Molotov was one of the few Bolsheviks of the first draft who managed to survive the era of Stalinist repression and remain in power. He held a variety of leading government posts in the 1920-1950s.
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, printed in newspapers. He used the pseudonym Molotov for the first time in a small pamphlet on the development of the Soviet economy, and since then has not parted with it anymore.
The future revolutionary was born into a petty bourgeois family living in the settlement of Kukhark in the Vyatka province. His father was a fairly wealthy man and was able to give his children a good education. Vyacheslav Molotov studied at a real school in Kazan. The years of his youth brought the first Russian revolution, 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 legal newspaper of the party called “Pravda”. Scriabin was brought there by his friend Viktor Tikhomirov, who came from a merchant family and financed the publication of socialists at his own expense. The real name of Vyacheslav Molotov ceased to be mentioned 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 of the famous Bolsheviks, was in Russia. The main persons of the party have 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 entered the executive committee of the Council 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 senior comrades in both oratory and revolutionary courage. But he also had advantages: diligence, diligence and technical education. Therefore, during the years of the Civil War, Molotov was mainly engaged in “field” work in the provinces - he organized the work of local councils and communes.
In 1921, a second-tier party member was lucky to get into the new central authority - 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 whole future fate.
Stalin's right hand
In 1922, Stalin was elected Secretary General of the Central Committee. Since then, the young V. M. Molotov became his protege. He proved his loyalty by participating in all combinations and intrigues of Stalin both in recent Leninist years and after the death of the leader of the world proletariat. Molotov really turned out to be 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 the funeral of Lenin in 1924, Molotov carried his coffin, which was a sign of his apparatus weight. From that moment on, the party began an internal struggle. The format of "collective power" did not last long. Three people advanced for leadership - Stalin, Trotsky and Zinoviev. Molotov was always a protege and a close associate of the first. Therefore, according to the drifting course of the Secretary-General, he actively spoke in the Central Committee first against the "Trotskyist" and then the "Zinoviev" opposition.
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. Then 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 in honorable exile, and then completely left the USSR.
Molotov was a conductor of the Stalinist course in the Moscow City Party Committee. He regularly opposed one of the leaders of the so-called right-wing opposition, Nikolai Uglanov, who, in the end, was stripped of his position as first secretary of the MGK. In 1928–1929 a member of the Politburo himself took this place. During these several months, Molotov carried out demonstrative purges in the Moscow apparatus. From there, all opponents of Stalin were fired. However, the repressions of that period were relatively mild - they hadn’t shot anyone yet or sent to camps.
Collectivization guide
Thundering their opponents, Stalin and Molotov by the beginning of the 1930s secured Koba’s sole power. The Secretary General appreciated the dedication and diligence of his right hand. In 1930, after Rykov's resignation, 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 of Molotov, he again often goes on business trips all over 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 came to riots. The Soviet leadership, or rather, Stalin single-handedly, decided to arrange a “big leap” - a sharp start to the industrialization of the backward economy of the country. For this, money was needed. They were taken through the sale of grain abroad. To get it, the authorities began to requisition the entire crop from the peasantry. Vyacheslav Molotov was also engaged in approximately this. The biography of this functionary in the 1930s was filled with various ominous and controversial episodes. The first such campaign was an attack on the Ukrainian peasantry.
Ineffective collective farms could not cope with the mission assigned to them in the form of the first five-year plans for grain procurement. When bleak harvest reports for 1932 arrived in Moscow, the Kremlin decided to arrange another wave of repression, this time not only against the kulaks, but also local party organizers who could not cope with their work. But even these measures did not save Ukraine from hunger.
Second person in the state
After the campaign to destroy the fists, a new attack began, in which Molotov took part. The USSR since its inception was an authoritarian state. Stalin, in many respects, thanks to his close associates, got rid of numerous oppositionists in the Bolshevik party itself. The functionaries who were in disgrace were expelled from Moscow, received secondary posts on the outskirts of the country.
But after the assassination of Kirov in 1934, Stalin decided to use this case as a pretext for the physical destruction of the objectionable. Preparations for demonstration vessels began. In 1936, a process 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 usual conformism, opposed the court. Then he almost became a victim of repression. Stalin knew how to keep his supporters in check. 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 World War II, out of 25 people's commissars who worked in the SNK in 1935, only Voroshilov, Mikoyan, Litvinov, Kaganovich and Molotov Vyacheslav Mikhailovich himself survived. Nationality, professionalism, personal loyalty to the leader - all this has lost any meaning. Everyone could get under the NKVD rink. In 1937, the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars delivered a denunciatory speech at one of the Central Committee Plenums in which he called for toughening the fight against enemies of the people and spies.
