Everything about Viacheslav Molotov totally explained
Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov (
Vjačeslav Mihajlovič Molotov; –
November 8 1986),
Soviet politician and
diplomat, was a leading figure in the
Soviet government from the
1920s, when he rose to power as a protégé of
Joseph Stalin, to
1957, when he was dismissed from Presidium (Politburo) of the Central Committee by
Nikita Khrushchev. He was the principal Soviet signatory of the
Nazi-Soviet
non-aggression pact of
1939 (also known as the
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact), and the
Molotov cocktail was named after him.
Origins and early life
Molotov was born in the village of
Kukarka (now Sovetsk in
Kirov Oblast) as
Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Skryabin (Скря́бин), son of a shop clerk. Contrary to a commonly repeated error, he wasn't related to the composer
Alexander Scriabin. He was educated at a secondary school in
Kazan, and joined the
Bolshevik faction of the
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1906. For his political work he took the
pseudonym Molotov (from the Russian
molot, "hammer"). He was arrested in 1909 and spent two years in exile in
Siberia. In 1911 he enrolled at the
St Petersburg Polytechnic, and also joined the editorial staff of
Pravda, the underground Bolshevik newspaper, of which
Joseph Stalin was editor. In 1913 Molotov was again arrested and deported to
Irkutsk, but in 1915 he escaped and returned to the capital.
Early career
In 1916, Molotov became a member of Bolshevik Party's committee in
Petrograd. When the
February Revolution broke out in February 1917, he was one of the few Bolsheviks of any standing in the capital. Under his direction
Pravda took a turn "left" in opposing the Provisional Government which was formed after the revolution. Consequently, when Stalin returned to the capital, he reversed Molotov's line. However, when the party leader,
Vladimir Lenin, arrived, he overruled Stalin. Despite this, Molotov became a protégé and close adherent of Stalin, an alliance to which he owed his later prominence. Molotov became a member of the
Military Revolutionary Committee which planned the
October Revolution (effectively bringing the Bolsheviks to power).
In 1918, Molotov was sent to
Ukraine to take part in the so-called
civil war (Ukrainian-Soviet War of 1918-1921) then breaking out. Since he wasn't a military man, Molotov took no part in the fighting. In 1920, he became secretary to the Central Committee of the Ukrainian Bolshevik Party. Lenin recalled him to Moscow in 1921, elevating him to full membership in the
Central Committee and
Orgburo, and putting him in charge of the party secretariat. In 1922, Stalin became General Secretary of the Bolshevik Party with Molotov as the de facto "second" secretary. Under Stalin's patronage, Molotov became a member of the
Politburo in 1926.
During the power struggles which followed Lenin's death in 1924, Molotov remained a loyal supporter of Stalin against his various rivals: first
Leon Trotsky, later
Lev Kamenev and
Grigory Zinoviev and finally
Nikolai Bukharin. He became a leading figure in the "Stalinist centre" of the party, which also included
Kliment Voroshilov,
Lazar Kaganovich,
Sergo Ordzhonikidze and
Sergei Kirov. Trotsky and his supporters underestimated Molotov as many others did. Trotsky called him "mediocrity personified", but his outward dullness concealed a sharp mind and great administrative talent. He operated mainly behind the scenes and cultivated an image as a colorless bureaucrat - for example, he was the only Bolshevik leader who always wore a suit and tie (Lenin's attire routine changed in the later years).
Prime minister
When Bukharin's ally,
Alexei Rykov, was removed as Chairman of the
Council of People's Commissars (the equivalent of a
prime minister) in December 1930, Molotov succeeded him. In this post, he oversaw the Stalin regime's greatest social revolution, the
collectivisation of agriculture. Molotov carried out Stalin's line of using a combination of force and propaganda to crush peasant resistance to collectivisation, including the deportation of millions of
kulaks (peasants with property) to
labor camps. A significant fraction of the deportees died. He signed the "
Law of Spikelets" and personally led the Extraordinary Commission for Grain Delivery in Ukraine, which seized a reported 4.2 million tonnes of grain from the peasants, during a widespread
famine (known in Ukraine as
Holodomor). Contemporary historians estimate that between four and six million people died, either of starvation or in labor camps, in the move to collectivise farms. Molotov also oversaw the implementation of the first
Five-Year Plan for rapid industrialisation.
The assassination of
Sergei Kirov in 1934, an action now believed by some historians to have been ordered by Stalin, triggered a second crisis, the
Great Purge. This purge acquired momentum through 1935 and 1936 and culminated in 1937-38 in the
Moscow Trials, in which most of the pre-Stalin Bolshevik leaders were convicted on usually fabricated charges of
treason and
espionage, and millions of other Russians were deported to labor camps. Although the purges were carried out by Stalin's successive police chiefs,
Genrikh Yagoda,
Nikolai Yezhov and
Lavrenty Beria, Molotov was intimately involved in the processes. Stalin frequently required him and other Politburo members to sign the death warrants of prominent purge victims, and Molotov always did so without question. There is no record of Molotov attempting to moderate the course of the purges or even to save individuals, as some other Soviet leaders did.
