Born of aristocratic stock, the young Chicherin, anxious not to upset his religious mother, went to Berlin to see a doctor who claimed to be able to "cure" his "interesting condition" of homosexuality... The only result he got was to meet Lenin and to convert to Revolution.

Lenin put him in charge of Soviet foreign policy in its first fase. As Commissar for Foreign Affairs, from 1918 to 1922, he was quite a dialectical match for Lord Curzon at the Foreign Office.