Vyacheslav Molotov

Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov (né Skryabin; 9 March [O.S. 25 February] 1890 – 8 November 1986) was a Soviet politician, diplomat, and revolutionary. He was one of the most prominent figures in the Soviet government during the rule of his close ally, Joseph Stalin. In addition to serving as Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars from 1930 to 1941, he held office as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1939 to 1949 and again from 1953 to 1956. The Molotov cocktail was named for him.

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 premier in 1930, overseeing Stalin's agricultural collectivisation (and resulting famine) and his Great Purge. Following his appointment as Foreign Minister in 1939, he signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany, which led to their joint occupation of Poland and the ensuing annexation of the Baltic states. During World War II, he became deputy chairman of the State Defence Committee as well as Stalin's main negotiator with the Allies. Upon the war's end in 1945, he began to lose favour, losing his ministership in 1948 before being criticised by Stalin at the 19th Party Congress in 1952.

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