He was Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union from 1939-1949 and 1953-1956.
Molotov was born in 1890 in the city of Sovietsk, Kirov Oblast. He came from a middle-class family.
In 1906 he joined the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDIP).
Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov (9 March 1890 – 8 November 1986) was a Russian and later Soviet politician and diplomat, an Old Bolshevik, and a leading figure in the Soviet government from the 1920s onward. He served as Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars from 1930 to 1941 and as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1939 to 1949 and from 1953 to 1956.
The Bolsheviks captured Moscow in 1917 after the revolution that destroyed the Tsarist regime and established the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Molotov rose quickly within the party and served two terms as Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union.
Molotov is best known for the "Non-Aggression Pact" signed between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939, also known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
In this pact signed between the two sides, there was a protocol that remained secret until the defeat of the Nazi administration in 1945.
This protocol envisaged that after Germany's invasion of Poland, the two sides would take Eastern Europe, the Baltic states and Finland into their spheres of influence.
On September 1, 1939, Germany, knowing it was in agreement with the Soviet Union, invaded Poland. Britain and France then declared war on Germany and the Second World War began. A few days later, the Soviet Union also launched a military operation against Poland.
In November, the Soviets invaded Finland, and the so-called "Winter War" began.
The Molotov cocktail appeared during this war.
'Winter War' and homemade bombs
Molotov, who was foreign minister during the war, argued on Soviet radio that the Union did not bomb Finland, but instead sent food to starving Finns by plane.
The Finns then nicknamed the cluster munitions used by the Soviets against their country as "Molotov's breadbasket".
The Finns, with the same cynical attitude, called the homemade bomb they prepared and used against the armored vehicles of the Soviet army "Molotov cocktail" because it was the "drink" next to "bread".
The Molotov cocktail is now on the agenda again with the resistance of the people against Russian troops in Ukraine.