Viktor Kopp

edited by Leon Trotsky, which predated the better known Pravda that was the official organ of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party.

However, his diplomatic credentials were not recognised by the German government until February 1920, and then only for the purpose of negotiating the repatriation of prisoners of war.

Recalled in 1921, he was a senior official in the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs for three years, handling sensitive negotiations with Germany, Poland and the Baltic States.

It is possible that he came under suspicion as Joseph Stalin was taking control of the communist party because of his former association with Trotsky and was removed from Moscow for that reason.

[4] Recalled in May 1926, having reputedly created bad impression with the Japanese, he was replaced by the diplomat Grigori Besedovsky, who later defected to the west, and wrote a memoir in which he described Kopp as "avaricious, brutal, and rough with subordinates."