 As a communist, she went by the surname Zhemchuzhina, which, like her birth name Perl in Yiddish, means "pearl" in Russian.In 1921, she married Vyacheslav Molotov, by then a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).She also made a successful career in the Soviet hierarchy, serving in the Narkomat of Food Industry under Anastas Mikoyan, to become in 1939 the first female councillor of Narkom (of Fishing Industry) in the government of the Soviet Union, and was elected as a candidate to the Central Committee that year.