Vyacheslav
Molotov, the son of middle-class parents, was born in Kukarka, Russia,
on 25th February, 1890. He was sent to Kazan to be educated and while
there met a group of students who introduced him to the ideas of Karl
Marx.
In 1905
joined the Social Democratic Labour Party
and after the 1905 Revolution began to associate
with the Bolshevik faction of the
party. Molotov was soon arrested and sent to Vologda province.
After his
release Molotov left Russia to join other Bolsheviks
living in exile. He met Vladimir Lenin
and it was agreed that he should return to St. Petersburg to organize
the distribution of Zvezda, the
party newspaper. Later Molotov was to become editorial secretary of
Pravda.
The Okhrana
attempted to arrest Molotov in 1913 but he managed to escape and went
into hiding. Several times he came close to being captured and so
he moved to Moscow. However, several police spies had joined the Bolsheviks
in Moscow and Molotov was soon arrested and deported to Irkutsk in
Siberia.
In 1915
Molotov escaped from Siberia and managed to get to Petrograd where
he soon established himself as one of the leaders of the Bolsheviks
in the city. He worked closely with Alexander
Shlyapnikov and together they helped organize the strikes that
resulted in the February Revolution. Molotov
also became a member of the Military Revolutionary Committee that
planned the October Revolution.
In 1921
Molotov was elected to the Central Committee of the Communist
Party and three years later became a member of the Politburo.
After the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924
Molotov switched his support to Joseph Stalin
and played an important role in the launching of the Five
Year Plan.
In 1930
Joseph Stalin appointed Molotov as his
prime minister. When the Jewish
origins of Maxim Litvinov created problems
for Stalin during his negotiations with Germany in 1939, Molotov became
the new Commissar of Foreign Affairs. Soon afterwards Molotov signed
the the Nazi-Soviet Pact.
On
25th September, 1940, the German foreign minister, Joachim
von Ribbentrop sent a telegram to Molotov, informing him that
Germany, Italy and Japan were about to sign a military alliance. Ribbentrop
pointed out that the alliance was to be directed towards the United
States and not the Soviet Union. "Its
exclusive purpose is to bring the elements pressing for America's
entry into the war to their senses by conclusively demonstrating to
them if they enter the present struggle they will automatically have
to deal with the three great powers as adversaries."
Molotov
already knew about the proposed German-Japanese
Pact. Richard Sorge, a German journalist
working in Tokyo, was a Soviet spy and had already told Molotov that
Adolf Hitler was
involved in negotiations with Japan. In Sorge's view, the pact was
directed against the Soviet Union but it was not until December, 1940,
that he was able to send Molotov full details of Operation
Barbarossa.
During
the Second World War Molotov was at Stalin's
side during the conferences held at Teheran
(1943), Yalta (1945) and Potsdam
(1945). He also attended the San Francisco Conference which created
the United Nations.
In 1949
Molotov lost his post when Joseph Stalin
appointed Andrei
Vyshinsky as
his Foreign Minister. After the death of Stalin in 1953 Vyshinsky
was sacked and Molotov returned to his old job.
In June,
1956, Molotov joined the group that unsuccessfully tried to oust Nikita
Khrushchev as the new leader of the Soviet Union. Khrushchev demoted
him to the position of ambassador to Mongolia. He was later denounced
as being involved in the arrest and execution of Lev
Kamenev, Gregory Zinoviev, Nickolai
Bukharin, Alexei
Rykov
and other leading Bolsheviks in the
1930s. In 1964 Molotov was expelled from the party. Vyacheslav Molotov
died in Moscow on 8th November, 1986.
(1)
The Granat Encyclopaedia of the
Russian Revolution was published by the Soviet government in 1924.
The encyclopaedia included a collection of autobiographies and biographies
of over two hundred people involved in the Russian
Revolution. This included a biography of Molotov.
Revolutionary ideas first reached him in Nolinsk in 1905.
It is sufficient to recall that date for it to be clear that the first
revolutionary impression on the soul of the 15-year-old boy occurred
when it had been made soft, receptive and expectant by events. More
eloquently than all conversations and speeches, the students were
affected by the bare news of the railway and then of the general strike,
the activity of the St Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Deputies, the
blazing landowners' estates in Sumara, Saratov, Tambov and Penza provinces,
etc.
(2)
Victor Serge
was a member of the left-wing of the Communist Party. He considered
Vyacheslav Molotov and Joseph Stalin to
be Centerists.
Centerist was our designation of the Stalin tendency (Molotov,
Kaganovich, Mikoyan, Kirov, Uglanov), because its only apparent motive
was the preservation of power, to which end it would resort by turns
to the policies of the Right and of the Left Opposition.
