In the tear dropped by the police at Ferguson, protesters respond with Molotov the eternal weapon of the bourgeois revolutionaries.
The cocktail is very easy to make and costs nothing. The Molotov cocktail is believed to have been invented during the Spanish Civil War, when it was used by Republicans against the Nationalists. The materials that go into the bottles, create a sticky and flammable substance, which ignites from a cloth soaked in oil located at the mouth of the bottle to act as a wick. When the "bottle bomb" hits its target, the sticky mixture of fuel and flame ignites, causing damage to whatever is in front of it.
But how does the bomb have its name from Vyacheslav Molotov, the Soviet foreign minister who signed the secret 1939 pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany Germanys for non-aggression between the two countries in World War II?
The answer comes from Finland.
The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact divided Europe into "spheres of influence", having Poland in Nazi and Soviet territory, Finland was granted to the Soviets.
In the winter of 1939, after occupying eastern Poland and leaving the west of the country in the Third Reich, the Soviets invaded Finland. Molotov then said in a speech: "Tomorrow we will have dinner in Helsinki!" The Finns, on the other hand, after Molotov's statement, and when the Russian bombs began to fall, called them "Molotov bread baskets" and named the improvised weapons they used against the Soviet army Molotov. ”
The Finnish company Alko, a liquor conglomerate, mass-produced 450.000 Molotov bombs during the war. The weapon proved instrumental in holding off the Soviet forces. The use of Molotov cocktails spread during the war and was used by both the Allies and the Axis powers.
The article was originally published at The New Republic
