Riabushinskii

a family of Russian industrialists and bankers.

The Riabushinskie were descendants of peasants from Kaluga Province, where P. M. Riabushinskii and V. M. Riabushinskii owned several small textile factories in the mid-19th century. In 1869 the family purchased cotton factories in Vyshnii Volochek, at the same time engaging in credit operations. P. M. Riabushinskii’s sons acquired enterprises in the linen, glass, paper, and printing industries. They acquired lumber and metalworking enterprises during World War I and undertook construction of an automotive plant. In 1900 they assumed the leading position in the Kharkov Land Bank. In 1902 the Riabushinskii brothers founded a banking house, which in 1912 was reorganized as the Moscow Bank. The Riabushinskie played the leading role in the strongest entrepreneurs’ organizations in Russia, including the Society of Factory Owners of the Cotton Industry, the Moscow Exchange Committee, the War Industries Committee, and the All-Russian Union of Trade and Industry. They were part of the Progressive Party’s leadership group and published the newspaper Utro Rossii.

Of the eight Riabushinskii brothers, Pavel Pavlovich Riabushinskii (1871-1924) became the best known, emerging as the acknowledged leader of the Russian counterrevolutionary bourgeoisie on the eve of the October Revolution of 1917. He helped to organize and lead the Kornilov and Kaledin revolts and the military intervention in Soviet Russia. He continued his counterrevolutionary activity in emigration.