Vyacheslav Molotov

Vyacheslav Molotov
Вячеслав Молотов
Molotov in 1945
3rd Premier of the Soviet Union
In office 19 December 1930 – 6 May 1941
Leader	Joseph Stalin
Preceded by	Alexei Rykov
Succeeded by	Joseph Stalin
3rd First Deputy Premier of the Soviet Union
In office 16 August 1942 – 29 June 1957
Premier	Joseph Stalin Georgy Malenkov Nikolai Bulganin
Leader	Joseph Stalin Georgy Malenkov Nikita Khrushchev
Preceded by	Nikolai Voznesensky
Succeeded by	Nikolai Bulganin
3rd People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs
In office 3 May 1939 – 15 March 1946
Premier	Joseph Stalin
Leader	Joseph Stalin
Preceded by	Maxim Litvinov
Succeeded by	Himself (as Minister of Foreign Affairs)
1st and 3rd Minister of Foreign Affairs
In office 15 March 1946 – 4 March 1949 5 March 1953 – 1 June 1956
Premier	Joseph Stalin Georgy Malenkov Nikolai Bulganin
Leader	Joseph Stalin Georgy Malenkov Nikita Khrushchev
Preceded by	Himself (as People's Commisar for Foreign Affairs) Andrey Vyshinsky
Succeeded by	Andrey Vyshinsky Dmitri Shepilov
Additional positions 16th Orgburo In office 16 March 1921 – 21 December 1930
Personal details
Born	Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Skryabin (1890-03-09)9 March 1890 Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Resting place	Novodevichy Cemetery, Moscow
Political party	RSDLP(b) (1906–1918) CPSU (1918–1961)
Spouse	Polina Zhemchuzhina ​ ​ (m. 1920; died 1970)​
Relatives	Vyacheslav Nikonov (grandson)
Awards	Order of the Badge of Honour
Signature

Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov

Molotov was reappointed Minister of Foreign Affairs after Stalin's death in 1953 but staunchly opposed Nikita Khrushchev's de-Stalinization policy, which resulted in his eventual dismissal from all positions and expulsion from the party in 1961 (after numerous unsuccessful petitions, Molotov was readmitted in 1984).^[2] Molotov defended Stalin's policies and legacy until his death in 1986 and harshly criticised Stalin's successors, especially Khrushchev.

Early life and career

Molotov was born Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Skryabin in the village of

Skryabin took the pseudonym "Molotov", derived from the Russian word molot (sledge hammer) since he believed that the name had an "industrial" and "proletarian" ring to it.[5] He was arrested in 1909 and spent two years in exile in Vologda.

In 1911, he enrolled at St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute. Molotov joined the editorial staff of a new underground Bolshevik newspaper, Pravda, and met Joseph Stalin for the first time in association with the project.^[6] That first association between the two future Soviet leaders proved to be brief, however, and failed to lead to an immediate close political association.^[6]

Molotov worked as a so-called "professional revolutionary" for the next several years, wrote for the party press, and attempted to improve the organisation of the underground party.

Molotov became a member of the Bolshevik Party's committee in Petrograd in 1916. When the February Revolution occurred in 1917, he was one of the few Bolsheviks of any standing in the capital. Under his direction, Pravda took to the "left" to oppose the Provisional Government formed after the revolution. When Joseph Stalin returned to the capital, he reversed Molotov's line,^[7] but when Lenin arrived, he overruled Stalin. However, Molotov became a protégé of and a close adherent to Stalin, an alliance to which he owed his later prominence.^[8] Molotov became a member of the Military Revolutionary Committee, which planned the October Revolution and effectively brought the Bolsheviks to power.^[9]

In 1918, Molotov was sent to Ukraine to take part in the Russian Civil War, which had broken out. Since he was not a military man, he took no part in the fighting. In summer 1919, he was sent on a tour by steamboat of the Volga and Kama rivers, with Lenin's wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya to spread Bolshevik propaganda. On his return, he was appointed chairman of the Nizhny Novgorod provincial executive, where the local party passed a vote of censure against him, for his alleged fondness for intrigue. He was transferred to Donetsk, and in November 1920, he became secretary to the Central Committee of the Ukrainian Bolshevik Party and married the Soviet politician Polina Zhemchuzhina.^[10]

