Molotov

Recently one of the newspapers mocked the speech impediment of the new England football manager; he said it did not worry him as he was used to it - there is a sadness in that comment.
At the same time there was a serious issue discussed in the newspapers in the USA as to whether Winston Churchill had a lisp or a stammer as apparently he always pronounced a
single s as sh - does it really matter?   In this country he was thought to have a stammer left over from a nervous childhood.  He developed a stage craft ie., long pauses until he found the right word he could say  -  through this method his speeches became quite dramatic as we all know.
Lately I was reading about another very famous Statesman who was making speeches at the same time as Churchill and also had a stammer which he managed to conquer for most of the time, when he didn't manage to do so it greatly angered Stalin who thought everyone would see it as a sign of a weak man.  His name was Vyacheslav Mikhailovich   who was Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Russian Government and protege of Stalin.  He put all the words from Stalin's mouth into powerful oration and was made to sign everything to keep Stalin's  'reputation'  intact.
He married a Jewess who was the love of his life but Stalin
 thought to show so much love was a sign of weakness in a man and during the war had Polina arrested and sent to Lubyanka Concentration Camp.  Molotov was a very important man but could not prevent the arrest of his wife;  in an act of defiance that could have led to his death he ordered a dinner for her every night and had it placed by an empty chair so that no one would forget her: a year later Stalin ordered her release from Lubyanka but sent her into exile in Siberia never allowing Molotov to know where she was.  She was released immediately on the death of Stalin and rushed back to Moscow never to leave his side again.
He was given the name Molotov early in his career which  is Russian for 'hammer' his other nickname being 'stone-arse' because of the amount of hours he sat working at his desk.
He died in 1980 during the reign of Mikail Gorbachev and is buried in Norodevichy Cemetery in Moscow, his head stone names him as 'Molotov' 
A weak man?.....never.