[1] Like other scions of such merchant families, he had a good education (he spoke French, German, and English) and was anxious both to be accepted into high society and improve his country.

Rebuffed by the Constitutional Democrats, who did not want to be associated with the "narrow class interests" of industrialists, he and his fellow Old Believer Aleksandr Konovalov established contact with the "Right Kadets" associated with Peter Struve and began the Economic Discussions of 1909–12, "one of the few sustained collaborations between entrepreneurs and intellectuals in Russian history" (West, p. 46).

This organisation exercised considerable autonomy from the Central War Industry Committee, directly negotiating contracts between entrepreneurs and the Military.

After the October Revolution he was accused of giving financial support to the All-Russian Teachers' Union, who had refused to continue to work under Bolshevik instruction.

[5] He subsequently emigrated to France, where he continued to hope that he and his entrepreneurial class might eventually play a role in the development of his native country.