Lenin recalled Molotov to Moscow in 1921, elevated him to full membership of the

During the power struggles after

Trotsky and his supporters underestimated Molotov, and the same went for many others. Trotsky called him "mediocrity personified," and Molotov himself pedantically corrected comrades referring to him as "Stone Arse" by saying that Lenin had actually dubbed him "Iron Arse."[3] However, that outward dullness concealed a sharp mind and great administrative talent. He operated mainly behind the scenes and cultivated an image of a colourless bureaucrat.^[15]

Molotov was reported to be a vegetarian and

Molotov and his wife had two daughters: Sonia, adopted in 1929, and Svetlana, born in 1930.[10]

Soviet Premier

Addressing a Moscow communist party conference on 23 February 1929, Molotov emphasised the need to undertake "the most rapid possible growth of industry" both for economic reasons and because, he claimed, the Soviet Union was in permanent, imminent danger of attack.

Despite the famine, in September 1931, Molotov sent a secret telegram to communist leaders in the North Caucasus telling them the collection of grain for export was going "disgustingly slowly."[26] In December, he travelled to Kharkiv, then the capital of Ukraine, and, ignoring warnings from local communist leaders about a grain shortage, told them that their failure to meet their target for grain collection was due to their incompetence. He returned to Kharkiv in July 1932, with Lazar Kaganovich, to tell the local communists that there would be no "concessions or vacillations" in the drive to meet targets for exporting grain. This was the first of several actions that led a Kyiv Court of Appeal in 2010 to find Molotov, and Kaganovich, guilty of genocide against the Ukrainian people. On 25 July, the same two men followed up the meeting with a secret telegram ordering the Ukrainian leadership to intensify grain collection.^[27]

Temporary rift with Stalin

Between the assassination of

In May 1936, Molotov went to the Black Sea on an extended holiday under careful NKVD supervision until the end of August, when Stalin apparently changed his mind and ordered Molotov's return.^[31]

Two explanations have been put forward for Molotov's temporary eclipse. On 19 March 1936 Molotov gave an interview with the editor of Le Temps concerning improved relations with Nazi Germany.^[32] Although Litvinov had made similar statements in 1934 and even visited Berlin that year, Germany had not then reoccupied the Rhineland.^[33] Derek Watson believed that it was Molotov's statement on foreign policy that offended Stalin. Molotov had made it clear that improved relations with Germany could develop only if its policy changed and stated that one of the best ways for Germany to improve relations was to rejoin the League of Nations. However, even that was not sufficient since Germany still had to give proof "of its respect for international obligations in keeping with the real interests of peace in Europe and peace generally."^[34] Robert Conquest and others believe that Molotov "dragged his feet" over Stalin's plans to purge the party and put Old Bolsheviks like Zinoviev and Kamenev on trial.^[35]

Role in the Great Purge

Before the Bolshevik revolution, Molotov had been a "very close friend" of a Socialist Revolutionary, Alexander Arosev, who shared his exile in Vologda. In 1937, fearing arrest, Arosev tried three times to ring Molotov, who refused to speak to him. He was arrested and shot. In the 1950s, Molotov gave Arosev's daughter his signed copies of her father's books, but later wished he had kept them. "It appears that it was not so much the loss of his 'very close friend' but the loss of part of his own book collection ... that Molotov continued to regret."^[39]

Late in life, Molotov described his role in purges of the 1930s, arguing that despite the overbreadth of the purges, they were necessary to avoid Soviet defeat in World War II:

Socialism demands immense effort. And that includes sacrifices. Mistakes were made in the process. But we could have suffered greater losses in the war – perhaps even defeat – if the leadership had flinched and had allowed internal disagreements, like cracks in a rock. Had leadership broken down in the 1930s we would have been in a most critical situation, many times more critical than actually turned out. I bear responsibility for this policy of repression and consider it correct. Admittedly, I have always said grave mistakes and excesses were committed, but the policy on the whole was correct.^[40]

Minister of Foreign Affairs

In 1939, Adolf Hitler's invasion of the rest of Czechoslovakia, in violation of the 1938 Munich Agreement, made Stalin believe that Britain and France, which had signed the agreement, would not be reliable allies against German expansion. That made him decide instead to seek to conciliate Nazi Germany.^[41] In May 1939, Maxim Litvinov, the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, was dismissed;^[42] Molotov was appointed to succeed him.^[43] Relations between Molotov and Litvinov had been bad. Maurice Hindus in 1954 stated in his book Crisis in the Kremlin:

It is well known in Moscow that Molotov always detested Litvinov. Molotov's detestation for Litvinov was purely of a personal nature. No Moscovite I have ever known, whether a friend of Molotov or of Litvinov, has ever taken exception to this view. Molotov was always resentful of Litvinov's fluency in French, German and English, as he was distrustful of Litvinov's easy manner with foreigners. Never having lived abroad, Molotov always suspected that there was something impure and sinful in Litvinov's broad-mindedness and appreciation of Western civilisation.^[44]

Litvinov had no respect for Molotov, regarding him as a small-minded intriguer and accomplice in terror.^[45]

Molotov was succeeded in his post as premier by Stalin.^[46]

At first, Hitler rebuffed Soviet diplomatic hints that Stalin desired a treaty; but in early August 1939, Hitler allowed Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop to begin serious negotiations. A trade agreement was concluded on 18 August, and on 22 August Ribbentrop flew to Moscow to conclude a formal non-aggression treaty. Although the treaty is known as the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, it was Stalin and Hitler, not Molotov and Ribbentrop, who decided the content of the treaty.

The most important part of the agreement was the secret protocol, which provided for the partition of Poland, Finland and the

In November 1940, Stalin sent Molotov to Berlin to meet Ribbentrop and Hitler. In January 1941, British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden visited Turkey in an attempt to get the Turks to enter the war on the Allies' side. The purpose of Eden's visit was anti-German, rather than anti-Soviet, but Molotov assumed otherwise. In a series of conversations with Italian Ambassador Augusto Rosso, Molotov claimed that the Soviets would soon be faced with an Anglo–Turkish invasion of the Crimea. The British historian D.C. Watt argued that on the basis of Molotov's statements to Rosso, it would appear that, in early 1941, Stalin and Molotov viewed Britain, rather than Germany, as the principal threat.^[50]

The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact governed Soviet–German relations until June 1941, when Hitler turned east and

There is no evidence that Molotov ever persuaded Stalin to pursue a different policy from that on which he had already decided.[55] Volkogonov could not find one case where any of the elite in government openly disagreed with Stalin.^[56]

There is some evidence that, although Stalin realised he needed Molotov, Stalin did not like him.^[57] Stalin's one-time bodyguard, Amba, stated: "More general dislike for this statesman robot and for his position in the Kremlin could scarcely be wished and it was apparent that Stalin himself joined in this feeling".^[58] Amba asked the question:

"What then has made Stalin collaborate so closely with him? There are many more talented people in the Soviet Union and Stalin no doubt had the means to find them. Is he afraid of close collaboration with a more human and sympathetic assistant?"

At a jolly party, Amba recalled an incident whereby Poskryobyshev approached Stalin and whispered in his ear. Stalin replied, "Does it have to be right away?" Everybody realised at once that the conversation was regarding Molotov. In half an hour, Stalin was informed of Molotov's arrival. Although the whispered conversation between Molotov and Stalin only lasted five minutes, the merriment of the gathering evaporated as everybody talked in hushed tones. Amba stated, "Then the blanket left. Instantly the gaiety returned". Vareykis said that "a gentle angel has flown past": a Russian expression for when a sudden silence descends. Breaking the tension, Laurentyev quipped in a harsh Georgian accent, "Go, friendly soul". Out of those in attendance, Stalin laughed the loudest at Laurentyev's joke.^[59] Stalin could be rude to Molotov.^[60] In 1942, Stalin took Molotov to task for his handling of the negotiations with the Allies. He cabled Molotov on 3 June:

"[I am] dissatisfied with the terseness and reticence of all your communications. You convey to us from your talks with Roosevelt and Churchill only what you yourself consider is important, and omit all the rest. Meanwhile, the instance [Stalin] would like to know everything. What you consider important and what you think unimportant. This refers to the draft of the communiqué as well. You have not informed us whose draft it is, whether it has been agreed with the British in full and why, after all, there could not be two communiqués, one concerning the talks in Britain and one concerning the talks in the USA. We are having to guess because of your reticence. We further consider it expedient that both communiqués should mention among other things the creation of a second front in Europe and that full understanding has been reached in this matter. We also consider that it is absolutely necessary both communiqués should mention the supply of war materials to the Soviet Union from Britain and the USA. In all the rest we agree with the contents of the draft communiqué you sent us".^[61]

