1940 charcoal drawing of two Spanish Republican soldiers using Molotov cocktails against a Nationalist tank during the Spanish Civil War. Image of a burning tank in an urban setting, with an infantryman who has just thrown a Molotov cocktail and another about to throw a second.
13 May 2021
A Molotov cocktail is a makeshift gasoline bomb, what we called a flame field expedient when I was in the U.S. Army. While there are many variations on the design, typically a Molotov cocktail is a bottle filled with gasoline with a cloth stopper that also serves as a fuse. It is named after Vjacehslav Mihajlovich Skrjabin (1890–1986), who took the revolutionary name of Molotov—молот (molot) is Russian for the hammer. Molotov was the Soviet premier and foreign minister during the Winter War between the Soviet Union and Finland (November 1939–March 1940). (Joseph Stalin was the general secretary of the Communist Party and the person actually in charge of the Soviet Union at the time, but Molotov was technically the head of government and its face to the outside world.) Many of the earliest English uses have the spelling Molotoff, which uses an older transcription system from the Russian Cyrillic.
The phrase Molotov cocktail is most likely a calque of the Finnish molotovin koktaili, although the English term is found in print before the Finnish one—and the Finnish term is a borrowing from two languages, the Russian proper name and the English cocktail. The idea behind naming the device after Molotov is that it is a bomb to be made for and used against his soldiers, not a device that was invented by the man.
The Finns may have coined the name, but they did not invent the device, which had been used before. Ethiopians used a similar weapon against Italian tanks in 1935, but they would break a bottle of gasoline against the tank and then ignite the spilled liquid. Both sides in the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) used the incendiary devices as we know them today. And the Chinese used them against the Japanese from 1937 onward. A description of their use in Spain appears in the 15 June 1940 issue of the Picture Post, an issue devoted to informing Britons what they might expect during a German invasion. This article calls them petrol bombs rather than Molotov cocktails:
There is no reason whatever why a great industrial nation such as ours should not make plenty of these grenades in a week or two. We in Spain had not always enough, so we used “petrol bombs.” I do not recommend these, and I mention them only with a serious warning. At least ten per cent. of those who try these nasty things are likely to burn themselves quite badly.
A detailed description of how to make petrol bombs follows. Despite ending with the warning, “Do not play with these things. They are highly dangerous,” the article is clearly hinting that British civilians should know how to make them in case of German invasion.
Finnish soldier with a Molotov cocktail, c.1940. Man’s torso, wearing a white coat and military equipment belt, into which is tucked a liquid-filled bottle with a long match tied to it.
A description of Finnish Molotov cocktails, but not the term itself, appears somewhat earlier in an article in the Times of London with a dateline of 28 December 1939 and published the next day:
Thirty-six young Finns were resting inside a deep dug-out we visited last night, while enemy artillery continued intermittent firing. These 36, with three officers, were part of the forces which had repelled the most recent attack on the [Mannerheim] Line and their resting might be a mere interval, the prelude to a new clash. They were all fully dressed, therefore, with their weapons handy.
Among these were some curiously stringed bottles with a firestick attached longitudinally; they are primitive homemade tank-bombs, which proved again effective in the fighting on Boxing Day, when the enemy attempted once more to force a gap with the help of tanks, but failed after a loss of eight.
Within a hundred yards of the dug-out we could make out five derelict tanks scattered on the battlefield between opposing positions, which the failure of the Russian attempt had left unaltered. On Christmas Day officers had informed me that the Russians had abandoned the use of tanks for some days, in an endeavour to press their infantry forward after vigorous artillery preparation here and there; but on Boxing Day they resumed their earlier tactics.
WAITING IN MANHOLES
The cool audacity of these young Finns defies description. Singly they occupy small manholes, 6ft. deep, preferably under cover of darkness—though brilliant moonlight has lately hampered these operations. There they wait hour after hour with the top of the hole lightly camouflaged. If an advancing tank survives Finnish artillery, mines, and tank-traps nearer the enemy lines and crosses one of these holes, a hand emerges behind the tail and hurls one or two bottles, which are smashed and catch fire, causing sufficient confusion to enable the Finns to capture and demolish the tank.
