What good news did Livinov bring to his mentor? It’s very simple, normal diplomatic relations between the United States and the Soviet Union were restored. "Yes, in the 1920s and early 1930s, diplomatic relations between the United States and the Soviet Union were blank. Historically, it was not until 1933 that the two countries resumed normal diplomatic relations.

In this time and space, I don’t know if it was because of the butterfly effect of a certain immortal that the Jewish financial consortium put great pressure on the US government on this issue, causing this work to fall into a stalemate.

Fortunately, with the promotion of Roosevelt's new policy, the obstacles of the financial consortium were finally left unresolved. At the end of 1933, the two sides basically reached an agreement in diplomatic negotiations, and what was needed next was the approval of the two governments and parliaments.

At the beginning of 1934, this moot scene was finally over, which means that almost 17 years later, US-Soviet relations finally returned to normal again. The mentor was quite satisfied and happy about this, and he admired Livinov, who had made significant contributions to this work, so he specially summoned the current deputy diplomatic people's committee member to commend it.

"Comrade Maxim, I personally and the Politburo are very satisfied with your work. In the next year, diplomatic work may be adjusted. Do you have the confidence to shoulder greater responsibilities?"

Livinov was shocked. He had been negotiating in the United States for more than half a year and did not know much about the domestic situation. Although he had heard a little news, he did not believe that Bukharin and Likov would fall so easily.

But now, Lenin's words made him realize that the fall of Bukharin and Likov was inevitable, otherwise the mentor should not ask him if he had the confidence to take on greater responsibilities. This responsibility naturally refers to taking over the People's Committee of Diplomatic Affairs.

Anyone wants a promotion and salary increase. Livinov is no exception. But this news is indeed a bit sudden for her, and he was stunned for a moment!

Fortunately, this was just a moment of shock, and Livinov quickly woke up. Otherwise, the mentor might think that he was not very decisive and was not suitable for taking charge of diplomatic power.

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

Lenin nodded. In fact, it doesn't matter whether Livinov has confidence or not. Because Likov's step down is inevitable. Of course, Livinov can be more confident. This is naturally the best thing.

"Comrade Likov's health has always been poor. Overwork and excessive pressure have greatly harmed his health. According to the opinions of the Central Medical Department and the Politburo, I hope he will cultivate for a while, and during the period when Comrade Likov left, his work will be replaced by you."

Livinov was a little excited and a little regretful. What was excited was that he could finally be the top leader of the People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs. Unfortunately, this was only temporary. Of course, as long as he had a little political wisdom, he should know. Likov might have been forced to rest in illness. If he could use this window period to satisfy the central government, then Likov would not be temporarily rest in illness, but retire forever.

Thinking of this, Livinov expressed his firm statement: "Comrade Lenin, please rest assured that you and the Politburo will do your diplomatic work wholeheartedly and will never disappoint you!"

Lenin nodded slowly. There was nothing like this statement, as long as it was not 25, he could say such a thing. He wanted to know Livinov's view on diplomatic work and see the person's attitude.

"In the next period of time, our country's diplomatic work faces 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 imperialist countries such as Britain, France, the United States and Italy. What do you think about these three issues?"

Livinov did not rush to answer Lenin's question, but thought carefully before answering with a solid understanding: "As for Japan's question, I think our country should take a tough stance and cannot indulge Japan's ambitions. And I think our country has the ability to do this regardless of economic strength or military strength! As for the issue of Germany's relations, we must pay close attention to the trends of the Nazis, temporarily maintain the original state, and do not overstimulate the Nazis. I believe that the German issue is first of all, which should be a headache for Western imperialism, and even if there is any change, they will be the first to bear the brunt. As for the last question, it seems that our country's national strength is limited, and the use of Western technology to complete industrialization should be placed first..."

Livinov briefly explained his opinions, and it should be said that Lenin was quite satisfied with this. Overall, Livinov's attitudes with the central government are basically the same. Unlike Likov, he always had to sing opposites with the central government and was too weak in dealing with foreign affairs.

Even Lenin was looking forward to seeing Levinov's performance, because since Zichlin, the Soviet Union had basically had a greater say in diplomacy, and it was difficult for Bukharin and Trotsky's claims to be completely satisfied with Lenin.

Speaking of Zichlin, Lenin was a little regretful. Compared with his predecessor Trotsky, Zichlin was more like a diplomat. He was the one who took action to clean up the mess left by Trotsky on the issue of the Brest contract. Later, Zichlin made great contributions to breaking the joint blockade and strangulation of the Soviet Union by imperialism.

At the Genoa Conference, Zichlin first opened a breakthrough from Germany and signed the Treaty of Labaro with Germany, turning the two countries from enemies into mutually beneficial trading partners. In the next two years, they broke through Britain, Italy, Norway, France, and Japan in one fell swoop, and reversed the Soviet Union's isolated bad situation in a very short time.

Lenin appreciated Ziqilin's diplomatic methods and sincerely hoped that this diplomat could continue to work for a long time. But God is cruel. Ziqilin's ability and talent are unquestionable, but his personality and body are always problematic.

