Alexander Mikhailovich Krasnoshchyokov
Александр Михайлович Краснощёков
1880–1937
✕ Executed · Rehabilitated 1956
The pragmatic Bolshevik who designed and led the Far Eastern Republic
After Krasnoshchyokov was dismissed during an illness, Lenin protested in a letter to Molotov: "We have harassed this man, who undoubtedly has brains, energy, knowledge and experience."
The first head of the Far Eastern Republic (1920–1921) and a key architect of the early Soviet mixed-economy experiment. After emigrating to America in 1902, he graduated from the University of Chicago Law School and worked as a labour attorney before returning to Russia in 1917 and immediately joining the Bolsheviks. He persuaded Lenin to create a buffer state in the Far East to secure Japan's withdrawal during the Civil War, personally drafting the republic's constitution in English and securing the Gongota Agreement with Japan as premier and foreign minister. He later served as Deputy People's Commissar for Finance, joined the Presidium of Vesenkha, and founded Prombank, laying the institutional foundations for industrial finance under the NEP.
Career Timeline
- 1896Joined illegal Marxist group in Kiev
- 1902Escaped to Germany, emigrated to the US in 1903
- 1912Graduated Univ. Chicago Law School, practiced labour law
- 1917–1918Bolshevik leader in Vladivostok/Nikolsk-Ussuriysk, pres. Far Eastern Sovnarkom
- 1920–1921Chairman of Government & Foreign Minister, Far Eastern Republic
- 1921–1922Deputy People's Commissar for Finance, RSFSR
- 1922–1923Vesenkha Presidium · founded and chaired Prombank
- 1923First chairman of Dobrolyot (state airline)
- 1924–1925Sentenced to 6 years for corruption, amnestied in 1925
- 1926–1937Headed new bast crops directorate & fibre crops institute, Narkomzem