Alexander Pavlovich Serebrovsky (; – 10 February 1938) was a Russian revolutionary and

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

petroleum and

mining engineer Mining engineering is the extraction of minerals from the ground. It is associated with many other disciplines, such as mineral processing, exploration, excavation, geology, metallurgy, geotechnical engineering and surveying. A mining engineer m ...

nicknamed the "Soviet Rockefeller".

Biography

Serebrovsky was born in Ufa to the wealthy family of an exiled member of

Narodnaya Volya Narodnaya Volya () was a late 19th-century revolutionary socialist political organization operating in the Russian Empire, which conducted assassinations of government officials in an attempt to overthrow the autocratic Tsarist system. The org ...

, the organization responsible for the assassination of

Tsar Alexander II Alexander II ( rus, Алекса́ндр II Никола́евич, Aleksándr II Nikoláyevich, p=ɐlʲɪˈksandr ftɐˈroj nʲɪkɐˈlajɪvʲɪtɕ; 29 April 181813 March 1881) was Emperor of Russia, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland fro ...

in 1881. In 1903 Serebrovsky became a member of the

Russian Social Democratic Labour Party The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party (RSDWP) or the Russian Social Democratic Party (RSDP), was a socialist political party founded in 1898 in Minsk, Russian Empire. The ...

member. Serebrovsky continued the family political activity; his first arrest was in 1902. Serebrovsky studied at St. Petersburg Institute of Technology, but emigrated in 1908 to

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

. In 1911 Serebrovsky graduated from the Higher Technical School in Brussels and received a degree in

mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines and mechanism (engineering), mechanisms that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and engineering mathematics, mathematics principl ...

. Upon returning to Russia, he worked in various engineering and technical positions. During the Russian Civil War, Serebrovsky was a government director of two of the biggest plants in

Petrograd Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...

. After the

October Revolution The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Historiography in the Soviet Union, Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of Russian Revolution, two r ...

Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky,; ; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky'' was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician, and political theorist. He was a key figure ...

induced Serebrovsky to join in the Soviet work. The Soviet service brought him, as it did so many others, into the Communist party, where he became "one of the mainstays of the regime". In May 1920, the

Council of People's Commissars The Council of People's Commissars (CPC) (), commonly known as the ''Sovnarkom'' (), were the highest executive (government), executive authorities of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), the Soviet Union (USSR), and the Sovi ...

(CPC) sent 35-year-old Serebrovsky to the

Absheron Peninsula The Absheron Peninsula () is a peninsula in Azerbaijan. It is the location of Baku, the most populous city of the country, and the Baku Metropolitan Area, with its satellite cities Sumqayit and Khyrdalan. It extends eastward into the Caspian S ...

to head Azneft, the newly created conglomerate of nationalized

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan, officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a Boundaries between the continents, transcontinental and landlocked country at the boundary of West Asia and Eastern Europe. It is a part of the South Caucasus region and is bounded by ...

i oil enterprises.

Soviet Oil Production Reform

Serebrovsky's first arrival in the United States was on July 29, 1924; the next day, he visited the central office of the

Standard Oil Standard Oil Company was a Trust (business), corporate trust in the petroleum industry that existed from 1882 to 1911. The origins of the trust lay in the operations of the Standard Oil of Ohio, Standard Oil Company (Ohio), which had been founde ...

Company of New York, negotiating with Walter C. Teagle. In order to establish credit for the Soviet oil organization, Serebrovsky had to meet with the then 90-year-old

John D. Rockefeller John Davison Rockefeller Sr. (July 8, 1839 – May 23, 1937) was an American businessman and philanthropist. He was one of the List of richest Americans in history, wealthiest Americans of all time and one of the richest people in modern hist ...

and described the meeting in his memoirs: “ ockefellerwas very well-informed about things in

Baku Baku (, ; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Azerbaijan, largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and in the Caucasus region. Baku is below sea level, which makes it the List of capital ci ...