(3)
Nikita Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers
(1971)
Molotov
took the name hammer just as Stalin had taken the name steel, and
Stalin did indeed use Molotov to smash his opposition into submission
and to pound his own power base into shape. On Stalin's behalf Molotov
led the liquidation of the Mensheviks and then, with Voloshilov, went
to Leningrad in 1926 to crush the Zinoviev opposition. In 1931 he
was promoted to take the place of the deposed "rightest"
Rykov as nominal Prime Minister (Chairman of the council of people's
Commissars). in 1939 he surrendered the premiership to Stalin and
become foreign minister when Maxim Litvinov's policy of collective
security was abandoned in favour of Stalin's preparations to make
a deal with Hitler. Molotov's first major act as foreign minister
was to sign a nonaggression and friendship pact with the Nazi opposite
number, Joachim von Ribbentrop.
(4)
Joachim
von Ribbentrop sent this telegram
to Molotov about the proposed German-Japanese
Pact on 25th September, 1940.
This
alliance is directed exclusively against American warmongers. To be
sure that is, as usual, not expressly stated in the treaty, but can
be unmistakably inferred from its terms. Its exclusive purpose is
to bring the elements pressing for America's entry into the war to
their senses by conclusively demonstrating to them if they enter the
present struggle they will automatically have to deal with the three
great powers as adversaries.
(5)
Hugh Dalton,
diary entry (7th September, 1942)
All ministers of Cabinet rank are invited to lunch at the Admiralty,
and the P.M. makes one of his very attractive, intimate and amusing
speeches to his 'pals and comrades'. He recalls our first gathering
just before Dunkirk, and how then all seemed very black and we were
all prepared to give up everything, including life itself as one of
the least things to give up, rather than give in, and how we, by our
united determination to go on to the end, sustained him in those days.
And now, in spite of all, the prospect is immeasurably brighter. He
gave an account, much on the lines that I had heard before, of his
visit to the Middle East and Moscow. He said very frankly that Auchinleck
had become a very dangerous failure and that the spirit of the troops
was not at all good, though he hoped that now it had been improved.
Of Stalin
he said many complimentary things. Also "He is very genial out
of business hours" and this he had appreciated. He thought that
they had got on very well together. The last night, he being due to
catch a plane away at 5 next morning, Stalin asked him, when they
had finished their formal business about 7 p.m., whether he had any
preoccupation that evening. When he said no, Stalin said, "Then
let us go and have some drinks together." They then repaired
to the Kremlin, to Stalin's private apartments, which were conveniently,
but by no means luxuriously, furnished. Stalin then proceeded himself
to draw the corks from a large number of bottles, in the midst of
which process a pretty red-haired girl entered. She kissed Stalin,
who looked to see how Churchill reacted to this. "And I confess",
said the P.M., "that I acquired a quite definite physical impression.
It was Stalin's daughter."Stalin then asked, "Do you mind
if we have Molotov as well?", and added, "There is one thing
you can say in defence of Molotov: he can drink." So Molotov
was allowed in too. Then they had drinks and food and drinks and talk
till 3 a.m., and then the P.M. said that he must go to pack up, as
his plane left at 5. The P.M. is quite convinced that the Russians
will fight on and on until victory. "Even if we and the Americans
were to throw in our hands tomorrow, I am sure that they would go
on."
(6)
Henry
Wallace,
diary (3rd
June, 1942)
At
the USSR embassy I sat beside Molotov, who, I found, was exceedingly
interested in postwar problems. He is very deeply interested in an
enduring peace and realizes that Russia cannot have the enduring peace
which she requires to develop her territory unless there is economic
justice elsewhere in the world (as well as complete and enduring disarmament
of Germany). I told him I thought one of the great problems of the
postwar world was to bring about a rapid industrialization and improvement
in nutrition in India, China, Siberia, and Latin America. He agreed
completely and felt that there was a 50 - or a 100 - year job in developing
these areas and that the job should be done by the United Nations
together. No one nation could do it by itself.
(7)
Guy
Burgess gave information to Harold
Nicolson about a meeting between Ernest
Bevin and Vyacheslav Molotov in 1947. Nicolson wrote about it
in his book Diaries and Letters (1966)
"Now, Mr Molotov,
what is it that you want? What are you after? Do you want to get Austria
behind your Iron Curtain? You can't do that. Do you want Turkey and
the Straits ? You can't have them. Do you want Korea? You can't have
that. You are putting your neck out too far, and one day you will
have it chopped off.. .. You cannot look on me as an enemy of Russia.
Why, when our Government was trying to stamp out your Revolution,
who was it that stopped it? It was I, Ernest Bevin. I called out the
transport workers and they refused to load the ships. Now again I
am speaking to you as a friend... If war comes between you and America
in the East, then we may be able to remain neutral. But if war comes
between you and America in the West, then we shall be on America's
side. Make no mistake about that. That would be the end of Russia
and of your Revolution. So please stop sticking out your neck in this
way and tell me what you are after. What
do you want?"
"I want a unified
Germany," said Molotov.
"Why do you want
that? Do you really believe that a unified Germany would go Communist?
They pretend to. They would say all the right things and repeat all
the correct formulas. But in their hearts they would be longing for
the day when they would revenge their defeat at Stalingrad. You know
that as well as I do."
"Yes," said
Molotov, "I know that. But I still want a unified Germany."
And that was all he could
get out of him.
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