naturally immediately abandoned by Stalin. In his place was Molotov, who did not like Litvinov.

However, Litvinov was more fortunate that he was not ruthlessly eliminated like Stalin's other outcasts, for example, Blyukhel, who taught the Japanese a hard lesson with him in the same year (the Zhang Gufeng incident), was secretly shot, and Litvinov simply lost his post and was idle.

And with the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, Stalin, who hoped for British and American assistance, soon remembered Litvinov again, and the elder Li once again went out to become ambassador to the United States, where he lived until 1951.

It can also be seen from this why Lenin had a talk with Litvinov in the first place. And then completely announced the fall of Rykov. After all, Chicherin's influence is still there. Lenin, who had always trusted Tsicherin, was really uneasy about Litvinov. Only then did he catch it and observe it carefully. It was not until he was confirmed that Litvinov did not conflict with his ideas that he made up his mind to appoint.

Moreover, Lenin still kept a hand, he only let Rykov take sick leave, but did not let Rykov resign, Litvinov is still an acting People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs in the end, whether he can remove this pronoun depends on whether he can satisfy Lenin within this year.

Rykov's sudden illness and retirement meant that the Bukharin clique completely disappeared from the Soviet political scene. The news caught many people off guard. In fact, even Li Xiaofeng and Xiao Si didn't expect that the mentor would be so decisive, they thought that the complete destruction of the Bukharin group would be a matter of next year's conference!

When he received the news, Li Xiaofeng was at sea, not fishing and playing, but participating in a large-scale live military exercise held by the Red Navy in the Baltic Sea. This live exercise was codenamed Fleet 1934.

The exercise was the largest naval fleet exercise ever conducted since the establishment of the Red Navy. Its fundamental purpose was to simulate future naval battles and prepare the Red Navy for future maritime invasions.

However, at the beginning, the Fleet 1934 exercise was a traditional amphibious exercise to prevent imperialism from landing on Soviet territory from the sea, and the role of the Red Navy was more to simulate the navies of the great powers, and the highlight of the exercise was that the marines cooperated with the army mechanized units to smash the enemy's amphibious landing.

To put it bluntly, this exercise has a strong Tukhachevsky color, which is expected by Tu Shuai. The role of the Red Navy in the military power of the USSR was a supporting role, and the protagonists were still ground forces. But with the increasing marginalization of Tu Shuai in the Military Commission. Li Xiaofeng and Stalin jointly repudiated Tukhachevsky's opinion, the anti-amphibious landing exercises should be carried out, but they are not the focus, and the focus of the exercises of the Red Navy will be on the decisive battle at sea of the fleet!

In this way, the focus of the exercise will be completely different, and the two Red Army fleets will simulate the invading imperialist Blue Army and the "Red Navy" respectively for a direct confrontation at sea!

According to the arrangement of the exercise director's department, the role of the Red Army, that is, the "Red Navy," will be played by two Bavaria-class battleships and four King-class battleships that have just completed the final phase of the renovation project, and the large fleet with these six battleships as the main body will fight to the death with the four former German-made battlecruisers and two Leningrad-class aircraft carriers that play the role of the Blue Army.

The commander of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet, Weckermann, was in charge of the Red Army, and the command of the Blue Army unexpectedly fell to an unconventional admiral. Sukhoi, who served as commander of naval aviation, unexpectedly took over the command of the Blue fleet.

To be honest, this move was really unexpected, because Sukhoi was not a traditional naval officer, had not commanded any warships, and suddenly ordered a layman to be the commander-in-chief of the fleet, which made the old navy very unhappy.

But this dissatisfaction was quickly suppressed by Li Xiaofeng, and the reason why he wanted to carry out the 1934 exercise of this fleet was nothing more than to let the old antiques take a look at the capabilities of naval aviation and let them know what kind of model the future naval war would be.

But Sukhoi didn't buy it: "It's just nonsense!" In the narrow bathtub of the Baltic Sea, the power of aircraft carriers cannot be demonstrated at all, and the environment of the Baltic Sea greatly limits the application of aircraft carriers. The fact that the Red Army, with the support of shore-based aviation, can defeat our fleet to the ground, not only will it not show the power of the aircraft carrier, but it will give those old antiques an excuse to suppress us! ”

Is Sukhoi telling the truth? Indeed, the Baltic Sea is really a bathtub, not to mention playing aircraft carriers, playing the decisive battle of the fleet between battleships, it is very simple, it is not even necessary to use any warships, just play minelaying.

From the point of view of geographical conditions, the Baltic Sea is more suitable for the activities of small and medium-sized ships, and the battle between small-scale light ships is the mainstream. And now to play the decisive battle of the fleet in this bathtub, it is really embarrassing, for the "Red Army" on the defending side, their advantage is too great.

However, Li Xiaofeng comforted: "Of course I know that the Baltic Sea is not suitable for practical work, but the construction of the port of Murmansk is only halfway underway, and the infrastructure construction there is too weak for a large fleet to be stationed." Moreover, this month, the weather in the surrounding sea area is bad, which is not suitable for conducting exercises. Next year, when the infrastructure construction in Murmansk is completed, it will be moved there for the Fleet 1935 exercises. ”

Sukhoi was still angry, and Li Xiaofeng had to continue to explain: "And you don't have to worry too much about the advantage of the red side, according to the director's setting, the aviation support they receive is quite limited......"

Sukhoi couldn't help but interject: "No matter how limited it is, it is better than the less than two hundred broken planes on the Leningrad and Moskva!" ”

Sukhoi had good reason to be annoyed, and he roared: "The shore-based aviation assigned to the Baltic Fleet uses new I-15 and I-16 fighters and TB-3 bombers, while my lad uses the I-5K, the old-fashioned imitation T2B torpedo plane, and even our only dive bomber, the Lenin II, has just been retired from active service, how can you let me use such a pile of rags to complete the mission!" ”

Li Xiaofeng pursed his lips, in fact, he had long known that Sukhoi was very dissatisfied and angry, and the entire twenties were tormenting for him, military spending shrank, and it was difficult for the aircraft carrier to go to sea for training, and the total number of naval carrier-based pilots once fell below 300, and now it was really unfair to suddenly let him use this pair of rags to prove his worth...... (To be continued......)

PS: Bow and thank you to Comrade hzwangdd and Comrade Juventus!