In June 1918, according to a decree of the new Bolshevik government, all large-scale industry in Russia was recognized as "the property of the people." And what happened to its former owners, private owners, those who for years and generations created this production? Anews talks about the bright and tragic fates of the richest families.
Nikolay Vtorov
By the beginning of the 20th century, the name Vtorov was perhaps the most famous in Siberia. Under such a sign, in 13 cities, from Yekaterinburg to Chita, there were luxurious passages where one could buy fashionable and haberdashery goods, including even Parisian novelties, spend the night in a luxury hotel, dine in the best restaurant and relax in the winter garden.
They belonged to the Irkutsk millionaire merchant Alexander Vtorov with his sons. He at one time started as an errand boy in the manufactory shops and became rich not without fraud. Having opened his own wholesale trade at the age of 21, he several times, as they said at the time, “turned over the fur coat” - declared himself bankrupt, while pocketing large sums.
His sons, more educated and more capable in business, have multiplied the inherited capital 10 times, without resorting to dirty tricks. Nikolai received by seniority most of the money and already in Moscow reached heights that his father could not even dream of. Having switched from trade to production, by 1917 he owned two hundred enterprises, the main of which worked for defense, strengthening the country's national prestige.
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Alexander Vtorov, father of N. Vtorov
Largely thanks to him, the domestic chemical industry was born. He started smelting high-quality steel in the country from scratch, suitable for creating cars, ships and aircraft (but since the first production was received in November 1917, the Soviet government attributed this merit to itself). He quickly built a number of military metallurgical plants, including the famous "Elektrostal", which quickly covered the acute shortage of ammunition.
Foundation of the "Electrostal" plant
One of the factories, in Luzhniki, was ready in just 38 days. Major General of the Russian Army Semyon Vankov, who helped with the construction organizationally, said then: "These are the results the energy of Russian entrepreneurship can achieve when it is not interfered with by the red tape and possible legal assistance from the authorities."
For his business acumen and ability to “handle” the most difficult situations, Nikolai Vtorov was nicknamed “Siberian American”. And also a "Russian Morgan" - not only because he, like John Pierpont Morgan, was a steel tycoon, but partly because of his outward resemblance: both had a piercing look, they emanated strength, and on the whole they produced a stunning impression.
N. Vtorov and D. P. Morgan (right)
“Everything he did, he did in the highest class. If I hired people, they were the best specialists,”Mikhail Drozdov, a historian of the Moscow merchants, a research fellow at the Russian Academy of Sciences, said about Vtorov.
Among others, future ministers and deputy ministers in the Provisional Government worked at his enterprises. Vtorov was not involved in politics, but after the execution of a peaceful procession of workers in 1905, he began to despise Nicholas II and jokingly said about himself: "We, Nikolai Vtorov." He welcomed the abdication of the tsar in March 1917. After October, according to some reports, he tried to negotiate with the Bolsheviks and even met with Lenin. One of the last cases of Nikolai Vtorov was an attempt to organize the supply of food to Moscow and Petrograd, for which he personally donated 30 million rubles.
The death of Vtorov
In May 1918, a 52-year-old industrialist was killed in his office. There were rumors in Moscow that he was shot by a Bolshevik agent, although they hardly needed his death at that moment. According to one version, the murderer - a Red Army soldier and student from Siberia by the name of Gudkov - was the illegitimate son of Vtorov, who lived in Tomsk.
According to the newspaper Zarya Rossii, which published the most detailed report on the tragedy, Gudkov asked Vtorov for money to continue his studies. He promised that he would help not only finish secondary, but also get higher education. However, Gudkov demanded simply to give him 20 thousand, here and now. Having received a refusal, he took out a revolver. Vtorov rushed at him, trying to disarm, but he managed to mortally wound him. Bleeding, Nikolai Aleksandrovich went to the Swiss office and said to the employee who caught his eye: "Dunyasha, don't go there, they shoot there." These were his last words. The killer was locked in an office. Realizing that he could not hide, Gudkov shot himself in the temple.
Vtorov was seen off by all of Moscow. Probably, for the first and last time under Soviet rule, the workers, the remaining representatives of the bourgeoisie and the red commissars marched in one column. The funeral procession stretched for more than a mile, some wreaths occupied nine chariots, and the workers carried a wreath with the inscription "The great organizer of industry."
Vtorov's enterprises were nationalized after his death, in 1918-1919. And the very office in the "Business Dvor" on the Varvarskaya (now Slavyanskaya) Square of Moscow, where the bloody drama took place, was later occupied by the chairman of the Supreme Council of the National Economy Kuibyshev.
