Vyacheslav Molotov Quotes

Hitler decided upon the most astonishing political volte-face of the twentieth century.16 In total contravention to everything he had always said about his loathing of Bolshevism, he sent his new Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, to Moscow to negotiate with Josef Stalin’s new Foreign Minister, Vyacheslav Molotov. Placed beside the imperative for Stalin to encourage a war between Germany and the West, and the equal imperative for Hitler to fight a war on only one front rather than two as in the Great War, their Communist and Fascist ideologies subsided in relative importance, and in the early hours of 24 August 1939 a comprehensive Nazi–Soviet non-aggression pact was signed. ‘All the isms have become wasms,’ quipped a British official.

On Saturday, 28 February 1953, Josef Stalin invited four of his senior associates to the Kremlin: Georgy Malenkov, Lavrenty Beria, Nikita Khrushchev, and Nikolai Bulganin.1 During the final six months of his life, Stalin and these four men constituted what was known as the “ruling group” or simply the “Five.” They met regularly in Stalin’s home. The leader’s other old friends—Vyacheslav Molotov, Anastas Mikoyan, and Kliment Voroshilov—were in disgrace, and he did not wish to see them.2 Assembling a small group of supporters to act as his right hand in ruling the country was a key element of Stalin’s modus operandi. He liked to name these groups according to the number of members: the Five (Piaterka), the Six (Shesterka), the Seven (Semerka), the Eight (Vos’merka), the Nine (Deviatka).

In the spring of 1942, at a meeting with Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov, FDR sketched a picture of a postwar world very different from the one envisioned in the Atlantic Charter. This world would be governed not by the ideals of equality and justice but by Great Power politics. The United States, Soviet Union, Great Britain, and China would make up the world’s police force, and smaller countries, having been shorn of all their armaments except rifles, would submit to the police force’s will. Roosevelt continued to champion this idea, even as he simultaneously pushed his vision of an international federation of nations.

Vyacheslav Molotov

His scenario was written in the following sequence: swallow Poland, defeat Western Europe, including England, then turn against the Red enemy in the East. In pursuit of his plan, he dispatched Joachim von Ribbentrop, the German minister of foreign affairs to Moscow to confer with his Soviet counterpart, Vyacheslav M. Molotov. The Germans were insistent in an almost non-diplomatic fashion, as they feared to lose precious time before the onset of fall, with possibly unfavorable weather conditions. On August 23, 1939 Moscow signed a non-aggression pact with Germany. This historic treaty sealed the fate of Poland; it also meant a turning point in my life, in the fate of the province, where I lived, it was the beginning of the unfolding of events never anticipated to happen, it gave Hitler a green light to invade Poland.

(It was said that Vyacheslav Molotov, the Soviet foreign minister, spoke only four words of English: “Yes,” “No,” and “Second front.”) Moscow

When the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov visited Washington in 1942, he’d been invited to sleep at the White House. “I think,” Roosevelt told Churchill in 1942 referring to Stalin, “that if I give him everything I can and ask him for nothing in return, noblesse oblige, he won’t try to annex anything and will work with me for a world of democracy and peace.” The American president clung to that illusion until his death in April 1945.

It’s telling that Vyacheslav Molotov, the Soviet foreign minister, a man not exactly known for his kind and forgiving manner (“I have never seen a human being who more perfectly represented the modern conception of a robot” –Winston Churchill), showed more sympathy for Hamsun than did many Norwegians. When, during a 1944 meeting in Moscow, Molotov suggested that the 85-year-old novelist should be spared the firing squad after the war, the Norwegian justice minister in exile responded, “You are too soft, Mr. Molotov.

The trouble with free elections is that you never know how they are going to turn out.

Stalin's diplomatic crony Vyacheslav Molotov, after whom partisans ironically named Molotov cocktails)

Soviet diplomat Vyacheslav Molotov is thought to be the only man to ever shake hands with Stalin, Lenin, Hitler, Himmler, Goering, Roosevelt, and Churchill and is also the inspiration behind the term Molotov cocktail.

Georgi Malenkov, the heir apparent; Vyacheslav Molotov, the Foreign Minister; Lavrenti Beria, head of the secret police. Nikita Khrushchev,

Even now, Western historians uncritically cling to Soviet accounts of the war. Book after book yet holds to the line that Stalin was surprised by Hitler’s attack. This is part of the legend which invokes Stalin’s innocence – distinguishing the Soviet dictator as Hitler’s victim rather than as Hitler’s partner in aggression. We must question, indeed, which dictator ultimately victimized the other. In his advanced old age Vyacheslav Molotov gave an interview in which he said, “No, Stalin saw through it all. Stalin trusted Hitler? He didn’t trust his own people! … Hitler fooled Stalin? As a result of such deception Hitler had to [shoot and] poison himself, and Stalin became the head of half the world!

Vyacheslav Molotov. But what could Molotov do? The Fascists

Stalin and his premier, Vyacheslav Molotov, approved 3,167 death sentences—and then went to watch a movie.

According to Conquest, two days after Sofia was executed, on December 12, 1937, Stalin and his premier, Vyacheslav Molotov, approved 3,167 death sentences—and then went to watch a movie. Not all the executions were approved at such a high level; on a day in October, the secret police chief, Nikolai Yezhov, and another official considered 551 names and sentenced every one of them to be shot.