The last tsarist agriculture minister, whose grain requisition ignited the bread crisis that sparked the February Revolution
On 17 February 1917 he defended the grain requisition from the Duma rostrum and was met with cold contempt from the opposition. Five days later, the women standing before Petrograd's bread shops began the revolution.
The last Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Empire, he signed the grain requisition decree (prodrazvyorstka) on 29 November 1916 and at the end of January 1917 limited Petrograd's flour supply to 35,000 poods per day. This triggered bread shortages and queue panic, becoming the immediate spark of the February Revolution. An able official who had been a principal architect of the Stolypin agrarian reform, he was a reformer who grasped the wrong tools against wartime transport collapse and galloping inflation.
Career Timeline
- 1888Graduated Alexander Lyceum with gold medal
- 1888–1905Served in MVD Land Dept., Police Dept., Resettlement Admin.; secretary to Special Conference on Agriculture
- 1905–1912Director of State Land Properties, Chief Admin. of Land Management; drafted Stolypin reform legislation
- 1912–1916Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Hofmeister of the Imperial Court (1913), Senator (1916)
- 1916.11–1917.02Minister of Agriculture — signed grain requisition (29 Nov), capped Petrograd flour (Jan 1917)
- 1919–1930Emigrated to England; director of a Russian bank in London