He joined the Bolsheviks (1903), and from 1917 to 1918 was Soviet envoy in London, having married an Engishwoman, Ivy Low in 1916. He headed delegations to the disarmament conference of the League of Nations (1927–29), signed the Kellogg–Briand Pact (1928), and negotiated diplomatic relations with the USA (1933). An advocate of collective security against Germany, Italy, and Japan, he was Soviet foreign minister from 1930 until he was dismissed (1939), before Stalin signed the Nazi–Soviet Pact.