He was involved with revolutionary activities, which resulted in him being arrested twice and expelled from the city, disrupting his studies to the point of being unable to finish them.

Due to his involvement with the party, he was arrested by the Russian Provisional Government in the aftermath of the July Days and was charged with treason.

The principal figures of the PMRC were Leon Trotsky and Mikhail Lashevich; the leaders of the Bolshevik military organization were Mekhonoshin, Nevskii, Iurenev, Nikolai Podvoiskii and Pavel Lazimir.

He helped defend Petrograd against the counter-attack led by Alexander Kerensky, the leader of the Russian Provisional Government, with General Krasnov's Cossacks.

[8] He was appointed commissar on the southern front during the Russian Civil War in 1918 by Leon Trotsky in an attempt to counter Joseph Stalin's military shortcomings.

[11] He was proponent at the time of the defence sector manufacturing being undertaken by civilian factories, as they were believed to be more efficient and would allow the freeing up of resources to use for other state objectives.

While at Gosplan, he was also Chairman of a special commission to review the NKVM's 1929/1930 financial five-year plan as part of a bureaucratic tug-of-war between departments.