Nikolai Avdakov

Born Feb. 16 (28), 1847; died Sept. 11 (24), 1915. A leader of the Russian monopoly bourgeoisie and a mining engineer.

Avdakov was closely connected with foreign (primarily French) finance capital and actively promoted the formation of monopolies in Russia. At congresses of mining industrialists of southern Russia, Avdakov was elected chairman of their councils (1900–05) and representative of these organizations to the government (1878–1915). He was chairman of the board of Produgol’, a society for trade in mineral fuels of the Donets Basin, and member of the board of Prodamet, a society for the sale of products of Russian metallurgical plants; from 1906 he was a member of the Council of State representing the merchants’ and industrialists’ curia; in the years 1907—15 he was chairman of the councils of the congresses of businessmen in Russia. Avdakov supported close cooperation with the tsarist government and the “apoliticalness” of bourgeois entrepreneur organizations.