Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov (9 March 1890 – 8 November 1986, born Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Skryabin), Soviet politician and diplomat, was a leading figure in the Soviet government from the 1920s, when he rose to power as a protégé of Joseph Stalin, to 1957, when he was dismissed from Presidium (Politburo) of the Central Committee by Nikita Khrushchev. Molotov positions of diplomacy for much of that time, eventually become the Foreign Commissar of the Soviet Union, holding the position from 1939 through 1949, including World War II. He lent his name to a non-aggression pact forged between the USSR and Nazi Germany in 1939.