When Beria told Stalin about the

From 1945 to 1947, Molotov took part in all four conferences of

In the postwar period, Molotov's power began to decline. A clear sign of his precarious position was his inability to prevent the arrest for "treason" in December 1948 of his Jewish wife, Polina Zhemchuzhina, whom Stalin had long distrusted.^[72] Molotov initially protested the persecution against her by abstaining from the vote to condemn her, but later recanted, stating: "I acknowledge my heavy sense of remorse for not having prevented Zhemchuzhina, a person very dear to me, from making her mistakes and from forming ties with anti-Soviet Jewish nationalists", and divorced Zhemchuzhina.^[73]

Polina Zhemchuzhina befriended Golda Meir, who arrived in Moscow in November 1948 as the first Israeli envoy to the Soviet Union.^[74] There are unsubstantiated claims that, being fluent in Yiddish, Zhemchuzhina acted as a translator for a diplomatic meeting between Meir and her husband, the Soviet foreign minister. However, this claim (of being an interpreter) is not supported by Meir's memoir My Life. Presentation of her ambassadorial credentials was done in Hebrew, not in Yiddish. According to Meir's own account of the reception given by Molotov on 7 November, "Mrs. Zhemchuzhina has spent significant time during this reception not only talking to Golda Meir herself but also in conversation with Mrs. Meir's daughter Sarah and her friend Yael Namir about their life as kibbutzniks. They have discussed the complete collectivization of property and related issues. At the end Mrs. Zhemchuzhina gave Golda Meir's daughter Sarah a hug and said: 'Be well. If everything goes well with you, it will go well for all Jews everywhere.' "^[75]

Zhemchuzhina was imprisoned for a year in the Lubyanka and was then exiled for three years in an obscure Russian city.^[76] She was sentenced to hard labour, spending five years in exile in Kazakhstan.^[73] Molotov had no communication with her except for the scant news that he received from Beria, whom he loathed. Zhemchuzhina was freed immediately after the death of Stalin.^[76]

In 1949, Molotov was replaced as Foreign Minister by Andrey Vyshinsky but retained his position as First Deputy Premier and membership in the Politburo.^[77] Being appointed Foreign Minister by Stalin to replace the Jewish predecessor Maxim Litvinov to facilitate negotiations with Nazi Germany, Molotov was thus also dismissed from the same position at least in part because his wife was also of Jewish origin.^[73]

At the 19th Party Congress in 1952, Molotov was elected to the replacement for the Politburo, the Presidium, but was not listed among the members of the newly established secret body known as the Bureau of the Presidium, which indicated that he had fallen out of Stalin's favour.^[80] At the 19th Congress, Stalin said, "There has been criticism of comrade Molotov and

Following Stalin's death, a realignment of the leadership strengthened Molotov's position.

Molotov's position became increasingly tenuous after February 1956, when Khrushchev launched an unexpected denunciation of Stalin at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party. Khrushchev attacked Stalin over the purges of the 1930s and the defeats of the early years of the Second World War, which he blamed on Stalin's overly-trusting attitude towards Hitler and the purges of the Red Army command structure. Molotov was the most senior of Stalin's collaborators still in government and had played a leading role in the purges, so it became evident that Khrushchev's examination of the past would probably result in the fall from power of Molotov, who became the leader of an old-guard faction that sought to overthrow Khrushchev.^[92]

de-Stalinisation campaign, including the removal of Stalin's body from Lenin's Mausoleum, Molotov, along with Lazar Kaganovich, was removed from all positions and expelled from the Communist Party.^[80] In 1962, all of Molotov's party documents and files were destroyed by the authorities.^[96]

In retirement, Molotov remained unrepentant about his role under Stalin's rule.

revisionism

of Khrushchev's policies.

Later life

In 1968, United Press International reported that Molotov had completed his memoirs but that they would likely never be published.^[98] The first signs of Molotov's rehabilitation were seen during Leonid Brezhnev's rule, when information about him was again allowed to be included in Soviet encyclopaedias. His connection, support and work in the Anti-Party Group were mentioned in encyclopaedias published in 1973 and 1974, but eventually disappeared altogether by the mid-to-late-1970s. Later, Soviet leader Konstantin Chernenko further rehabilitated Molotov.^[99] In 1984, Molotov was even allowed to seek membership in the Communist Party.^[100] A collection of interviews with Molotov from the period 1969 to 1986 was published in 1993 by Felix Chuev as Molotov Remembers: Inside Kremlin Politics.

