Molotov was one of the few Bolsheviks of the first draft who managed to survive the era of Stalinist repression and stay in power. He held a variety of senior government positions in the 1920s-1950s.
Early years
Vyacheslav Molotov was born on March 9, 1890. His real name is Scriabin. Molotov is a party pseudonym. In his youth, the Bolshevik used a variety of surnames, published in newspapers. He used the pseudonym Molotov for the first time in a small brochure on the development of the Soviet economy, and since then he has not parted with him anymore.
The future revolutionary was born into a petty-bourgeois family who lived in the Kuharka settlement in the Vyatka province. His father was quite a we althy man and was able to give his children a good education. Vyacheslav Molotov studied at a real school in Kazan. The first Russian revolution fell on the years of his youth, which, of course, could not but affect the views of the young man. The student joined the Bolshevik youth group in 1906. In 1909 he was arrested and exiled to Vologda. After his release, Vyacheslav Molotov moved to St. Petersburg. In the capital, he began to work in the first legalparty newspaper called Pravda. Scriabin was brought there by his friend Viktor Tikhomirnov, who came from a merchant family and financed the publication of the Socialists at his own expense. The real name of Vyacheslav Molotov ceased to be mentioned just then. The revolutionary finally connected his life with the party.
Revolution and civil war
By the beginning of the February Revolution, Vyacheslav Molotov, unlike most famous Bolsheviks, was in Russia. The main persons of the party had been in exile for many years. Therefore, in the first months of 1917, Molotov Vyacheslav Mikhailovich had a lot of weight in Petrograd. He remained the editor of Pravda and even joined the executive committee of the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.
When Lenin and other leaders of the RSDLP(b) returned to Russia, the young functionary faded into the background and temporarily ceased to be noticeable. Molotov was inferior to his older comrades both in oratory and in revolutionary courage. But he also had advantages: diligence, diligence and technical education. Therefore, during the years of the civil war, Molotov was mainly on the "field" work in the provinces - he organized the work of local councils and communes.
In 1921, the party member of the second echelon was lucky to get into the new central body - the secretariat. Here Molotov Vyacheslav Mikhailovich plunged into bureaucratic work, finding himself in his element. In addition, in the secretariat of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) he became a colleague of Stalin, which predetermined his entire future fate.
Stalin's right hand
In 1922, Stalin was elected General Secretary of the Central Committee. Since then, the young V. M. Molotov became his protégé. He proved his loy alty by participating in all the combinations and intrigues of Stalin both in the last Lenin years and after the death of the leader of the world proletariat. Molotov really was in his place. By nature, he was never a leader, but he was distinguished by bureaucratic diligence, which helped him in countless clerical work in the Central Committee.
At Lenin's funeral in 1924, Molotov carried his coffin, which was a sign of his apparatus weight. From that moment on, an internal struggle began in the party. The format of "collective power" did not last long. Three people came forward claiming leadership - Stalin, Trotsky and Zinoviev. Molotov has always been a protege and close associate of the first. Therefore, according to the drifting course of the General Secretary, he actively spoke in the Central Committee, first against the "Trotskyist" and then the "Zinoviev" opposition.
On January 1, 1926, V. M. Molotov became a member of the Politburo, the governing body of the Central Committee, which included the most influential people in the party. At the same time, the final defeat of Stalin's opponents took place. On the day of the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution, attacks on Trotsky's supporters took place. Soon he was exiled to Kazakhstan for honorary exile, and then left the USSR altogether.
Molotov was the conductor of the Stalinist course in the Moscow City Party Committee. He regularly opposed Nikolai Uglanov, one of the leaders of the so-called right-wing opposition, whom he eventually stripped of his post as first secretary of the Moscow City Committee. AT1928–1929 a member of the Politburo himself held this position. During these few months, Molotov carried out demonstrative purges in the Moscow apparatus. All Stalin's opponents were fired from there. However, the repressions of that period were relatively mild - no one had yet been shot or sent to camps.
Collectivization conductor
Destroying their opponents, Stalin and Molotov by the beginning of the 1930s ensured the sole power of Koba. The Secretary General appreciated the devotion and diligence of his right hand. In 1930, after the resignation of Rykov, the post of chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR was vacant. This place was taken by Molotov Vyacheslav Mikhailovich. In short, he became the head of the Soviet government, holding this post until 1941.