Despite the great human cost, the Soviet Union under Molotov's prime ministership made great strides in industrial technology (See
command economy). The rise of
Adolf Hitler in
Nazi Germany gave the development of a modern armaments industry great urgency, and Molotov and the commissar of industry,
Lazar Kaganovich, were primarily responsible for guiding this success. Ultimately, it was this arms industry which enabled the Soviet Union to prevail in
World War II. However, the purges of the
Red Army leadership, in which Molotov participated, weakened the Soviet Union's defence capacity. This somewhat contributed to the military disasters of 1941 and 1942, which were mostly caused by unreadiness for war. It also led to the dismantling of the peasant class, and its replacement by collectivised agriculture left a legacy of chronic agricultural under-production which the Soviet regime never fully overcame.
Following the purges, Molotov was generally regarded as Stalin's deputy and as his long-term successor, although Molotov was careful not to encourage any such suggestion. The American journalist
John Gunther wrote in 1938: "Molotov has a fine forehead, and looks and acts like a French professor of medicine - orderly, precise, pedantic. He is... a man of first-rate intelligence and influence. Molotov is a vegetarian and a teetotaller. Stalin gives him much of the dirty work to do".
Foreign minister
In 1939, following the
Munich agreement and Hitler's subsequent invasion of
Czechoslovakia in 1938, Stalin decided that Soviet expansion would benefited by signing a treaty with Hitler. In May 1939,
Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov (who was
Jewish and therefore not appropriate for these negotiations) was dismissed, and Molotov was appointed to succeed him. Molotov remained at the head of the Sovnarkom until May 1941, when Stalin took over as the official head of the Soviet government.
At first, Hitler rebuffed Soviet diplomatic hints that Stalin desired a treaty, but in early August, he authorised Foreign Minister
Joachim von Ribbentrop to begin serious negotiations. A trade agreement was concluded on
August 18, and on
August 22, Ribbentrop flew to
Moscow to conclude a formal non-aggression treaty. Although the treaty is known as the
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Molotov and Ribbentrop acted only as agents for their masters, Stalin and Hitler. The most important part of the agreement was the secret protocol, which provided for the partition of Poland, Finland and the
Baltic States between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union and for the Soviet annexation of
Bessarabia (then part of
Romania, now
Moldova). This protocol gave Hitler the green light for his invasion of Poland, which began on
September 1.
Under the terms of the Pact, Stalin was, in effect, given authorisation to occupy and annex
Estonia,
Latvia and
Bessarabia, as well as the part of Poland east of the
Curzon Line (an area in which Ukrainians and Byelorussians comprised the majority of the population). He was also given a free hand in relation to
Finland. In the
Soviet-Finnish War that ensued, a combination of fierce Finnish resistance and Soviet mismanagement resulted in Finland losing parts of its territory, but not its independence. During this conflict, the Finns coined the term
Molotov cocktail for a homemade incendiary device to be used against tanks. Germany was authorised to occupy the western two-thirds of Poland (much of which was annexed to Germany), as well as
Lithuania, but the Pact was later amended to allocate Lithuania to the Soviet sphere in exchange for a more favourable border in Poland. All these annexations led to massive suffering and loss of life in the countries which were occupied and partitioned by the two dictatorships.
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact governed Soviet-German relations until June 1941 when Hitler, having occupied France and neutralised Britain (or so he thought), turned east and attacked the
Soviet Union. Molotov was also responsible for telling the Soviet people of the attack, when he announced the war, instead of Joseph Stalin. Following the invasion, Molotov conducted urgent negotiations with Britain and, later, the
United States for wartime alliances and traveled to
London in 1941 and to
Washington in 1942. In 1942, he signed the
Anglo-Soviet Treaty of Alliance. He also secured
Franklin D. Roosevelt and
Winston Churchill's agreement to create a "second front" in Europe. He accompanied Stalin to the
Teheran conference in 1943, the
Yalta conference in 1945 and the
Potsdam conference, which followed the defeat of Germany. He represented the
Soviet Union at the
San Francisco Conference, which created the
United Nations. Even during the period of wartime alliance, Molotov was known as a tough negotiator and determined defender of Soviet interests. In this he was carrying out Stalin's wishes.
Winston Churchill in his wartime memoirs lists many meetings with Molotov. Acknowledging him as a ruthless and difficult diplomat, Churchill was generous enough to conclude: "In the conduct of foreign affairs,
Mazarin;
Talleyrand,
Metternich, would welcome him to their company, if there be another world to which Bolsheviks allow themselves to go."