From the perspective of contemporary people, Zichilin is an absolute otaku. He rarely goes out and only attends important meetings that must be attended. His biggest hobbies are alcohol and playing the piano. After the former was ruthlessly deprived by the doctor, Zichilin could only play the piano day after day at home.

And the most interesting thing is that Qiqilin has never married for life. Not only is he unmarried. In fact, he has never even loved him. He is not interested in both women and men. This otaku only likes to live diligently and lonely in his small world.

Since 1928, Qiqilin basically bid farewell to diplomatic work because his health collapsed. However, according to the viewpoint of other old revolutionaries at that time, Qiqilin's biggest disease was suspicion. He stubbornly thought that he was sick and liked to be surrounded by doctors.

This makes people sigh that geniuses may be somewhat of a second-class person. God would not create that perfect perfect person. Of course, for Lenin, these problems of Qiqilin were not bad. He didn't care whether Qiqilin was an otaku or a bit nervous. As long as Qiqilin could complete his work, nothing was a problem. Unfortunately, Qiqilin's successor did not do this, at least Likov did not.

In the People's Committee of Diplomatic Affairs at that time, only one person could do as good as Zichelin. What's interesting is that this person is quite inconsistent with Zichelin, and this person is the protagonist of our chapter - Livinov. Let's put it this way. Zichelin and Livinov could be said to be incompatible at that time, and Livinov whom Zichelin would oppose it. Similarly, Zichelin would also firmly support anyone whom Livinov opposed it. In short, these two people are born rivals and can't even urinate together.

So why is the relationship between Zichlin and Livinov so bad? The fundamental reason is that these two ideas are inconsistent. As mentioned earlier, Zichlin used Germany and Asia as a breakthrough to break the diplomatic blockade of imperialism against the Soviet Union. However, Livinov believed that the Soviet Union should not be aligned with Germany and Asian poor people, but should actively move closer to Britain and the United States, advocated directly doing the work of communicating Britain and the United States, and directly crushing the blockade.

At that time, Lenin accepted Zichlin's proposal, which was equivalent to putting aside Livinov's suggestion. It was strange that Livinov could feel comfortable. Not only did he have disagreements in philosophy, but the two people were completely opposite in personality. Zichlins, who was a nobleman, had a sense of literary youth, and he seemed to behave in accordance with the rules when doing things; while Livinov was completely different. This person was active by nature, and was quite active and even seemed a little rude.

Two people who are completely disagreeing in terms of concepts and personality are good enough to fight. In fact, Livinov has always called Ziqilin a "old virgin" behind their backs. Of course, Ziqilin naturally would not like this subordinate who likes to give himself nicknames. However, in history, Livinov quickly became a celebrity of Stalin due to the world economic crisis, and he had no choice but to deal with the other party. In this time and space, on the stage dominated by Lenin, as a celebrity of Lenin, he had enough ability to defeat Livinov.

Just before he left sick, when his mentor asked him who could take over, Tsichilin decisively ruled out Livinov and directly suggested to his mentor that Likov would take over. This directly led to Livinov continuing to be the second-in-command diplomatic leader for seven or eight years. Until now, Likov was about to fall, he was about to make a comeback.

However, Livinov was able to come to power not only because of Likov's fall, but more importantly, the change in the world situation. The global economic crisis completely destroyed the international order just established in World War I, and forced imperialism such as Britain, the United States and France who advocated the slaughter of communism to loosen their hinges. This gave Livinov an opportunity who was good at dealing with Britain and the United States. Let's put it this way, even if Likov did not fall, Livinov would stand out sooner or later. It was just a matter of time.

Of course, in history, Livinov would soon be thrown into the cold palace because of his foreign policy. In the year of time, in 1938, when World War II was about to break out, as Soviet-German relations approached again, with the signing of the Soviet-German non-aggression treaty, Livinov, who had Jewish descent and did not like Germany, was naturally abandoned by Stalin immediately. Instead, Molotov, who did not like Livinov, was replaced.

However, what Livinov is more lucky is that he was not ruthlessly eliminated like Stalin's other abandoned sons. For example, Buluhell, who had taught the Japanese a lesson with him in the same year (Zhang Gufeng Incident), was secretly shot, while Livinov simply lost his post and was idle.

Moreover, with the outbreak of the Patriotic War, Stalin, who wanted to receive British and American aid, quickly remembered Livinov again. Old Li came out again to become the ambassador to the United States and lived until 1951.

From this we can also see why Lenin had to talk to Livinov first and then completely announce the fall of Likov. After all, Zichlin's influence was still there. Lenin, who had always trusted Zichlin very much, was really worried about Livinov. Then he grabbed him and observed it carefully. It was not until he confirmed that Livinov had no conflict with his ideas that he was willing to make up his mind to appoint him.

Moreover, Lenin also had a trick. He just asked Likov to rest in illness, but did not let Likov resign. After all, Livnov was still an acting diplomatic people's committee member. Whether he could remove this word "prostitute" depends on whether he could satisfy Lenin within this year.

