Alexey Yermolov (politician)

Alexey Sergeyevich Yermolov (; 12 November 1847 – 4 January 1917) was a Russian politician.

Yermolov was born in 1847 (by some other sources in 1846), in 1866 graduated from the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, in 1871 received the Kandidat of agricultural sciences degree from the Petersburg Agricultural Institute. Worked as a senior editor of the statistical department and member of the Research Council of the Imperial Ministry for Agriculture. He was the leader of the expedition to study sheep husbandry in the Empire. In 1883-1892 he served as the head of the Indirect taxation department of the Ministry for Economics. In 1892 he became the Deputy to Ministry for Finance. In 1893 became Minister of Agriculture and State Properties of Russian Empire and served until 1905. Since 1905 he was a member of State Council of Imperial Russia.

He was an active member of the ''Free Economic Society'' (Вольное Экономическое Общество) and published a lot of scientific articles in the ''Works'' of the Society. In 1878 he represented the society at the World Fair in Paris. In 1886-1888 he served as the vice-president of the Society. In 1899 Yermolov was elected a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Yermolov and Sergei Witte were targets of the sharp criticism by Vladimir Lenin in his work ''What the “Friends of the People” Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats''. According to Lenin, Yermolov's opposition to migration as it could cause a shortage of labour for landowners, saying "What do the peasants exist for, if not to work and feed the idle landlords and their “high-placed” servitors?" Provided by Wikipedia