It was Molotov who initiated the reform, after which the “troika” received the right to judge the suspects not by themselves, but by whole lists. This was done in order to facilitate the work of organs. The heyday of the repression 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. He also affected ordinary citizens of the USSR. But Stalin first of all personally oversaw the high-ranking “Trotskyists”, Japanese spies and other traitors to the homeland. Following the leader, the consideration of those who fell into disgrace was dealt with by his chief close associate. In the 1930s, Molotov was actually the second person in the state. The official celebration of his 50th anniversary 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.
People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs
Since Molotov ended up in the Politburo, he has been involved in foreign policy as a top Soviet official. The chairman of the Council of People's Commissars and the People's Commissar for Foreign 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 the People's Commissar of 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 the dismissal of Litvinov? It is believed that Molotov in this capacity was more convenient for the Secretary-General, since he was a supporter of rapprochement with Germany. In addition, after Scriabin took over as People's Commissar, a new wave of repressions began in his department, which allowed Stalin to get rid of diplomats who did not support his foreign policy.
When in Berlin it became known about the removal of Litvinov, Hitler instructed his wards to find out what the new mood in Moscow was. In the spring of 1939, Stalin still doubted, 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 conducted only by Stalin and Molotov. They did not disclose their intentions to the other members of the Politburo, which, for example, confused Voroshilov, who at the same time oversaw 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 core document also included additional secret protocols. According to their provisions, the Soviet Union and Germany divided Eastern Europe into spheres of influence. This arrangement allowed Stalin to start a war against Finland, annex the Baltic states, Moldova and part of Poland. How big is the contribution Molotov made to these agreements? The non-aggression pact was named after him, but, of course, it was Stalin who made all the key decisions. His commissar was only the executor of the will of the leader. In the next two years, until the outbreak of World War II, Molotov dealt mainly with foreign policy.
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 importance to these reports, since he was afraid of disgrace from Stalin. The leader put the same intelligence messages on the 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 him who Stalin instructed to deliver the famous speech, which was broadcast on the radio on the day of the Wehrmacht attack. During the war, Molotov performed mainly diplomatic functions. He was also Stalin's deputy on the State Defense Committee. The People's Commissar only once appeared at the front when he was sent to investigate the circumstances of a crushing defeat in the Vyazemsky operation in the fall of 1941.
In disgrace
Even on the eve of World War II, Stalin himself replaced Molotov as chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. When, finally, peace came, the People's Commissar remained in his post responsible for foreign policy. He attended the first meetings of the United Nations, 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 Jewish by birth and was an important person in the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. Just after the war in the USSR, an anti-Semitic campaign began, 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 began to often replace Stalin, who began to hurt. However, already in the spring, the functionary was deprived of his post as people's commissar. At the XIX Party Congress, Stalin did not include him in the updated 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 upper ranks was coming in the country, similar to that which had already shaken the USSR in the 1930s. Now Molotov was one of the first contenders for execution. According to Khrushchev’s recollections, Stalin once spoke aloud to him about his suspicions that the former foreign people's commissar was recruited by enemy Western intelligence during his diplomatic trips to the United States.
After the death of Stalin
Molotov was saved only by the unexpected death of Stalin on March 5, 1953 . His departure from life was a shock not only for the country, but also for his immediate environment. By this time, Stalin had become a deity whose death was hard to believe. There were rumors among the people that Molotov could replace the leader as the head of state. Affected by his fame, as well as many years of work in senior positions.
But Molotov once again did not aspire to leadership. The "collective power" again appointed him Minister of Foreign Affairs. Molotov supported Khrushchev and his entourage during the attack on Beria and Malenkov. However, the emerging alliance did not last long. In the party elite, disputes over the foreign policy course constantly arose. Particularly acute was the issue of relations with Yugoslavia. In addition, Molotov and Voroshilov objected to Khrushchev about his decisions on the development of virgin lands. The time has passed when there was only one leader in the country. Khrushchev, of course, did not possess even a tenth of the power that Stalin had. The lack of hardware weight in the end led to his resignation.
But even earlier, Molotov said goodbye to his leadership post. In 1957, he teamed up with Kaganovich and Malenkov in the so-called anti-party group. The aim of the attack was Khrushchev, who was planned to be dismissed. However, the party majority managed to fail the group’s vote. The revenge of the system followed. Molotov lost his post as Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Last years
After 1957, Molotov held minor government posts. For example, he was the ambassador of the USSR in Mongolia. After criticizing the decisions of the XXII Congress, he was expelled from the party and sent to retirement. Molotov remained active until his last days. As a private person, he wrote and published books and articles. In 1984, already a deep old man was able to achieve restoration in the Communist Party.
In the 1980s, the poet Felix Chuev published notes of his conversations with the mastodon of Soviet politics. And, for example, the grandson of Vyacheslav Molotov, the political scientist Vyacheslav Nikonov, became the author of detailed memoirs and studies on the biography of the Soviet functionary. The former second man in the state died in 1986 at the age of 96.