Alois Rašín (18 October 1867[1] – 18 February 1923)[2] was a Czech and Czechoslovakian politician, economist, one of the founders of Czechoslovakia and first Ministry for Finance.

[3] Rašín was born as a ninth child (of which seven were alive) into the cottage in the outskirts of a small town Nechanice near Hradec Králové.

Firstly, he studied at the Faculty of Medicine of Charles University (back then called Charles-Ferdinand) but he was forced to leave due to lung disease.

But because of his previous controversial article that was confiscated by the police, he was threatened by prolonging his service in the military to two years in total and loss of his ranks.

[3] Despite having little and questionable evidence against radical movements in Prague, the Austrian government declared a state of emergency in September 1893 and started to arrest critical voices.

In November 1894, his father became a member of the Imperial Council which is the highest legislative body of the Cisleithanian part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire based in Vienna.

When he returned, he planned to stand against weakness and humanism of the realist wing of the Young Czech Party represented by Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk.

[3] After the start of the Great War, Rašín sided with the anti-monarchy voices in the country but realized that parliament parties don’t matter anymore.

Přemysl Šámal together with Edvard Beneš, Karel Kramář, Václav Klofáč, Alois Rašín and later Antonín Švehla created a resistance group Maffia,[7] inspired by Sicilian Mafia.

They created the so-called National Council (Czech: Národní rada) that financed foreign resistance led by Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk.

The process with Alois Rašín, Karel Kramář, journalist and translator Vincenc Červinka, and accountant of the malt house Zdeněk Zamazal lasted from December 1915 to July 1916 with the result of the death penalty.

[3] In July 1918, the National Committee of Czechoslovakia (Czech: Národní výbor československý) was formed to overtake the power in the country and to create new laws.

Karel Kramář was Chairman, Antonín Švehla Vice-Chairman, František Soukup Managing Director and Alois Rašín Member of the Board.

In the night from 27th to 28th, Vlastimil Tusar called Rašín from Vienna and said that Czech politics needs to go to the front and support fighters in endurance and not leaving.

Today, Alois Rašín is remembered as one of the Men of the 28th October (with Antonín Švehla, Jiří Stříbrný, Vavro Šrobár, František Soukup), who together declared an independent Czechoslovakian state.

On the first meeting, the members elected Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk as the President of the Republic and appointed Karel Kramář Prime Minister.

January 1919, Alois Rašín wrote to Edvard Beneš: "The population thinks that freedom means not paying taxes, no one is doing anything from executions, so I don't know how economics could be managed further," but at the same time state is relied on as on the solver of all problems.

At the beginning of 1919, Rašín closed borders and the isolated whole country from 26 February to 9 March and started to stamp all money from which he withholds some part as a government loan.

The goal was to disconnect currencies, lower volume of money in circulation and subordinate emission policy to a newly created state bank.

In the same year, Alois Rašín published his book My Finance Plan (Czech: Můj finanční plán) describing Czechoslovakian financial history from Austria-Hungary till present days.

Amidst an economic crisis, Rašín stressed the politics of deflation (in 1922 prices dropped by 42%, salaries by 32%) and a strong currency.

In the morning of 5 January 1923, Alois Rašín came out of his apartment in Žitná street house number 8 and was shot in the back and side[14] when trying to get in the ministry car.

The assassin was young anarcho-communist Josef Šoupal who confessed and told that he was planning to kill other representatives of Czechoslovak capitalism Jaroslav Preiss and Karel Kramář.

[17] According to Ferdinand Peroutka, Alois Rašín was a thrifty man and as the Minister of Finance was very cautious every time someone demanded some portion of the governmental budget.