The famous "Spaso House" mansion in the Arbat area - now the residence of the American ambassador - was also built by Vtorov. He managed to live in it for three years.
Pavel Ryabushinsky
If Vtorov was a "Russian Morgan", then Pavel Pavlovich Ryabushinsky, who headed the dynasty of textile manufacturers and bankers under Nicholas II, was called the "Russian Rockefeller". It was not his field of activity that made him related to the overseas oil monopoly (the Ryabushinsky clan only looked closely at the development of fields), but the fact that both surnames were undoubtedly synonymous with wealth.
P. P. Ryabushinsky
True, among the Moscow merchants the Ryabushinsky was disliked. Pavel Pavlovich's father and uncle were reputed to be awful little crooks, for which there is a lot of evidence in the memoirs of his contemporaries. Once the father was caught collecting the remnants of half-eaten pies from the guests' plates so that they would not go to the servants. His brother bought the cheapest stale bread, but he did not hesitate to treat himself abundantly with fresh bread.
And once the brothers-miser surprised all of Moscow, when they suddenly began to have breakfast every day at the Slavianski Bazaar. The restaurant was proud that the first rich people became their loyal customers. Only a month later it became clear that the Ryabushinskys senior were selling coupons there, which, as they knew in advance, were about to drop in price. The scam consisted of paying for food with coupons of large denomination, from which they were brought change in "real" money. Someone took the trouble to calculate: having paid only 36 rubles for breakfast for a month, the Ryabushinskys took 3750 rubles from the restaurant.
Pavel Mikhailovich Ryabushinsky, father of P. P. Ryabushinsky
After the death of their father, Pavel Pavlovich and his brothers expanded the family business many times, sometimes acting much more predatory. For example, they seized the Kharkov land bank, driving its owner to suicide. The richest industrialist in southern Russia, philanthropist Alexei Alchevsky, at the age of 65, threw himself under a train in St. Petersburg, when the finance ministry headed by Witte rejected all his proposals to save him from bankruptcy. But as soon as the Ryabushinskys got hold of the bank, they were immediately given a preferential loan of 6 million rubles - otherwise the government was in collusion with them.
Alchevsky in the spring of 1901, shortly before his death
Perhaps the only thing in which Pavel Ryabushinsky, with his huge ambitions, suffered a complete collapse, is in politics. None of his undertakings - and by 1917 he was still one of the most prominent political figures in the country - led his supporters to success. The famous book publisher Sytin called him "the shark of capitalism, striving for power." The Bolsheviks hated him even after the February Revolution, when he warned that "the dream of changing everything, taking everything away from some and passing it on to others, will only destroy a lot and lead to serious difficulties."
And in August 17th Ryabushinsky, scolding the now Provisional Government for its destructive economic policy, uttered the fatal phrase: “Unfortunately, a bony hand of hunger and poverty is needed to grab the people's false friends, members of various committees and councils, so that they come to their senses ". Joseph Stalin, a little-known publicist at the time, took it out of context and presented it as if "the Ryabushinskys would not mind rewarding Russia with hunger and poverty in order to better cope with the workers and peasants." So, instead of wealth and success, this surname began to personify a terrible capitalist evil in Soviet Russia.
Caricature of 1917: The Provisional Government (represented by the Minister of Trade and Industry Konovalov) is trying to cut the excess profits of industrialists (represented by Ryabushinsky) from the military orders of the state. But the rich from the "haircut" are not at all at a loss
In the summer of 1917, Pavel Ryabushinsky was arrested on charges of supporting the Kornilov rebellion, released on the personal order of Kerensky. After the victory of the Bolsheviks, he left for France and in 1921, with the beginning of the NEP, again with enthusiasm urged to prepare for the revival of Russia, hoping for evolutionary changes within the Soviet system. However, in 1924, at the age of 53, he died of long-term consumption.
And a few years later, the Great Depression and the thoughtless greed of one of the brothers, who did not want to withdraw the family money from the accounts in time, led the mighty Ryabushinsky clan to complete ruin. The book by Vladimir Ryabushinsky, published in Paris, began with the words: “In view of the scarcity of funds and the need to profit on paper, sometimes we had to sacrifice a solid sign …” When Stepan Ryabushinsky died in 1942, the widow had to sell off her last things in order to bury the once richest man of tsarist Russia with dignity …
Alexey Putilov
The surname Putilov is primarily associated with the famous plant in St. Petersburg, and indeed, its founder, an outstanding metallurgical engineer, industrialist and innovator Nikolai Putilov is Alexei's great-uncle. However, Alexei Ivanovich never advertised his relationship, so historians later even doubted whether they were of the same name.
