1871–1955
○ Natural causes
An economist who analysed the tension between markets and state control
“Retailers speculated earlier and they are speculating now, although there were no high prices earlier but now there are.”
Sergei Prokopovich was an economist who studied Russia’s agrarian, labour and cooperative problems through statistics and political economy. He moved from revolutionary Marxism toward revisionist social democracy and liberal politics, while continuing to argue that the state should regulate markets and address workers’ and peasants’ living conditions. As Minister of Food Supply in the Provisional Government in 1917, he confronted a crisis in which wartime mobilisation, transport disruption and peasant retention of grain undermined fixed prices and the state grain monopoly. After helping organise famine relief, he was arrested and expelled, then analysed the Soviet economy statistically in exile.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1890sJoined the Union of Russian Social-Democrats Abroad
- 1899Returned to Russia after graduating from the University of Brussels
- 1904–1905Joined the Union of Liberation and briefly served on the Constitutional Democratic Party central committee during the 1905 Revolution
- 1906–1916Conducted research on economic statistics, agriculture and labour, and worked in the cooperative movement
- 1917Minister of Trade and Industry, then Minister of Food Supply in the Provisional Government
- 1921Helped organise and lead the All-Russian Committee for Aid to the Starving
- 1922–1955After expulsion, pursued economic research and publishing in Berlin, Prague and Switzerland
Related historical events
- 1905–1907The Revolution of 1905Constitutional Democratic Party central committee memberDuring the 1905 Revolution, he briefly served on the Constitutional Democratic Party central committee.
- 1921–1922The Russian Famine of 1921–1922Economist who diagnosed the grain market collapseAs Minister of Food Supply in the Provisional Government, he analyzed the failure of fixed prices and the collapse of the grain market.
Famine relief and economic research in exile
During the famine of 1921, Prokopovich took part in the Public Committee for Famine Relief with Yekaterina Kuskova and others. The authorities accused the committee of anti-Soviet propaganda; in November 1921, he and his associates were arrested and exiled to Vologda. He was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1922. The episode can be described in the context of official accusations and repression directed at the relief work, but the evidence here does not support further claims about the motives for the work or the legal particulars of the arrests. In exile, he published economic periodicals in places including Berlin and Prague. He moved to Switzerland with Kuskova in 1939 and spent his final years in Geneva.