Vyacheslav Molotov

Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov (Russian: ????????? ??????????? ????????) (February 25, 1890 (O.S.) (March 9, 1890 (N.S.))–November 8, 1986), Soviet politician and diplomat, was a leading figure in the Soviet government from the 1920s, when he rose to power as a protege of Joseph Stalin, to the 1950s, when he was dismissed from office by Nikita Khrushchev. He was the principal Soviet signatory of the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact of 1939.

Prime Minister

When Bukharin's ally Alexei Rykov was removed as Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (Prime Minister) in 1930, Molotov succeeded him. In this post he oversaw the Stalin regime's greatest social revolution, the collectivisation of agriculture. Molotov carried out Stalin's line of using the maximum force to crush peasant resistance to collectivisation, including the deportation of millions of kulaks (peasants with property) to labour camps, where most of them died. He personally led the Extraordinary Commission for Grain Delivery in Ukraine, which seized a reported 4.2 million tonnes of grain from the peasants, leaving them to starve. Contemporary historians estimate that between four and six million Russians and Ukrainians died (either of starvation or in labour camps) in the move to collectivise farms. Molotov also oversaw the implementation of the first Five-Year Plan for crash industrialisation.

Related Topics:
Alexei Rykov - 1930 - Collectivisation of agriculture - Kulaks - Five-Year Plan

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The assassination of Sergei Kirov in 1934 (an action now believed by many historians to have been ordered by Stalin) triggered a second crisis, the Great Purge, which gathered pace through 1935 and 1936 and culminated in 1937-38 in the trial and execution (see Moscow Trials) of most of the pre-Stalin Bolshevik leaders on fabricated charges of treason and espionage, and the execution or deportation to labour camps of millions more people. Although the purges were carried out by Stalin's successive police chiefs Genrikh Yagoda, Nikolai Yezhov and Lavrenty Beria, Molotov as Prime Minister was deeply involved. Stalin frequently required him and other Politburo members to sign the death warrants of prominent purge victims, and Molotov always did so without question. There is no record that, unlike some other leaders, he ever attempted to moderate the course of the purges or even to save individuals.

Related Topics:
1934 - Great Purge - 1935 - 1936 - 1937 - 38 - Moscow Trials - Genrikh Yagoda - Nikolai Yezhov - Lavrenty Beria

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Despite the turmoil, the Soviet Union under Molotov's prime ministership made great progress in industrial development, although the command economy methods used meant that this came at great human cost. The rise of Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany gave the development of a modern armaments industry great urgency, and Molotov and industry commissar, Kaganovich, were primarily responsible for guiding this success. Ultimately it was this arms industry which enabled the Soviet Union to prevail in World War II. However, the purges of the Red Army leadership, in which Molotov participated, gravely weakened the Soviet Union's defence capacity and led directly to the military disasters of 1941 and 1942. In the longer run, the destruction of the peasantry and its replacement by collectivised agriculture left a legacy of chronic agricultural under-production which the Soviet regime never solved.

Related Topics:
Command economy - Adolf Hitler - Nazi Germany - World War II - Red Army - 1941 - 1942

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Following the purges Molotov was generally regarded as Stalin's deputy, and as his long-term successor, although Molotov was careful not to encourage any such suggestion. The American journalist John Gunther wrote in 1938: "Molotov has a fine forehead, and looks and acts like a French professor of medicine - orderly, precise, pedantic. He is... a man of first-rate intelligence and influence. Molotov is a vegetarian and a teetotaller. Stalin gives him much of the dirty work to do."

Related Topics:
John Gunther - 1938

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