But the Putilov plant was familiar to Alexei firsthand - he was part of the powerful military-industrial concern he created from large steel, military and legal enterprises. In 1914, this concern produced almost half of all artillery pieces and built two military cruisers for the Admiralty.
Nikolai Putilov, A. Putilov's great-uncle
Alexey Putilov was one of the most influential Russian financiers, whose opinion was valued in banking circles in both the West and the East. From the heading for collapse of the Russo-Chinese Bank, he created the largest Russian-Asian Bank in Russia and ensured constant capital growth by investing in a lot of profitable projects. The industries had the most extensive geography - from forests in the North to oil in the Caspian, from factories in St. Petersburg to metallurgy in the Urals and coal in Sakhalin.
The cannon shop of the Putilov factory, 1916 RIA Novosti
But, receiving a huge income, Putilov was modest to asceticism. He wore a shabby jacket with traces of cigar ash and devoted his work day and night, often forgetting about sleep. Expensive cigars are the only weakness he allowed himself. And, by the way, the tobacco trust he founded controlled almost 57% of tobacco production in the Russian Empire.
Representative Office of the Russian-Asian Bank in Uzbekistan
Like Vtorov, Putilov was disappointed with the reign of Nicholas II, but, realizing the worthlessness of the tsarist regime, he feared revolution even more, predicting that times would come in Russia much worse than the Pugachevshchina. He sponsored the White movement very generously. According to some reports, while already in exile, Putilov, together with other former Russian tycoons, financed the organization of the famous terrorist, the sworn enemy of the Bolsheviks, Boris Savinkov. He undertook to organize an attempt on the life of high-ranking representatives of the Soviet delegation at the 1922 Genoa Conference. However, nothing came of these plans.
All of Putilov's movable and immovable property in Russia was confiscated immediately after the October Revolution by a special decree of the Council of People's Commissars. But since a significant part of the assets of the Russian-Asian Bank was located abroad, Aleksey Ivanovich was not ruined overnight and headed its Paris branch for several years. Putilov's wife, daughter and son also managed to get to France, escaping from Soviet Russia on the ice of the Gulf of Finland.
However, in 1926 the émigré press fanned rumors that Putilov, having betrayed “his own people,” was trying to cooperate with the Bolsheviks. In fact, he met in Paris or Berlin with his longtime acquaintance Leonid Krasin, who became the People's Commissar for Foreign Trade of the RSFSR, and expressed to him the idea of creating a Soviet-French bank to help Russian monetary reform. Believing in the version of "betrayal", Putilov was removed from the management of the bank. It was a blow to him. He completely retired.
Soviet poster of 1924
In 1937, a journalist from one of the émigré newspapers visited the once famous financier in the Russian quarter in Paris. He wrote that he lives "alone in a small apartment on the second floor, on a quiet street, far from the big arteries" and almost never leaves the house. Three years later, 73-year-old Putilov died, and this event went unnoticed.
What happened to other celebrity entrepreneurs
Savva Morozov in May 1905 was found in a hotel room in Cannes, where he was at the insistence of doctors, with a bullet through the chest and a suicide note. According to the official version, he committed suicide, being in deep melancholy due to the fact that he could not in any way improve the situation of the workers in his factory. This was severely discouraged by her mother, who was the managing director. However, there are versions that the suicide of 43-year-old Morozov was staged. And one of the suspects is the very head of the Soviet Vneshtorg Leonid Krasin, a meeting with whom Putilov ruined.
Savva Mamontov went bankrupt in the 1890s and ended up in prison, becoming a victim of his own risky plans, as well as murky intrigues on the part of the bank, which lent him money, and the government, which dreamed of getting ownership of his Moscow-Yaroslavl railway. Having lost his fortune and reputation, he died in April 1918 at the age of 73.
Stepan Lianozov, Russia's largest oil tycoon, after October 17th was one of the organizers and active participants of the White movement, in particular, he was preparing for General Yudenich's offensive against Petrograd. In exile in Paris, together with Ryabushinsky, he tried to figure out how to protect the interests of Russian owners who fled from Soviet power. He died there in 1949 at the age of 77.
Sergei Tretyakov, a junior representative of the Tretyakov family of entrepreneurs and patrons of art, the founders of the famous gallery, was a member of the Provisional Government and, along with other members of it, was arrested by the Bolsheviks in the Winter Palace. In 1918 he was released, after which he worked as an adviser to Denikin, Wrangel, was even a minister in the Siberian government of Kolchak. And later, already in exile, he was recruited by Soviet intelligence and throughout the 30s supplied the OGPU (then the NKVD) with information about the White émigré movement created by the same Wrangel. In the 1940s, he was arrested by the Gestapo as a Soviet agent and shot in a German concentration camp.