People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs of the Russian SFSR

[1][2] Originally its principle purpose was to print and distribute copies of the secret treaties of the Entente powers which had fallen into the hands of the Bolsheviks.

However their original hopes that a traditional diplomatic service would not be needed as workers revolutions spread across Europe and the world proved to be wishful thinking.

[3] When the new Bolshevik government moved the capital from Saint Petersburg to Moscow, Narkomindel was housed in the apartment building of the First Russian Insurance Company, located on the corner of Kuznetsky Most and Bolshaya Lubyanka Street.

As these expectations proved unfounded, the Bolsheviks had to engage in diplomatic relations with a hostile world to ensure the survival of the Soviet state.

During the first years after the revolution there was a pronounced tendency to take advantage of diplomatic immunity to conduct espionage and to support communist activists in other countries.