The life of Vyacheslav Molotov is inseparable from the history of the USSR. He worked alongside Lenin, was a member of the Military Revolutionary Committee that prepared the October armed uprising in Petrograd, and during the Great Patriotic War he served as Deputy Chairman of the State Defense Committee. He held key positions in the party and the government, and from 1939 to 1956 he headed the country’s foreign policy and met with almost all the major figures of the 20th century.
For 17 years, Felix Chuev regularly conversed with Vyacheslav Molotov: 140 sessions, each lasting 4–5 hours. This book is based not on Molotov’s memoirs, but on a living dialogue. He spoke freely and did not dictate text. Many assessments were difficult to obtain: to certain topics he did not return right away, and sometimes they had to be approached again after 5, 10, 15 years…