With the beginning of collectivization in the village, Molotov again often goes on business trips throughout the country. He led the defeat of the kulaks in Ukraine. The state demanded all peasant bread, which led to resistance in the village. In the western regions it came to riots. The Soviet leadership, or rather, Stalin alone, decided to make a "big leap" - a sharp start in the industrialization of the country's backward economy. For this, money was needed. They were taken by selling grain abroad. To get it, the authorities began to requisition the entire crop from the peasantry. Vyacheslav Molotov also did something like this. The biography of this functionary in the 1930s was filled with various sinister and ambiguous episodes. The first such campaign was an attack on the Ukrainian peasantry.
Inefficient collective farms could not cope with the mission entrusted to them in the form of the first five-year plans for grain procurement. When the gloomy harvest reports for 1932 arrived in Moscow, the Kremlin decided to stage another wave of repression, this time not only against the kulaks, but also against local party organizers who had failed in their work. But even these measures did not save Ukraine from starvation.
Second person in the state
After the campaign to destroy the kulaks, a new attack began, in which Molotov took part. The USSR has been an authoritarian state since its inception. Stalin, largely thanks to his close associates, got rid of numerous oppositionists in the Bolshevik Party itself. The functionaries who found themselves in disgrace were expelled from Moscow and received secondary positions on the outskirts of the country.
But after the assassination of Kirov in 1934, Stalin decided to use this opportunity as a pretext for the physical destruction of the objectionable. Preparations for show trials began. In 1936, a trial was organized against Kamenev and Zinoviev. The founders of the Bolshevik Party were accused of participating in a counter-revolutionary Trotskyist organization. It was a well-planned propaganda story. Molotov, despite his habitual conformity, spoke out against the trial. Then he himself almost became a victim of repression. Stalin knew how to keep his supporters in line. After this episode, Molotov never again tried to resist the unfolding wave of terror. On the contrary, he became an active participant in it.
By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, of the 25 people's commissars who worked in the Council of People's Commissars in 1935, only Voroshilov, Mikoyan, Litvinov, Kaganovich and Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov himself survived. Nationality, professionalism, personal loy alty to the leader - all this has lost any meaning. Everyone could get under the NKVD skating rink. In 1937, the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars made a diatribe at one of the Plenums of the Central Committee, in which he called for a tougher fight against enemies of the people and spies.
It was Molotov who initiated the reform, after which the "troikas" got the right to try the suspects not separately, but in whole lists. This was done in order to facilitate the work of the organs. The heyday of repressions came in 1937-1938, when the NKVD and the courts simply could not cope with the flow of the accused. Terror unfolded not only at the top of the party. It also affected ordinary citizens of the USSR. But Stalin, first of all, personally supervised high-ranking "Trotskyists", Japanese spies and other traitors to the motherland. Following the leader, his chief entourage de alt with the cases of those who fell into disgrace. In the 1930s, Molotov was actually the second person in the state. The official celebration of his 50th birthday in 1940 was indicative. Then the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars not only received numerous state awards. In honor of him, the city of Perm was renamed Molotov.
Commissar for Foreign Affairs
Since Molotov was in the Politburo, he, as the highest Soviet official, has been involved in foreign policy. Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars and People's CommissarForeign Affairs of the USSR Maxim Litvinov often disagreed on issues of relations with Western countries, etc. In 1939 there was a castling. Litvinov left his post, and Molotov became People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs. Stalin appointed him just at the moment when foreign policy again became the determining factor for the life of the whole country.
What led to Litvinov's dismissal? It is believed that Molotov in this capacity was more convenient for the General Secretary, since he was a supporter of rapprochement with Germany. In addition, after Scriabin took over as People's Commissar, a new wave of repression began in his department, which allowed Stalin to get rid of diplomats who did not support his foreign policy.
When news of Litvinov's removal became known in Berlin, Hitler instructed his charges to find out what the new mood was in Moscow. In the spring of 1939, Stalin still had doubts, but already in the summer he finally decided that it was worth trying to find a common language with the Third Reich, and not England or France. On August 23 of the same year, German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop flew to Moscow. Negotiations with him were only Stalin and Molotov. They did not communicate their intentions to the other members of the Politburo, which, for example, confused Voroshilov, who at the same time was in charge of relations with France and England. The result of the arrival of the German delegation was the famous non-aggression pact. It is also known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, although, of course, this name began to be used much later than the events described.
