P.M. RYABUSHINSKY

The 25th anniversary of the foundation of the Partnership of Manufactories of P.M. Ryabushinsky and Sons ("manufactory" is an old name for "textile mills") was celebrated with lavish ceremony by the Ryabushinskys millionaire family in 1913. A book commemorating the solemn occasion and surveying the activities of the family, three generations deep, was brought out then. The story of the rise of the mighty clan of industrial magnates was set out in it "since Adam was a boy". In the second half of the 15th century a hermit called Pafnuti founded a cloister not far from the old Russian town of Borovsk. Pilgrims would flock to the retreat and settle in the local villages Vysotsky, Roshchinsky and Rebushinsky...In 1767 Empress Catherine the Great decreed that the cloister lands complete with the peasants be made over to the state. The Ryabushinsky family were descended from the peasants of the Rebushinsky community.

Mikhail, 16, was the first to launch his own business, of sackclcoth and linen sales, on the grounds of Gostinyi Dvor market-place. He signed up for the Third Guild of Moscow merchants in 1802 under the name of Yakovlev (his father was called Yakov). During the Patriotic War of 1812 Moscow burned down, and almost all Moscow's merchants were ruined. But Mikhail Yakovlev was one of those staunch enterprising traders, who survived and, later, succeeded. In 1820 the proper authorities permitted him to be named Rebushinsky which he eventually changed into Ryabushinsky. In 1846 M.Y. Ryabushinsky bought a small weaving mill in Moscow. He groomed his son, Pavel, as his successor.

Pavel Mikhailovich Ryabushinsky.

Pavel served as errand-boy in his father's shop since he was 14. His job consisted in drawing up daily financial accounts. The accounts and reports, and the figures they contained were growing with every passing year.

Ryabushinsky was building his business. He maintained offices in five uyezds (districts) of Kaluga Gubernia (Region). His people distributed yarn among local weavers who operated 3,000 looms. Fabrics were sold in Ryabushinsky's own shops. He built two mills in the provinces, equipped with 600 and 200 looms respectively, imported from Manchester.

Mikhail Yakovlevich died in 1858 when Pavel turned 38 but had already spent 25 years working for the family. The business flourished: in 1864 the two brothers purchased new premises in Chizhov podvorye having sold the father's early old and small shops for 18,000 roubles. The brothers founded a partnership under the trade name of P. and V. Ryabushinsky in Moscow which was duly registered in an official certificate.

In 1869 P.M. Ryabushinsky bought a cotton mill with 268 spindles from the firm "A. Shilov and Son", for 268 thousand roubles. The enterprise was located by the station of Vyshni Volochyok on the Nikolayev railway, mid-way between Moscow and St. Petersburg.

The four elder sons of Pavel Mikhailovich would come to Vyshni Volochyok for "summertime practice". He was getting on in years and so wanted his sons to take over the business. (His brother had died suddenly.) He founded the Partnership of Manufactories of P.M. Ryabushinsky and Sons, of an ownership form which, in his view, would be most conducive to promotion of his business.

Pavel Mikhailovich died in 1899. The four of his eight sons, having graduated from the Academy of Practical Sciences and completed advanced training courses abroad, worked actively in their father's business. One of the brothers, Vladimir, wrote that the ancestral mills were to them like ancestral castles to medieval knights. The three junior brothers later joined the elder ones. One of them, Nikolai, resigned from the Partnership.

Pavel Pavlovich Ryabushinsky.

Pavel Pavlovich, the eldest of the Ryabushinsky third generation, took over the firm. He met with severe trials which threatened total ruin. The textile mills were destroyed in a major fire in 1900. A leading banker and industrialist, A.K. Alchevsky, committed suicide a year later. Ryabushinskys had invested about 4 million roubles in his enterprise and banks.

By the outbreak of World War I the Ryabushinsky enterprises had employed over 4.5 thousand and their annual output was valued at 8 million roubles.

The firm relied on the Ryabushinsky banking house with a capital of 5 million roubles. Besides, they gained control of Russia's third largest mortgage bank which they took over after Alchevsky's suicide. In 1912 the brothers converted their bank into a joint-stock bank, called the Moscow Commercial Bank, with a capital stock of 25 million roubles. It ranked thirteenth among Russia's leading banks.

The building of the Ryabushinsky bank in Moscow.

During a solid century of their firm's existence the Ryabushinskys traversed the path from petty traders to Russia's top-notch entrepreneurs. Yet, business was not a deep passion for the third-generation Ryabushinsky brothers. Operators of big European capital acted, traditionally, on the quiet, through their agents and politicians, and were not directly involved in political battles. In Russia of the early 20th century, however, "young" Moscow capitalists rushed into politics without mediators.

From the rostrum of the All-Russia Commerce and Industry Congress P.P. Ryabushinsky stated that it would be premature to talk about socialism because the country must first traverse the path of unhindered development of free enterprise. A group of "young capitalists" led by the eldest Ryabushinsky established a party of "peaceful renovation", espousing consolidation of free enterprise and liberalism which would recognize freedom of labour unions, of assembly, the right to stage peaceful strikes and industrial actions, protect child and female labour, provide insurance of workers against accidents, etc. In 1907 P.P. Ryabushinsky began publishing his own newspaper, "Utro Rossii" (Morning of Russia), very popular before the Revolution. It was attractive because it had an "opposition" slant and maintained a far-flung net of its own correspondents.

The Ryabushinsky printing house "Utro Rossii".

In 1915 Pavel Ryabushinsky was elected Chairman of the Moscow Stock Exchange Committee. Shortly afterwards he was appointed to head the War Industry Committee, an influential economic body for mobilization of industry to serve the war effort. The February Revolution broke out when Ryabushinsky was busy preparing the Constituent Congress of the Organization of Commerce and Industry which opened on March 19, 1917.

Meanwhile, famine engulfed the principal industrial and agricultural regions of Central Russia. The bourgeoisie found itself in total social isolation, what with the prevailing conditions. P.P. Ryabushinsky linked "order" in the country with a military dictatorship. Pavel Pavlovich who was proud of his peasant origins and who had over the years championed the establishment of a Constitutional system in the country eventually sided with General Kornilov and came to the following conclusion: "In order to defend the state, force can only be countered by force." After the rout of Kornilov and the triumph of the October revolution, the Ryabushinsky clan emigrated. It seemed that after introduction of New Economic Policy (NEP) in the country there emerged a chance to "restore Russia" by pooling the efforts of the NEP trading and industrial class and pre-revolutionary entrepreneurs. Former Russian industrialists and financiers regarded NEP as compelling evidence of the bankruptcy of the communist economic system. They expected a further step, "which would topple the communist dictatorship and permit the pursuit of fruitful work of Russia's economic restoration". Pavel Pavlovich still hoped he could be useful to his country. That was his last illusion. None of the Ryabushinskys was destined to return to Russia.