Vyacheslav Molotov

Vyacheslav Molotov
Вячеслав Молотов
Molotov in 1945
Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union
In office 19 December 1930 – 6 May 1941
First Deputy	Valerian Kuybyshev Nikolai Voznesensky
Preceded by	Alexei Rykov
Succeeded by	Joseph Stalin
Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union[a]
In office 5 March 1953 – 1 June 1956
Premier	Georgy Malenkov Nikolai Bulganin
Preceded by	Andrey Vyshinsky
Succeeded by	Dmitri Shepilov
In office 3 May 1939 – 4 March 1949
Premier	Himself (1939–1941) Joseph Stalin (1941–1949)
Preceded by	Maxim Litvinov
Succeeded by	Andrey Vyshinsky
First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union[b]
In office 16 August 1942 – 29 June 1957
Premier	Joseph Stalin Georgy Malenkov Nikolai Bulganin
Responsible Secretary of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)
In office 16 March 1921 – 3 April 1922
Preceded by	Nikolay Krestinsky
Succeeded by	Joseph Stalin (as General Secretary)
Personal details
Born	Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Skryabin (1890-03-09)9 March 1890 Kukarka, Russian Empire (present day Sovetsk, Kirov Oblast, Russia)
Died	8 November 1986(1986-11-08) (aged 96) Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Resting place	Novodevichy Cemetery, Moscow
Political party	RSDLP (1906–1912) CPSU (1912–1961)
Spouse	Polina Zhemchuzhina ​ ​ (m. 1920; died 1970)​
Relatives	Vyacheslav Nikonov (grandson)
Awards	Order of the Badge of Honour
Signature
Central institution membership 1926–1957: Full member, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th Politburo & 19th, 20th Presidium of CPSU 1921–1926: Candidate member, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th Politburo of CPSU 1921–1930: Full member, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th Secretariat of AUCP(b) 1921–1930: Full member, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th Orgburo of CPSU Other offices held 1920–1921: First Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine 1941–1944: Deputy Chairman, State Defense Committee of the Soviet Union 1957–1960: Ambassador of the Soviet Union to Mongolia 1960–1961: Representative of the Soviet Union to the International Atomic Energy Agency

Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov^[c] (né Skryabin;^[d] 9 March [O. S. 25 February] 1890 – 8 November 1986) was a Soviet politician and diplomat who was a leading figure in the Soviet government as a close ally of Joseph Stalin. He served as Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (head of government) from 1930 to 1941, and as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1939 to 1949 and again from 1953 to 1956.

An Old Bolshevik, Molotov joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1906 and was arrested and internally exiled twice before the October Revolution of 1917. He briefly headed the party's Secretariat before supporting Stalin's rise to power in the 1920s, becoming one of his closest associates. Molotov was made a full member of the Politburo in 1926 and became premier in 1930, overseeing Stalin's agricultural collectivization (and resulting famine) and his Great Purge. As foreign minister from 1939, Molotov signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany, and during the Second World War was deputy chairman of the State Defense Committee and Stalin's main negotiator with the Allies. After the war, he began to lose favour, losing his ministership in 1948 before being criticized by Stalin at the 19th Party Congress in 1952.

Molotov was reappointed foreign minister after Stalin's death in 1953, but his staunch opposition to leader Nikita Khrushchev's de-Stalinization policy led him to join a failed coup against Khrushchev in 1957, after which he was dismissed from all of his positions. Molotov was sent to Mongolia as an ambassador before being expelled from the party in 1961. He continued to defend Stalin's legacy until his own death in 1986.
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