The main document also included additionalsecret protocols. According to their provisions, the Soviet Union and Germany divided Eastern Europe into spheres of influence. This agreement allowed Stalin to start a war against Finland, annex the B altic States, Moldova and part of Poland. How big is the contribution that Molotov made to these agreements? The non-aggression pact is named after him, but, of course, it was Stalin who made all the key decisions. His People's Commissar was only an executor of the will of the leader. In the next two years, until the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, Molotov was mainly engaged in foreign policy only.
The Great Patriotic War
Through his diplomatic channels, Molotov received information about the preparation of the Third Reich for war with the Soviet Union. But he did not attach any importance to these messages, as he was afraid of disgrace from Stalin. The same intelligence messages were placed on the leader's table, but they did not shake his belief that Hitler would not dare to attack the USSR.
Therefore, it is not surprising that on June 22, 1941, Molotov, following his boss, was deeply shocked by the news of the declaration of war. But it was he who Stalin instructed to make the famous speech, which was broadcast on the radio on the day of the attack by the Wehrmacht. During the war, Molotov performed mainly diplomatic functions. He was also Stalin's deputy in the State Defense Committee. The People's Commissar was at the front only once, when he was sent to investigate the circumstances of the crushing defeat in the Vyazemsky operation in the fall of 1941.
In disgrace
On the eve of the GreatDuring the Patriotic War, Stalin himself replaced Molotov as chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. When peace finally came, the people's commissar remained in his position in charge of foreign policy. He participated in the first meetings of the UN, and therefore often traveled to the United States. Outwardly, for Molotov, everything looked safe. However, in 1949 his wife Polina Zhemchuzhina was arrested. She was of Jewish origin and was an important person in the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. Just after the war, an anti-Semitic campaign began in the USSR, initiated by Stalin himself. The pearl naturally fell into her millstones. For Molotov, the arrest of his wife became a black mark.
Since 1949, he often began to replace Stalin, who began to get sick. However, already in the same spring, the functionary was deprived of his post as people's commissar. At the 19th Party Congress, Stalin did not include him in the renewed Presidium of the Central Committee. The party began to look at Molotov as a doomed man. All signs indicated that a new purge of the top was coming in the country, similar to the one that had already shaken the USSR in the 1930s. Now Molotov was one of the first contenders for execution. According to Khrushchev's memoirs, Stalin once spoke aloud in his presence about his suspicions that the former People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs was recruited by enemy Western intelligence during his diplomatic trips to the United States.
After Stalin's death
Molotov was saved only by Stalin's unexpected death on March 5, 1953. His death was a shock not only for the country, but also for his inner circle. By this time, Stalin had become a deity, in whose deathit was hard to believe. There were rumors among the people that Molotov could replace the leader as head of state. His fame, as well as many years of work in senior positions, affected.
But Molotov once again did not claim leadership. "Collective power" again appointed him Minister of Foreign Affairs. Molotov supported Khrushchev and his entourage during the attack on Beria and Malenkov. However, the resulting union did not last long. At the top of the party there were constant disputes about foreign policy. The issue of relations with Yugoslavia was especially acute. In addition, Molotov and Voroshilov expressed objections to Khrushchev about his decisions to develop virgin lands. Gone are the days when there was only one leader in the country. Khrushchev, of course, did not possess even a tenth of the power that Stalin had. Lack of hardware weight eventually led to his resignation.
But even earlier, Molotov said goodbye to his leadership position. In 1957, he teamed up with Kaganovich and Malenkov in the so-called anti-party group. The target of the attack was Khrushchev, who was planned to be dismissed. However, the party majority managed to defeat the group's vote. The revenge of the system followed. Molotov lost his post as foreign minister.
Recent years
After 1957, Molotov held minor government positions. For example, he was the USSR ambassador to Mongolia. After criticizing the decisions of the XXII Congress, he was expelled from the party and sent into retirement. Molotov remainedactive until his last days. As a private individual, he wrote and published books and articles. In 1984, already a very old man was able to achieve restoration in the CPSU.
In the 1980s, the poet Felix Chuev published recordings of his conversations with the mastodon of Soviet politics. And, for example, the grandson of Vyacheslav Molotov, political scientist Vyacheslav Nikonov, became the author of detailed memoirs and studies on the biography of the Soviet functionary. The former second person in the state died in 1986 at the age of 96.
