Molotov, Viacheslav Mikhailovich

Molotov, Viacheslav Mikhailovich

 

(pseudonym of V. M. Skriabin). Born Feb. 25 (Mar. 9), 1890, in the village of Kukarka (now Sovetsk, Kirov Oblast). Soviet politician.

The son of an estate steward, Molotov studied at St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute (1911–12). He joined the Communist Party in 1906 and did party work in Kazan, Vologda Province, and St. Petersburg. He was subjected to repressive measures by tsarist authorities. During the February Revolution of 1917, Molotov was a member of the Russian Bureau of the Central Committee, and during the October Armed Uprising in Petrograd, a member of the Military Revolutionary Committee. Subsequently, he held leading posts in Soviet and party organizations. In 1919 he became chairman of the Nizhny Novgorod Provincial Executive Committee and secretary of the Donets Provincial Committee of the RCP (Bolshevik), and in 1920 he was secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of the Ukraine.

Molotov was secretary of the Central Committee of the ACP(B) from 1921 to 1930, chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR from 1930 to 1941, and from May 1939, commissar for foreign affairs. From 1941 to 1957 he was first deputy chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars (subsequently, the Council of Ministers). During the same period he was people’s commissar for foreign affairs (subsequently, minister of foreign affairs, 1941–49, 1953–57). From 1921 he was a candidate member and from 1926 to 1952 a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the ACP(B). During the Great Patriotic War (1941–45) he was deputy chairman of the State Defense Committee. He was a participant in the Tehran (1943), Yalta (Crimean, 1945), and Potsdam (1945) conferences of the heads of state of the three Allied powers (the USSR, the USA, and Great Britain).

From 1952 to 1957, Molotov was a member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU. He was a member of the All-Union Central Executive Committee and the Central Executive Committee of the USSR and a deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. From 1957 to 1960 he was the Soviet ambassador to the Mongolian People’s Republic, and from 1960 to 1962 he headed the Soviet delegation to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. He has been on a pension since 1962.