Page "Vyacheslav Molotov" Paragraph 24

In the postwar period, Molotov's power began to decline.

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

Molotov never stopped loving his wife, and it is said that he ordered his maids to make dinner for two every evening to remind him that, in his own words, " she suffered because of me ".

According to a close collaborator of Molotov, Vladimir Erofeev at the beginning of 1949 the Israel prime minister, Golda Meir, visited the Soviet Union ; she met privately with Polina, who had been her schoolmate in St. Petersburg.

Immediately afterward, Polina was arrested and accused of ties with Zionist organizations ; she was kept one year in the Lubyanka, after which she was exiled for three years in an obscure Russian city.

Molotov had no communication with her, save for the scant news that Berya, whom he loathed, told him.

She was freed immediately after the death of Stalin.

According to Erofeev, Molotov said of her: " She's not only beautiful and intelligent, the only woman minister in Soviet Union ; she's also a real Bolshevik, a real soviet person.

" In 1949, Molotov was replaced as Foreign Minister by Andrey Vyshinsky, although retaining his position as First Deputy Premier and membership of the Politburo.