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Molotov: Soviet Union
built 640 days ago
In May 1939 Molotov became the new people's commissar for foreign affairs (foreign minister) while keeping his position as head of government. He was instrumental in negotiating the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact (... known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact), which was signed in August 1939, a few days before the outbreak of World War II. Stalin himself replaced Molotov as premier in 1941, although Molotov served as vice-premier until 1957. As foreign minister, Molotov represented the USSR at postwar conferences with the Allied Powers in Yalta and Potsdam.
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Following Stalin's death in 1953, Molotov found himself at odds with the reformist policies of Stalin's eventual successor, Nikita Khrushchev, and was strongly opposed to Khrushchev's 1956 denunciation of Stalin. In 1957, along with other top Stalinists such as Lazar Kaganovich, he attempted a coup within the party to oust Khrushchev. When this failed, it provided Khrushchev with a pretext to demote Molotov to a series of increasingly irrelevant posts: first as Ambassador to Mongolia (1957 - 1960) and then as the permanent Soviet delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna (1960 - 1961). By 1964, he had been expelled from the party altogether.
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In 1930 Molotov's work was rewarded with his appointment as chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (that is, prime minister) of the Soviet Union. He held this post for over a decade, adding the foreign affairs post in 1939. In the latter post he acquired an international reputation, first negotiating the infamous Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939 but later serving as Stalin's top representative at the various wartime conferences: Teheran (1943), Yalta (1945), and Potsdam (1945), and at the founding conference of the United Nations in 1945.
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When Stalin died, Molotov became General Secretary of the Soviet Union, a position he held when the Colonization Fleet arrived. He served in that capacity for many years, despite a 1963 NKVD chief Lavrenti Beria attempted a coup against him, and Molotov was saved only by Red Army Marshal Georgy Zhukov. For several years, he was indebted to Zhukov and often felt he continued to serve as General Secretary only at the general's sufferance.
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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.
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Molotov ... attended Big Five meetings in London, met Adolf Hitler at Berchtesgadden, attended an Anglo-American-Soviet summit in New York City, and held a clandestine meeting with Joachim von Ribbentrop in the North Sea. As vice-chairman of the War Commisariat, he also played a role in the planning of the USSR's domestic strategy in resisting the Race within its own territory.
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