Vyacheslav Molotov

ABOUT VYACHESLAV MOLOTOV

Russian politician and diplomat who authorized the Soviet invasion of Finland in the year 1939. Finnish fighters used explosives made from bottles filled with tar, ethanol, and gasoline and called them "Molotov cocktails." This led to the common adoption of the term.

In the year 1906, he joined the Bolshevik faction of the Social Democratic Party. He wrote for the Bolshevik journal Zvezda and co-founded the Bolshevik newspaper Pravda with Joseph Stalin .

In the year 1930, Stalin appointed him as his prime minister. He later became Commissar of Foreign Affairs. In June of 1956, he joined a group that unsuccessfully tried to oust Nikita Khrushchev as the leader of the Soviet Union.

In the year 1920, he married Polina Zhemchuzhina. They had two children.

He was played by actor Michael Palin in the 2017 film The Death of Stalin.