Molotov, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich, originally Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Skriabin 1890-1986
Soviet politician

Born in Kukaida, Vyatka, he was educated at Kazan High School and Polytechnic. In the 1905 revolution he joined the Bolshevik section of Lenin's Social Democratic Workers' Party and in 1912 became the staunch disciple of Stalin when Pravda was launched. During the March 1917 revolution he was a member of the military revolutionary committee which directed the coup against Aleksandr Kerensky. In 1921 he became secretary of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party and the youngest candidate-member of the politburo. In 1928 his appointment to the key position of secretary of the Moscow committee of the all-Union Party marked the launching of the first Five-Year Plan. As chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (1930-41), he became an international figure in 1939 when he took on the extra post of Commissar for Foreign Affairs, shaping the policy which led to the non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany. In 1942 he signed the 20 years' Treaty of Alliance with Britain. He was Stalin's chief adviser at Teheran and Yalta and represented the Soviet Union at the 1945 founding conference of the United Nations at San Francisco and at the Potsdam Conference. After the war Molotov, who negotiated the pacts binding the satellite states to the Soviet Union, emerged as the uncompromising champion of world Sovietism. His 'niet' at meetings of the United Nations and in the councils of foreign ministers became a byword. His attitude led to the prolongation of the Cold War and the division of Germany into two conflicting states. In 1949 he resigned as Foreign Minister but resumed the post in 1953. He resigned in 1956 and was appointed Minister of State Control. In 1957 Nikita Khrushchev called him a 'saboteur of peace', accused him of policy failures and appointed him ambassador to Outer Mongolia until 1960. He was expelled from the Communist Party in 1962 but reinstated in 1984.

Bibliography: Bernard Bromage, Molotov: The Story of an Era (1956)