Prominent activist of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. Doctor by profession. Three times arrested by the tsarist government, spent time in exile and emigration.
After February 1917 one of the leaders of the Moscow branch of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. A member of the Presidium of the Moscow Soviet of Workers' Deputies. A supporter of a coalition between the moderate socialists and the Constitutional Democrats.
Elected as City Head at a session of the Moscow Duma on 11 July 1917. The author of a programme of municipal reform which made provision for state control over production, the introduction of an eight hour working day, the regulation of rent-paying and 'control over the sanitary conditions of residential buildings.
Rudnev participated in the Stale Conference in Moscow in August 1917. He was chairman of the Provisional Committee for combatting the Kornilov revolt. On 25 October 1917 the Minister of the Interior, A.M. Nikitin, sent a telegram from the Winter Palace in which he instructed the commissars of the Provisional Government in Moscow and the Moscow gubernia, V.R Grigorov and A.A. Eiler, as well as City Head V.V. Rudnev to "take all necessary measures to support the government through the organs of self-rule and other public organisations", while firmly suppressing all local demonstrations by workers and soldiers. From 26 October to 2 November Rudnev headed the Committee of Public Security and together with the commander of the Moscow military district, colonel K.I. Ryabtsev, led the armed struggle of government forces against the Red Guard and soldiers' fighting units. On 2 November 1917 he signed the capitulation treaty but refused to submit to Soviet power and for some time attempted to carry out his previous functions.
A member of the anti-Soviet movement in Southern Russia. From 1919 in emigration. Died in France.
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