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Military-Revolutionary Committee, Molotov was
involved in the organizational aspects of the
insurrection in Petrograd that brought the
BOL
-
SHEVIKS
to power. He spent most of the civil war
engaged in party organizational work, and in
1920 he was appointed head of the
COMMUNIST
PARTY
in Ukraine, a position he held until 1925.
During these years Molotov began his rise
through the party ranks, with the help of Stalin.
A member of the Central Committee since 1921,
he entered the Politburo in 1925. In the follow-
ing decades he held numerous posts of growing
importance, but he is perhaps best known for his
efforts as commissar for foreign affairs, to which
he was appointed in May 1939, succeeding
Maxim Litvinov. Molotov's appointment signaled
an important change in Soviet foreign policy
which culminated with the signing of the pact
with Nazi Germany that bears his name, the
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, in August 1939. Oth-
erwise known as the
NAZI
-
SOVIET PACT
, this
nonaggression agreement between two ideolog-
ical enemies shocked the world and set the stage
for World War II after Germany felt free to attack
Poland when the USSR indicated it would not
object. Molotov was at Stalin's side during all the
wartime conferences with the United States and
Great Britain. Even after his wife, who was Jew-
ish, was sent to a labor camp, Molotov remained
Stalin's loyal aide, a bizarre sign of the mixed
devotion and fear that Stalin inspired in his inner
circle. In 1949 Molotov was replaced as foreign
minister by Andrei
VYSHINSKY
, but he regained his
position in March 1953 after Stalin's death.
Molotov supported Khrushchev against
BERIA
in
the early maneuverings that followed Stalin's
death, but his influence declined as Khrushchev
pursued a more reformist path. In 1957, after he
was replaced by Andrei
GROMYKO
as foreign min-
ister, Molotov joined other old-guard Stalinists
such as
KAGANOVICH
and
MALENKOV
in the anti-
Khrushchev opposition known as the
ANTI
-
PARTY
GROUP
. In defeat, unlike the others he refused to
acknowledge any mistakes but was nevertheless
demoted to serve as Soviet ambassador to the
People's Republic of Mongolia. He later also
Vyacheslav Molotov
(Library of Congress)
served as Soviet representative to the Interna-
tional Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. In 1964,
during one of Khrushchev's periodic de-Stalin-
ization campaigns, he was expelled from the
Communist Party. Twenty years later, with the
conservative Konstantin
CHERNENKO
briefly in
power, Molotov was readmitted to the party. He
died in obscurity in the village of Peredelkino
outside Moscow.
Mongol conquest
Mongol armies first appeared on the eastern
banks of the Volga River in 1236, after conquer-
ing China, Central Asia, Iran, and Transcaucasia
over the previous three decades. Their leader
was
BATU KHAN
, grandson of Genghis (Chinggis)
Khan. Batu Khan, who already ruled the steppes
to the north of the Aral Sea and Lake Balkhash,
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