In June 1986 Molotov was hospitalised in Kuntsevo Hospital in Moscow, where he eventually died, during the rule of Mikhail Gorbachev, on 8 November 1986.^[101][1] During his life, Molotov had suffered seven heart attacks, but survived to the age of 96. At the time of his death, he was the last surviving major participant in the events of 1917. He was buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.^[97]

Legacy

Molotov, like Stalin, was pathologically mistrustful of others; much crucial information has disappeared. As Molotov once said, "One should listen to them, but it is necessary to check up on them. The intelligence officer can lead you to a very dangerous position.... There are many provocateurs here, there, and everywhere."

socialist states were part of a larger, supranational entity. In retirement, Molotov criticized Nikita Khrushchev for being a "right-wing deviationist."^[105]

The

cluster bombs against Finnish civilians, troops and fortifications. When Molotov claimed in radio broadcasts that they were not bombing but rather delivering food to the starving Finns, the Finns started to call the air bombs Molotov bread baskets.^[109] Soon they responded by attacking advancing tanks with "Molotov cocktails," which were "a drink to go with the food." According to Montefiore, the Molotov cocktail was one part of Molotov's cult of personality that the vain Premier surely did not appreciate.^[110]

Metternich, would welcome him to their company, if there be another world to which Bolsheviks allow themselves to go."^[111] The former US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles said: "I have seen in action all the great international statesmen of this century. I have never seen such personal diplomatic skill at so high a degree of perfection as Molotov's."^[1]

Molotov was the only person to have shaken hands with Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler, Rudolf Hess, Hermann Göring, and Heinrich Himmler.^[112] At the end of 1989 the Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union and Mikhail Gorbachev's government formally denounced the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact.^[113]

In January 2010, a Ukrainian court accused Molotov and other Soviet officials of organizing a man-made famine in Ukraine in 1932–33. The same Court then ended criminal proceedings against them, as the trial would be posthumous.^[114]

Portrayals in media

• Luther Adler portrayed Molotov in the 1958 Playhouse 90 episode The Plot to Kill Stalin.
• Clive Merrison was cast as Molotov in the 1992 drama film Stalin.
• Michael Palin was cast as Molotov in the 2017 satire film The Death of Stalin.
• Russian actor Sergey Shanin portrayed a member of the Soviet
  Atomic Heart
  .

Decorations and awards

• Hero of Socialist Labour (1943)^[115]
• Four
  Orders of Lenin (1940, 1943, 1945, 1950)^[115]
• Order of the Badge of Honour^[115]
• Medal "For the Defence of Moscow" (1944)^[115]
• Medal "For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945" (1945)^[115]
• Medal "For Valiant Labour in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945" (1945)^[115]
• Medal "In Commemoration of the 800th Anniversary of Moscow" (1947)^[115]
• Medal "Veteran of Labour" (1974)^[115]
• Jubilee Medal "In Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin" (1969)^[115]
• Jubilee Medal "Forty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945" (1985)^[115]
• Order of the Red Banner (Mongolia)^[115]

See also

• Foreign relations of the Soviet Union
• Molotov Line
• Germany–Soviet Union relations, 1918–1941
• Molotov cocktail

Notes

1. ^ Russian: Вячеслав Михайлович Молотов, IPA: [vʲɪtɕɪˈslaf mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪtɕ ˈmolətəf]
2. ^ Russian: Скря́бин.

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101. ^ Человек, который знал всё. Личное дело наркома Молотова aif.ru. 9 March 2014.
102. ^ Zubok & Pleshakov 1996, p. 88.
103. ^ Molotov, 84.
104. ^ Zubok and Pleshakov, 89.
105. ^ Zubok and Pleshakov, 89–91.
106. ^ "Suomessa on yhä kolme aitoa Molotovin cocktailia". is.fi. Ilta-Sanomat. 16 April 2016. Archived from the original on 24 March 2023. Retrieved 20 April 2022.
107. ^ ""Molotov-cocktail" name usage in Swedish newspapers: 1940". tidningar.kb.se. Kungliga biblioteket (KB). Retrieved 20 April 2022.
108. ^ Montefiore, 335.
109. ^ John Langdon-Davies, "The Lessons of Finland," Picture Post, June 1940.
110. ^ Montefiore, 328.
111. ^ Winston Churchill, The Gathering Storm, Volume 1 (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1948, ISBN 039541055X), 368–369.
112. ^ See Traces of War
113. ^ Jerzy W. Borejsza, Klaus Ziemer, and Magdalena Hulas, Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes in Europe (Berg Publishers, Berghahn Books, 2006, ISBN 1571816410), 521.
114. ^ Kyiv court accuses Stalin leadership of organizing famine, Kyiv Post (January 13, 2010)
115. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k} "Молотов, Вячеслав Михайлович". TASS Encyclopedia (in Russian). Retrieved 17 November 2022.