Postwar career
In the postwar period, Molotov's position began to decline. In 1949, he was replaced as Foreign Minister by
Andrey Vyshinsky, although retaining his position as Deputy Prime Minister and membership of the Politburo. Following the death of
Andrei Zhdanov, who had come to be seen as Stalin's most likely successor, Stalin and Beria began to plan a new purge, which would have removed most of the older party leaders such as Molotov from their positions. New leaders, such as
Georgii Malenkov and
Nikita Khrushchev, enjoyed Stalin's patronage.
A clear sign of Molotov's precarious position was his inability to prevent the arrest of his Jewish wife,
Polina Zhemchuzhina, in December 1948 for "treason". She had long been distrusted by Stalin. The couple were reunited by
Beria upon the death of Stalin. At the
19th Party Congress in 1952, Molotov was elected to the new, expanded
Presidium of the Communist Party but was excluded from the smaller standing committee of the Presidium (although this wasn't made public). It seems likely that Stalin's death in March 1953 saved Molotov from being purged as part of a "clean out" of the Soviet leadership.
Following Stalin's death, a realignment of the leadership was sought, in the course of which Molotov's position was strengthened. Beria was purged and executed, and Molotov regained the Foreign Ministry under Malenkov as Prime Minister. However, the new Party Secretary, Khrushchev, soon emerged as the real power in the regime. He presided over a gradual domestic liberalisation and a "thaw" in foreign policy, shown by the reconciliation with
Tito's government in
Yugoslavia (which Stalin had expelled from the communist movement). Molotov, an old-guard Stalinist, seemed increasingly out of place in this new environment, but he represented the Soviet Union with his usual tenacity at the
Geneva Conference of 1955 which discussed European security, German reunification and disarmament.
The events which led to Molotov's downfall began in February 1956 when Khrushchev launched an unexpected denunciation of Stalin at the
20th Congress of the Communist Party. Khrushchev attacked Stalin both over the purges of the 1930s and the defeats of the early years of World War II, which he blamed on Stalin's over-trusting attitude to Hitler and the purges of the Red Army. Since Molotov was most senior of Stalin's collaborators still alive and had played a leading role in the purges, it became obvious that Khrushchev's examination into the past would probably result in Molotov's fall from power. Consequently, he became the leader of the "old guard" in resisting Khrushchev, although whether he actually plotted to overthrow Khrushchev, as was later alleged, isn't clear.
In June 1956, Molotov was removed as Foreign Minister, and in June 1957 was expelled from the Presidium (Politburo) following a failed attempt to remove Khrushchev as First Secretary. Although Molotov's faction initially won a vote in the Presidium 7-4 to remove Khrushchev, the latter refused to resign unless a Central Committee plenum decided so. In the plenum, which lasted from 22 to 29 June, Molotov and his faction were defeated. Eventually he was banished as ambassador to
Mongolia. In 1960, he was appointed Soviet representative to the
International Atomic Energy Agency, which was seen as a partial rehabilitation. However, after the
22nd Party Congress in 1961, during which Khrushchev carried his
de-Stalinization campaign to removal of the Stalin's body out of the
Lenin's Mausoleum, Molotov was removed from all positions and expelled from the Communist Party. In March 1962, it was announced that Molotov had retired from public life.
In retirement, Molotov remained totally unrepentant about his role during Stalin's period of rule. After the
Sino-Soviet split, it was reported that he agreed with the criticisms made by
Mao Zedong of the supposed "
revisionism" of Khrushchev's policies. According to
Roy Medvedev, Stalin's daughter,
Svetlana, recalled Molotov and his wife telling her: "Your father was a genius. There's no revolutionary spirit around nowadays, just opportunism everywhere. China's our only hope! Only they've kept alive the revolutionary spirit". In 1976, he said:
» "The fact that atomic war may break out, isn't that class struggle? There is no alternative to class struggle. This is a very serious question. The be-all and end-all isn't peaceful coexistence. After all, we've been holding on for some time, and under Stalin we held on to the point where the imperialists felt able to demand point-blank: either surrender such and such positions, or it means war. So far the imperialists haven't renounced that".
Molotov was partly rehabilitated during the
Leonid Brezhnev years and was allowed to rejoin the Communist Party in 1984 under
Konstantin Chernenko. He died at the age of 96 in
Moscow in November 1986, only five years before the dissolution of the Soviet Union. At the time of his death he was the last surviving major participant in the events of 1917. He was buried at the
Novodevichy Cemetery,
Moscow. A collection of interviews with Molotov,, was published posthumously by
Felix Chuev. At the end of 1989, two years before the final collapse of the Soviet Union, the Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union and
Mikhail Gorbachev's government formally denounced the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, acknowledging that the annexation of the Baltic States and the partition of Poland had been illegal.
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