A captain, describing the process to me, explained that they had now had deliveries of less primitive incendiary missiles, and led me to a dump where the supplies were buried in snow. Each missile was composed of a metal case with a handle and a fuse, which ignited the contents five seconds after the missile had been thrown. But bottles are still used as well, and the manhole method is unchanged.
The English term is first found in a 10 February 1940 article that was widely syndicated among U.S. newspapers. This version, which uses the spelling Molotoff cocktail, is from the Atlanta Constitution. Other papers edited the piece to use the Molotov transcription of the name:
These purely Finnish methods are effective only if the tank-hunter is willing to get close enough to his quarry to endanger himself, and the Finns appear to have been willing to accept that hazard.
Method No. 1 is to tie six or seven hand grenades together, get within easy pegging distance of the tank and smash them up against its sides. This weapon is known as “a bunch of grapes.”
Method No. 2 is an improvement on No. 1. You include bottles of gasoline among the grenades. The explosion ignites the gasoline and the tank crew either crawls out and surrenders or is burned to death. This weapon is called the “Molotoff cocktail” in honor of the Soviet Premier Molotoff.
There is an earlier English use of Molotoff cocktail to refer to the fuel mixture used in Russian tanks, which proved inadequate in the cold of the Finnish winter. Whether this is yet another Finnish play on Molotov’s name—it’s not unusual for a slang term in its early days to have more than one meaning—or a misunderstanding on the part of the English war correspondent is not known. In any case, this sense of Molotoff cocktail did not survive for long. From the London Times, dateline 26 January 1940:
“Molotoff Cocktail”
One of the Russian tanks had been destroyed by only one direct hit from a 3in. gun. The tanks often get stuck on the road, as the petrol mixture used —the so-called Molotoff cocktail—seems to be unsuitable for these temperatures. It is absolutely impossible to drive the tanks anywhere off the roadway, as the snowdrifts are in places more than 30ft. deep.
While it is most likely that English got Molotov cocktail from Finnish, the Finnish term is not found in print until 1941, a year after the phrase is recorded in English. But there are a plethora of Finnish terms from that war that are plays on Molotov’s name, which would make Molotov cocktail only the most famous of more than two dozen that have been recorded. A handful of examples:
molotovi — a Soviet person
Molotovin ilma and Molotovin sää — Molotov weather (suitable for air operations)
Molotovin muna — an aerial bomb, literally Molotov egg
Molotovin leipäkori — an early form of a cluster bomb used by the Soviets, literally Molotov breadbasket
Additionally, in order for the term to move from English to Finnish there would need to be a vector or channel for the transmission. It’s possible that Finnish soldiers might have picked up the word from British or American war correspondents, but that is highly unlikely. It is far more likely that the war correspondents learned the term from the Finns.
Sources:
“A Deadlock in the Arctic” (26 January 1940). Times (London), 27 January 1940, 6. Gale Primary Sources: The Times Digital Archive.
Gold, David L. “Etymology and Etiology in the Study of Eponymous Lexemes: the Case of English Molotov Cocktail and Finnish Molotovin Koktaili.” In Studies in Etymology and Etiology. San Vincente del Raspeig: Publicaciones de la Universidad de Alicante, 2009, 193–235.
———. “Etymology and Etiology in the Study of Proper Nouns, Eponymous Lexemes, and Possibly Eponymous Lexemes.” Onomastica, 41, 1996, 109–38.
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, December 2020, s.v. Molotov, n.
Uexkuell, Hubert. “‘How to Kill Tank’ Lesson—Use ‘Grapes’ and ‘Cocktails’” (10 February 1940). Atlanta Constitution, 19A. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
Wintringham, Tom. “Against Invasion: The Lessons of Spain.” Picture Post, 7.11, 15 June 1940, 14 –17. Gale Primary Sources: Picture Post.
“Young Men’s Daring” (28 December 1939). Times (London), 29 December 1940, 6. Gale Primary Sources: The Times Digital Archive.
Image credits: Bryan de Grineau, appearing in Picture Post, 15 June 1940, fair use of a copyrighted image to illustrate the topic under discussion; unknown photographer, c.1940. Public domain image.