spoiling everything once and for all." When Kliment Voroshilov made a speech at the 1929 May Day Parade attacking the Weimar Republic, Chicherin wrote to the Politburo that the speech would do irreparable damage to German–Soviet relations. Chicherin played a major role in establishing formal relations with China and in designing the Kremlin's policy on China. He focused on the Chinese Eastern Railway, Manchuria, and the Mongolian issue. Personality Chicherin was an eccentric, with obsessive work habits. Alexander Barmine, who worked in the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, noted that "Chicherin was a man whose peculiar habits had to be respected. His workroom was completely buried in books, newspaper and documents ... He used to patter into our room in his shirt sleeves, wearing a large silk handkerchief round his neck and slippers adorned with metal buckles ... which, for comfort's sake, he never troubled to fasten, making a clicking noise on the floor." Arthur Ransome noted, in 1919: Later life In 1930 Chicherin was formally replaced by his deputy, Maxim Litvinov. A continuing terminal illness burdened his last years, which forced him away from his circle of friends and active work and led to an early death. When Chicherin died in 1936, the official state newspaper Izvestiya summarised his character by describing him as highly educated, an exceptional diplomat and a sophisticated art lover. After his death and until the Khrushchev Thaw, he was rarely mentioned in Soviet literature although he was mentioned in the Soviet Diplomatic Dictionary in an article occupying 52 pages in the 1950 edition, compared with Litvinov's 92 pages and Vyacheslav Molotov's 292 pages. See also Foreign relations of the Soviet Union Notes References Sources Debo, Richard K. "The Making of a Bolshevik: Georgii Chicherin in England 1914–1918," Slavic Review, vol. 25, no. 4 (Dec. 1966), pp. 651–662. In JSTOR. Grant, Ron. "G.V. Chicherin and the Russian revolutionary cause in Great Britain." Immigrants & Minorities 2.3 (1983): 117–138. Hodgson, Robert. "Commissar Chicherin." History Today (Sep 1954) 4#9, pp. 613–617 O'Connor, Timothy Edward. Diplomacy and Revolution: G.V. Chicherin and Soviet Foreign Affairs, 1918–1930, Ames, Iowa State University Press, 1988. O'Connor, Timothy E. "G. V. Chicherin and the Soviet View of the League of Nations in the 1920s" European Studies Journal (1989), 6#1 pp 1–17. Rosenbaum, Kurt. Community of Fate: German–Soviet Diplomatic Relations 1922–1928 (Syracuse University Press, 1965). Further reading Gorvin, J. H. "Soviet Russia: Some Observations."