Of aristocratic descent. Doctor by profession. Participant of the Zemstvo and liberal movements. Was repeatedly elected as member of the Moscow City Duma. From 1905 a member of the Central Committee of the Constitutional Democratic Party. On 1 March 1917 headed the Moscow government—the Executive Committee, elected by the city's Committee of Public Organisations. On 6 March 1917 he became the Provisional Government's Commissar for Moscow.
As head of the administration he was in charge of all aspects of the city management. In the light of the severe food situation secret bread reserves were requisitioned and the prices of basic foodstuffs fixed.
He advocated a coalition of the Constitutional Democrats, Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks. Carried out much work to prepare the elections for the City Duma in the summer of 1917. After Socialist Revolutionary V.V. Rudnev was elected as City Head on 11 July he handed the reins of city government over to him.
Early in August 1917 a secret meeting of public and political figures of Russia took place in his apartment and expressed its support for the dissolution of the Soviets and the establishment of a military dictatorship by general L.G. Kornilov in the country.
He became Minister of Public Welfare in the last cabinet of the Provisional Government and a hardline proponent of "law and order" in the country. On 25 October 1917 he was arrested in the Winter Palace and remained in custody until the end of November. Afterwards repeatedly arrested for "counter-revolutionary activities". In 1921 he was one of the organisers of the All-Russia Committee for Aid to the Hunger-stricken. From 1923 served in the health-resort section of the Peoples' Commissariat of Public Health.
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