Memorandum from Secretary of State Edward Stettinius to President Harry S. Truman

Petum to Rassia molator DEPARTMENT OF STATE WASHINGTON April 20, 1945 MOLOTOV, VYACHESLAW MIKHAILOVICH BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Governmental Position: People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs. Position in Communist Party: Member of the Political Bureau and of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party; delegate to the Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Congresses of the Communist International. Real name is Skriabin; a Slav. Born in 1890 of a worker's family; entered the Party in 1906; engaged in revolutionary work prior to the war and imprisoned and exiled many times. Following the February (1917) revolu- tion, he became President of the Bolshevik faction of the Petrograd Soviet. Following the October (1917) revolution, he was appointed President of the Soviet of National Economy of the Northern Region; in 1922, appointed a member of the Central Committee of the Party working as an assistant to Stalin. Became a member of the powerful and exclusive Political Bureau in 1924, in which he has since served; in 1926 he was appointed a member of the Executive Committee of the Communist International and in 1928 was a member of the Commission which drafted the Program of the Communist International. Prior to 1930, he was one of the outstanding figures in the Communist International. In 1930 Molotov was made President of the Soviet of People's Commissars, a position corresponding to that of Prime Minister. In May 1939 he relieved Litvinoff of the position of People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs. In May