... and about our resources... I proposed two arrangements. First, he would give a letter of guarantee to his bank to pay our supplier invoices from future earnings on petroleum products.... Rockefeller thought for a long time, and then looked at me attentively and unexpectedly agreed. Second, he would give a letter to suppliers in which he would recommend us as buyers well known to him and recommend that we be given the same discount on invoices as Standard Oil. Rockefeller accepted this much more readily. It was around five in the afternoon, and tea was served. The old man poured tea for me, offered me cookies with jam, and then invited me to take a stroll. He walked quickly and for a long time, half an hour, and we went around the entire forest park. I was hardly able to keep up with him, and my leg ached.” During the return sea voyage from the US to Europe, Serebrovsky finished his book ''The Oil and Gas Industry in America'' �ефтяная и газовая промышленность в Америка which summarized his stay in the US. During his brief stay in London, he had the book published in Russian. Serebrovsky was dubbed the "Soviet Rockefeller" for his work on the Caucasian oil fields, and introduction of American drilling tools and techniques. Serebrovsky also contributed to the formation of the gas-oil production department of the

Azerbaijan State Oil Academy Azerbaijan State Oil and Industrial University (formerly Azerbaijan State Oil Academy) () is a tertiary education institution in Baku, Azerbaijan. History The rise of what became ASOIU is tied to the rise of the petroleum industry in the Ba ...

. and has an offsite oil field named after him.

Soviet Gold Production Reform

Having successfully completed his assignment to return the

Caucasian Caucasian may refer to: Common meanings *Anything from the Caucasus region or related to it ** Ethnic groups in the Caucasus ** ''Caucasian Exarchate'' (1917–1920), an ecclesiastical exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Caucasus re ...

oil fields to production, Serebrovsky was charged by

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

with the task of reforming the Soviet gold industry. Stalin had read several books about the 1849

California gold rush The California gold rush (1848–1855) began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the U ...

, including works by

Bret Harte Bret Harte ( , born Francis Brett Hart, August 25, 1836 – May 5, 1902) was an American short story writer and poet best remembered for short fiction featuring miners, gamblers, and other romantic figures of the California Gold Rush. In a caree ...

and

Blaise Cendrars Frédéric-Louis Sauser (1 September 1887 – 21 January 1961), better known as Blaise Cendrars (), was a Swiss-born novelist and poet who became a naturalized French citizen in 1916. He was a writer of considerable influence in the European ...

' book ''Sutter's Gold'', later turned into an

American film The cinema of the United States, primarily associated with major film studios collectively referred to as Hollywood, has significantly influenced the global film industry since the early 20th century. Classical Hollywood cinema, a filmmakin ...

. Serebrovsky immediately travelled to

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

posing as a simple "Professor of Mines" (he was in fact a professor at the Moscow Mining Institute as well as a key functionary of the regime); his plan was to duplicate American mining techniques in the USSR. At one of the first Alaskan mines he visited, Serebrovsky met

Jack Littlepage John Dickinson "Jack" Littlepage (September 14, 1894 – July 8, 1948) was an American mining engineer. He was born in Gresham, Oregon on September 14, 1894. Littlepage was employed in the USSR from 1928 to 1937, becoming Deputy Commissar of the ...

, then age 33, who was a successful mining engineer. Littlepage initially dismissed Serebrovsky's offer of work in the USSR stating that he "did not like Bolsheviks" as they "seem to have the habit of shooting people, especially engineers." However Serebrovsky persevered and persuaded Littlepage to emigrate to the USSR with his family for nearly 10 years before returning to the USA. Later, in 1936, Serebrovsky's Russian-language book ''On the Gold Front'' �а Золотом фронте - ''rus''was published; however his book was "withdrawn from circulation very shortly after it appeared because some of the men mentioned in it were later discovered to be conspirators.".

Death

Serebrovsky was arrested on September 23, 1937, and on February 8, 1938, was convicted of “counter revolutionary activities” by the Military Collegium of the USSR Supreme Court. He was shot on February 10, 1938, at age 53. According to Stalin's own report, Serebrovsky was a "vicious

enemy of the people The terms enemy of the people and enemy of the nation are designations for the political opponents and the social class, social-class opponents of the Power (social and political), power group within a larger social unit, who, thus identified, ...

" who had delivered no less than 50m gold bars to

. Alexander Serebrovsky was posthumously rehabilitated on May 19, 1956.

Notes

References