Likov's sudden recession of illness means that the Bukharin Group has completely disappeared from the Soviet political stage. This news caught many people off guard. In fact, even Li Xiaofeng and Xiao Si did not expect that the mentor would be so decisive. They thought that the complete destruction of the Bukharin Group would be the event of a conference next year!

When he received this news, Li Xiaofeng was on the sea, not going out to sea to fish and play, but participated in a large-scale live-fire exercise held by the Red Navy in the Baltic Sea. The live-fire exercise was code-named Fleet 1934.

This exercise is the largest large-scale naval fleet exercise carried out since the establishment of the Red Navy. Its fundamental purpose is to simulate future naval wars and prepare the Red Navy for future maritime invasions.

However, at the beginning, the Fleet 1934 exercise was a traditional amphibious exercise that prevented imperialism from landing on Soviet territory from sea. The role of the Red Navy was more to simulate the navy of the great powers. The highlight of the exercise was also to cooperate with the army mechanized forces to smash the enemy's amphibious landings.

To put it bluntly, this exercise has a strong Tukhachevsky color, in Tushuai's expectation. The role of the Red Navy in the Soviet military force was the supporting role, and the protagonist was the ground force. However, as Tushuai became increasingly marginalized in the Military Commission, Li Xiaofeng and Stalin joined forces to deny Tukhachevsky's opinion. The anti-amphibious landing exercise should be carried out, but it is not the focus. The focus of the Red Navy's exercise will be on the fleet's maritime decisive battle!

In this way, the focus of the exercise will be completely different. The two Red Army fleets will simulate the invading imperialist Blue Army and the "Red Navy" to conduct direct maritime confrontation!

According to the arrangements of the exercise director department, the role of the Red Army, that is, the "Red Navy", will be the two Bavarian-class battleships and four King-class battleships that have just completed the last phase of the renovation project. The large fleet with these six battleships as the main body will fight to the death with four former German battlecruisers and two Leningrad-class aircraft carriers that have served as the Blue Army.

The commander of the Red Army was Wakeman, the commander of the Red Flag Baltic Fleet, and the commander of the Blue Army unexpectedly fell on the leader of a non-traditional naval general. Sukhoi, who served as commander of the Navy 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 and had never commanded any warships. He suddenly ordered an outsider to serve as the commander-in-chief of the fleet, which made the old navy very dissatisfied.

However, this dissatisfaction was quickly suppressed by Li Xiaofeng. The reason for carrying out the fleet's 1934 exercise was nothing more than allowing the old antiques to see the capabilities of the naval aviation force and let them know what the future naval warfare will be.

However, Sukhoi did not buy it: "This is simply nonsense! The power of the aircraft carrier in this small bathtub of the Baltic Sea cannot be demonstrated at all. The environment of the Baltic Sea greatly limits the application of aircraft carriers. The Red Army, with the support of the shore-based aviation, can defeat my fleet. This not only cannot show the power of the aircraft carrier, but will give the 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 or playing fleet battles between battleships, it is very simple. It doesn’t even take any warships, just play with mines.

From the perspective of geographical conditions, the Baltic Sea is more suitable for small and medium-sized ship activities, and the battle between small-scale light ships is the mainstream. Now it is really embarrassing to play a fleet decisive battle in this bathtub. For the "Red Army" who are defending the side, their advantage is too great.

However, Li Xiaofeng comforted: "Of course I know that the Baltic Sea is not suitable for experiments, but the construction of the Murmansk Port has only been carried out halfway. The infrastructure construction there is too weak to be suitable for large fleets. Moreover, this month, the surrounding waters are in a bad weather and are not suitable for exercises. When next year, Murmansk's infrastructure construction will be completed, then the troops will be moved there for the Fleet 1935 exercise."

Sukhoi was still angry, and Li Xiaofeng had to continue to explain: "And you don't have to worry too much about the advantages of the Red Party. According to the director's setting, the aviation support they received is quite limited..."

Sukhoi couldn't help but interrupt: "Even if it is limited, it is better than the less than two hundred broken planes on the Leningrad and Moscow!"

Sukhoi had a good reason to be annoyed, and he roared: "The shore-based air force assigned to the Baltic Fleet uses new Is 15 and Is 16 fighters and TB-3 bombers, while my boy uses Is 5k, old imitation T2b torpedoes, and even our only dive bomber, Lenin II, has just retired from service. How can you use such a bunch of rags to complete the mission!"

Li Xiaofeng curled his lips. In fact, he had known that Sukhoi was very dissatisfied and angry. The whole 20s were a torment for him. The military spending was reduced, which made it difficult for aircraft carriers to go to sea to train. Once, the total number of naval carrier-based pilots fell below 300. Now it is really unfair to ask him to use this pair of rags to prove his value... (To be continued, please search for Astronomy, novels are better, updated and faster!

ps: Bow to thank Comrade hzwangdd and comrade Juventus!
Chapter completed!