Molotov was made a full member of the Politburo in 1926 and became premier in 1930, playing a central role in implementing Stalin's policies of forced agricultural collectivization, which resulted in widespread famine.

As foreign minister from 1939, Molotov signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany, and during the Second World War was deputy chairman of the State Defense Committee and Stalin's main negotiator with the Allies.

[2] Molotov joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) in 1906, and soon gravitated toward the organisation's radical Bolshevik faction, which was led by Vladimir Lenin.

Molotov joined the editorial staff of a new underground Bolshevik newspaper, Pravda, and met Joseph Stalin for the first time in association with the project.

On his return, he was appointed chairman of the Nizhny Novgorod provincial executive, where the local party passed a vote of censure against him, for his alleged fondness for intrigue.

He was transferred to Donetsk, and in November 1920, he became secretary to the Central Committee of the Ukrainian Bolshevik Party and married the Soviet politician Polina Zhemchuzhina.

[7] During the power struggles after Lenin's death in 1924, Molotov remained a loyal supporter of Stalin against his various rivals: first Leon Trotsky, later Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev, and finally Nikolai Bukharin.

[9] Addressing a Moscow communist party conference on 23 February 1929, Molotov emphasised the need to undertake "the most rapid possible growth of industry" both for economic reasons and because, he claimed, the Soviet Union was in permanent, imminent danger of attack.

[17] The argument over how fast to expand industry was behind the rift between Stalin and the right, led by Bukharin and Rykov, who feared that too rapid a pace would cause economic dislocation.

During the Central Committee plenum of 19 December 1930, Molotov succeeded Alexey Rykov as the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, the equivalent of a Western head of government.

[19] Despite the great human cost, the Soviet Union under Molotov's nominal premiership made large strides in the adoption and the widespread implementation of agrarian and industrial technology.

In that year, Molotov told the Congress of Soviets "We have never refuted the fact that healthy prisoners capable of normal labour are used for road building and other public works.

"[23] The famine caused by the disruption of agricultural output and the emphasis on exporting grain to pay for industrialisation, and the harsh conditions of forced labour killed an estimated 11 million people.

[24] Despite the famine, in September 1931, Molotov sent a secret telegram to communist leaders in the North Caucasus telling them the collection of grain for export was going "disgustingly slowly.

He returned to Kharkov in July 1932, with Lazar Kaganovich, to tell the local communists that there would be no "concessions or vacillations" in the drive to meet targets for exporting grain.

[26] Between the assassination of Sergei Kirov, the head of the Party organization in Leningrad, in December 1934, and the start of the Great Purge, there was a significant but unpublicised rift between Stalin and Molotov.

[27] Another startling piece of evidence was that the published transcript of the first Moscow Show Trial in August 1936, the defendants – who had been forced to confess to crimes of which they were innocent – said that they had conspired to kill Stalin and seven other leading Bolsheviks, but not Molotov.

"[33] Robert Conquest and others believe that Molotov "dragged his feet" over Stalin's plans to purge the party and put Old Bolsheviks like Zinoviev and Kamenev on trial.

When Stalin received a note denouncing the deputy chairman of Gosplan, G.I.Lomov, he passed it to Molotov, who wrote on it: "For immediate arrest of that bastard Lomov.

[48] On 5 March 1940, Lavrentiy Beria gave Molotov, along with Anastas Mikoyan, Kliment Voroshilov and Stalin, a note proposing the execution of 25,700 Polish anti-Soviet officers in what has become known as the Katyn massacre.

The role of Molotov and Voroshilov in the making of the new Soviet anthem was, in the words of the historian Simon Sebag-Montefiore, acting as music judges for Stalin.

Molotov, at the direction of the Soviet government, condemned the Marshall Plan as imperialistic and claimed it was dividing Europe into two camps: one capitalist and the other communist.

The plan created several bilateral relations between the states of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union and later evolved into the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA).

A clear sign of his precarious position was his inability to prevent the arrest for "treason" in December 1948 of his Jewish wife, Polina Zhemchuzhina, whom Stalin had long distrusted.

[73] There are unsubstantiated claims that, being fluent in Yiddish, Zhemchuzhina acted as a translator for a diplomatic meeting between Meir and her husband, the Soviet foreign minister.

[79] At the 19th Congress, Stalin said "there has been criticism of comrade Molotov and Mikoyan by the Central Committee," mistakes that included letting the British ambassador publish "bourgeois newspapers in our country".

Georgy Malenkov, Stalin's successor in the post of General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, reappointed Molotov as Minister of Foreign Affairs on 5 March 1953.

He presided over a gradual domestic liberalisation and a thaw in foreign policy, as was manifest in a reconciliation with Josip Broz Tito's government in Yugoslavia, which Stalin had expelled from the communist movement.

Acknowledging him as a "man of outstanding ability and cold-blooded ruthlessness," Churchill concluded: "In the conduct of foreign affairs, Mazarin, Talleyrand, Metternich, would welcome him to their company, if there be another world to which Bolsheviks allow themselves to go.

"[102] Molotov was the only person to have shaken hands with Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler, Rudolf Hess, Hermann Göring, and Heinrich Himmler.