Nekrasov, Nikolai Vissarionovich

Nekrasov, Nikolai Vissarionovich 

Born Oct. 20 (Nov. 1), 1879, in St. Petersburg; died May 7, 1940. Member of the party of the Constitutional Democrats (Cadets); a leader of its left wing. Son of a priest.

Nekrasov graduated from the Institute of Transportation and Communications and was an instructor (professor) at the Tomsk Technological Institute from 1902 to 1907. He was a deputy to the Third and Fourth State Dumas from 1908 to 1917. He was elected vice-chairman of the State Duma on Nov. 6 (18), 1916. In World War I (1914–18), Nekrasov was vice-chairman of the Chief Committee for the Supply of the Army of the All-Russian Zemstvo and City Unions. After the February Revolution of 1917, he was a member of the Provisional Committee of the State Duma and of the Provisional Government, serving as minister of transportation, vice-chairman of the Council of Ministers, and minister of finance. In July 1917 he went over to the Radical Democratic Party. He was governor-general of Finland in September and October 1917.

Nekrasov worked in consumers’ cooperatives after the October Revolution of 1917 and served as head of a department and a member of the board of the Central Union of Consumers’ Societies of the RSFSR and the USSR from 1921 to 1930. He taught at Moscow University and at the G. V. Plekhanov Institute of the National Economy in Moscow (1924–30).