For Poles, Vyacheslav Molotov is a man who, in agreement with the German Ribbentrop, prepared a pact that was tearing the country in two. Patron of famous cocktails, unrepentant communist. This is one face of Vyacheslav Molotov. At home, it presented completely different. All thanks to my wife, Polina.
Vyacheslav Molotov - as a politician of the Stalinist era - could not have done better. His wife was the perfect Soviet woman.
Polina Semyonovna Zemchuzhyna met her future husband when she came to Moscow as a party delegate of the city of Zaporizhia to the First International Women's Congress in the summer of 1921. She could not fully participate in the event because she fell ill and was hospitalized. There, Molotov, who was one of the organizers of the congress, paid her a courtesy visit.
Young Żemczżyna, who at that time was still called Perl (meaning the pearl) Siemionowna Karpowskaya must have made a real impression on the old Bolshevik . When they met, she already had a lot of experience in nokenclature - she was a political officer in the Red Army and an instructor of the communist party. A few months later they were married. and after the next fifty years, Molotov, invariably in love with her, praised her, stating that she was beautiful, intelligent, but above all - a real Bolshevik.
Bolshevik in skirt
Polina had a strong character. Her personality was so strong that she commanded the house, holding the helm of government with an iron hand. As explains Magali Delaloyle in the book "The Erotic History of the Kremlin" , on the Molotov farm, everything had to function like in a Swiss clock. Lubov, the granddaughter of Wiaczesław and Polina, noted after many years:
At home, she fought for cleanliness and order. Grandfather lived according to the rules she had laid down. People sat down to eat at fixed times. The menu for each day of the week was constant. If she made up her mind about something, there was no way it could have happened otherwise. On Wednesdays, she always cooked dumplings made with milk. And nothing could change that - you ate noodles. In this respect, my grandfather had a hard time at home . But maybe that's why he lived so long.
Polina Żemczużyna captivated Vyacheslav Molotov (photo:public domain)
A year after Żemczżyna's wedding, she had to go abroad for further treatment. Then she went to Czechoslovakia. Molotov could not stand without it for long. He prepared a false identity for himself and… followed her. As Rachel Polonsky writes, he officially went to Italy to observe the development of fascism, but in reality it was about visiting his beloved wife.
Years later, Józef Stalin's daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, recalled that "mysterious ailments" were a permanent element of Polina's life. She went, for example, to SPAs in Berlin and Karlovy Vary, where she was accompanied by a huge entourage.
Although she liked the lavish lifestyle and wanted to pass as a Soviet style icon, Zemchuzhyna climbed the career ladder in the Soviet Union and performed various functions in the party apparatus. For example, she was an instructor of the regional party committee, the director of a perfume factory in Moscow, the People's Commissar of the USSR's Fishing Industry, and finally the deputy People's Commissar of Light Industry of the USSR.
It did not change the fact that other "Kremlin" wives mocked her manners. Polina was the daughter of a simple Jewish tailor from a small village in the Yekaterinoslaw governorate, and before she found her way to the highest circles of power, she had nowhere to be polished.
Molotov, too, was an exceptionally busy man, and his tasks also included frequent trips, although he mostly traveled around the Soviet Union. He was, inter alia, the minister of foreign affairs of the USSR, which was associated with enormous duties. When, for one reason or another, the spouses could not see each other, they wrote letters to each other.
A dangerous Molotov a romantic?
Interestingly, their correspondence in no way matches the image of a tough Bolshevik who even changed his name to something that was associated with a hammer (he was born as Wiaczesław Skrabin).
Only one letter, deleted by Polina's hand, of July 1, 1941, has survived, in which she calls her husband Vyachesenko and recommends that he take care of himself and Stalin, and that he defeat the enemy and think about his homeland. She wrote it a few days after the Germans invaded the Soviet Union.
However, when compared to her husband's letters, it looks rather pale. Molotov, meanwhile, writes words to his wife full of love and ... eroticism . For example, in the August 1946 message quoted by Magali Delaloyle , we read:
I miss you so much, I would like to hug you tightly and enjoy the view. I can't do without your sweetness and you set me on fire so much that I want you to feel me , and she stretched her arms out to me. I love you, I love you the only one, my dearest […]
Stalin and Voroshilov surrounded by women. In the middle row, second from the right, Polina Żemczużyna (photo:Bellona's promotional materials)
Another time, in mid-August 1940, he wrote:
I look forward to hugging you so tightly, to hold you in my arms and kiss you from head to toe , my sweetest, my dearest, my love. Your heart loving with all your heart, with all your soul.
The granddaughter of the Molotovs recalls that their love was something that happens once in a million. The spouses cared for and protected each other. Even when Polina was expelled from the party, arrested and ended up in Lubyanka, Molotov did not forget about her. Many husbands, fearing for their own lives, would renounce their wives. He also decided to divorce at that time, but the marriage was dissolved only on paper.
At the first opportunity, Molotov arranged for Polina to be released. He literally did not leave her until his death . When Polina was dying of cancer in a Kremlin hospital, Vyacheslav Molotov visited her every day. As the granddaughter of the couple, quoted by Delaloyle, recalls, in the last moments, Żemczżyna called her husband's name. Similarly, when Molotov was saying goodbye to this world he called Pola!
Information sources:
- Delaloyle M., The erotic history of the Kremlin , World of Books 2018.
- Polonsky R., Molotov's Magic Lantern:A Journey in Russian History , Faber and Faber 2010.
- Watson D., Molotov a biography , Palgrave Macmillan 2005.