Mikhail Vladimirovich Bernatski

Mikhail Vladimirovich Bernazki ( Russian Михаил Владимирович Бернацкий ; born October 6 ^{. Jul} / 18th October  1876 ^{. Greg} in Kiev ; † 16th July 1943 in Paris ) was a Ukrainian - Russian economist , university lecturer and politician .

Life

Bernazki came from a noble family . The father died early, so that the high school student Bernazki had to give private lessons for a living. He graduated from the Law Faculty of Kiev University . After graduating, he stayed there at the Chair of Political Economy . From 1904 he taught political economy at the Tenischew School in St. Petersburg and then gave lectures at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute (from 1908 as a lecturer ) and at the St. Petersburg Technological Institute. He dealt with the problems of payment transactions and worked in magazines of the Legal Marxists , including Mir Boschi . In 1906 he published his book on the agrarian question, in which he opposed the expropriation and nationalization of private property and advocated state loans for the acquisition of land. In Berlin he attended lectures at the Humboldt University . With his dissertation on the theoreticians of state socialism in Germany and the socio-political ideas of Prince Bismarck , Bernazki received his doctorate in 1911 as a Magister for Political Economy. He was a member of the Cadets and a voting member of the Petrograd City Duma .

After the February Revolution of 1917 , Bernazki became head of the Labor Department in the Ministry of Trade and Industry of the Provisional Government . From April 1917 he was chairman of the conference to consider the draft law for the freedom to strike . He refused to give unions full rights to strike in wartime and supported the militarization of industry. In June 1917 he was one of the organizers of the Radical Democratic Party led by Nikolai Vissarionovich Nekrasov . In July 1917, Bernazki became Vice Minister for Trade and Industry. In September 1917 he became Minister of Finance of the last Provisional Government. He advocated a general income tax , an increase in inheritance tax and the taxation of war profits. He tried to combat inflation through indirect taxes and the introduction of a monopoly on tea, sugar and matches. He proposed to ban the export of valuables abroad. On the day of the October Revolution , he was arrested with the other ministers in the Winter Palace, detained in the Peter and Paul Fortress , and then released.

Bernatski escaped to Rostov-on-Don and joined the White Movement in the Russian Civil War . In May 1918 he became a member of the All-Russian National Center. In the spring of 1919 he became Minister of Finance in the government of General Alexei Vladimirovich von Schwarz in Odessa . 1919–1920 Bernazki was a member of the General Command of the Armed Forces of Southern Russia of General Anton Ivanovich Denikin and head of the financial administration. He directed the issuing of credit tickets as a substitute for money and devalued the Soviet banknotes . In February 1920 he became Minister of Finance of the South Russian Government. After Denikin's retreat to the Crimea in the spring of 1920, Bernazki headed the Executive Cabinet as Denikin's last government. Then he became Minister of Finance in the government of the new Commander-in-Chief Baron Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel . There he was able to continue his previous policy with the introduction of a grain export monopoly and budget financing through indirect taxes, while Denikin had relied on direct taxes. He led the negotiations to obtain a loan in Paris . In the autumn of 1920 Wrangel and his Prime Minister Alexander Wassiljewitsch Kriwoschein wanted to replace the theoretician Bernazki with a practitioner who could no longer be found in this particular situation. Bernatski was dismissed and directed the purchase of coal for the ships used to evacuate white troops and civilians from the Crimea. To the end he had maintained his reputation as an honest person.

After his evacuation from the Crimea, Bernazki took care of the accommodation of the evacuees. Then he was chairman of the finance council of the Russian Council of Exiled Russian Ambassadors founded by Wrangel, at whose disposal the foreign assets of the former Russian government were transferred. He had large sums of money, but led a modest life himself and only accepted help from relatives and friends when his sick son had to be admitted to hospital. He was scientifically active and wrote technical articles. In 1922, together with Arthur Raffalovich, he published a book in French on the circulation of money in Russia , in 1924, together with Alfred Amonn, a book in German on the currency reforms in Czechoslovakia and the USSR, and in 1928 a major work in English on Russian state finances during the First World War . He remained an advocate of the gold standard and social reforms without restricting private initiatives. From 1924 he participated in the work of the Economics Department of the Russian Institute of Law and Economics, which had been established at the University of Paris .

Bernazki was married to Olga Vladimirovna nee Gamaleja (1879–1942) and was buried on the Cimetière Parisien de Bagneux next to his wife.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} АННОТИРОВАННЫЙ ИМЕННОЙ СПИСОК ЧЛЕНОВ ОСОБОГО СОВЕЩАНИЯ И ПРИГЛАШЕННЫХ ЛИЦ (accessed December 14, 2018).
2. ↑ Баранов А. Г .: М. В. Бернацкий - учёный, министр, политик (accessed December 15, 2018).
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Владимирский М. В .: М. В. Бернацкий - министр финансов в правительствах Керенского, Деникина, Врангеля . In: Отечественная история . No. 1 , 2007, p. 160–170 ( fox-notes.ru [accessed December 15, 2018]).
4. ↑ Chronos: Михаил Владимирович Бернацкий (accessed December 15, 2018).
5. ↑ Большая российская энциклопедия: БЕРНА́ЦКИЙ Михаил Владимирович (accessed December 15, 2018).
6. ↑ MW Bernazki: Теоретики государственного социализма в Германии и социально-политические воззрения князя Бисмарка . St. Petersburg 1911 ( rsl.ru [accessed December 15, 2018]).
7. ↑ П. Н. Врангель о “деловом кабинете” (accessed December 15, 2018).
8. ↑ Alfred Amonn; MV Bernatzky: Currency reform in Czechoslovakia and in Soviet Russia . Duncker & Humblot , Munich 1924.
9. ↑ MV Bernatski: Russian Public Finance during the War . Yale University Press, New Haven 1928.