Further reading

See also:

Bibliography of the Post Stalinist Soviet Union

• Bodley Head
  .
• Chubaryan, A. O. and Pechatnov, V. O. "'Molotov the Liberal': Stalin's 1945 Criticism of his Deputy" Cold War History 1#1 (2000) pp. 129–140.
• Dallin, David. Soviet foreign policy after Stalin (1961) online
• van Goudoever, A.P. (1986). The limits of destalinization in the Soviet Union: political rehabilitations in the Soviet Union since Stalin.
  ISBN 0-7099-2629-4
  .
• Kotkin, Stephen. 2017. Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929–1941. New York: Random House.
• Martinovich Zubok, Vladislav; Pleshakov, Konstantin (1996). Inside the Kremlin's Cold War: from Stalin to Khrushchev.
  ISBN 0-674-45531-2
  .
• McCauley, Martin (1997). Who's Who in Russia since 1900. pp. 146–147
• Miner, Steven M. "His Master's Voice: Viacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov as Stalin's Foreign Commissar." in The Diplomats, 1939–1979 (Princeton University Press, 2019) pp. 65–100. online
• Roberts, Geoffrey. Molotov: Stalin's Cold Warrior (2011), 254 pp. scholarly biography.
• ISBN 1-4000-7678-1
  .
• ISBN 0-14-103797-0
  .
• Watson, Derek (2005). Molotov: A Biography. Palgrave Macmillan.
  ISBN 0333585887
  .
• Stalin, Joseph; Lih, Lars T.; Naumov, Oleg V.; Kosheleva, L; Хлевнюк, O B; Молотов, Вячеслав Михайлович (1995). Stalin's Letters to Molotov, 1925–1936. New Haven:
  ISBN 978-0585349473
  .
• Watson, Derek. Molotov and Soviet Government: Sovnarkom, 1930–41 (Palgrave Macmillan UK, 1996).^[ISBN missing]
• Watson, Derek. "Molotov's apprenticeship in foreign policy: The triple alliance negotiations in 1939." Europe-Asia Studies 52.4 (2000): 695–722.
• Watson, Derek. "The Politburo and Foreign Policy in the 1930s." in The Nature of Stalin's Dictatorship (Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2004). 134–167. online

Primary sources

• Molotov, Vyacheslav.
  ISBN 978-1-56663-715-2
  .
• Lih, Lars T. ed. Stalin's Letters to Molotov: 1925–1936 (Yale UP, 1995).^[ISBN missing]
• Pechatnov, Vladimir O. "The Allies are Pressing on you to Break your Will...." in Foreign Policy Correspondence Between Stalin and Molotov and Other Politburo Members (1945): 1–30. online
• External links to books and articles at Google Scholar

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Vyacheslav Molotov.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Vyacheslav Molotov.

• Works by or about Vyacheslav Molotov at Internet Archive
• Annotated bibliography for Vyacheslav Molotov from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues Archived 17 September 2018 at the Wayback Machine
• The Meaning of the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact Molotov speech to the Supreme Soviet on 31 August 1939
• Reaction to German Invasion of 22 June 1941

Political offices
Preceded by Alexey Rykov	Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars 1930–1941	Succeeded by Joseph Stalin
Preceded by Maxim Litvinov	Minister of Foreign Affairs 1939–1949 1953–1956	Succeeded by Andrey Vyshinsky
Preceded by Andrey Vyshinsky		Succeeded by Dmitri Shepilov
Preceded by Vasiliy Pisarev	Soviet Ambassador to Mongolia 1957–1960	Succeeded by Alexei Khvorostukhin
Preceded by Leonid Zamiatin	Soviet Representative to International Atomic Energy Agency 1960–1962	Succeeded by Panteleimon Ponomarenko
Party political offices
Preceded by position created (chairman of revkom)	Secretary of the Communist Party of Donetsk Governorate 1920–1920	Succeeded by Taras Kharchenko Andrei Radchenko
Preceded by Stanislav Kosior (temporary)	First Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine 1920–1921	Succeeded by Feliks Kon (acting)
Preceded by Nikolai Uglanov	Secretary of the Communist Party of Moscow Governorate 1928–1929	Succeeded by Karl Bauman