Serebrovsky was born in
Ufa to the wealthy family of an exiled member of
Narodnaya Volya, the organization responsible for the assassination of
Tsar Alexander II in 1881. In 1903 Serebrovsky became a member of the
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party member.
Soviet Oil Production Reform Serebrovsky's first arrival in the United States was on July 29, 1924; the next day, he visited the central office of the
Standard Oil Company of New York, negotiating with
Walter C. Teagle. In order to establish credit for the Soviet oil organization, Serebrovsky had to meet with the then 90-year-old
John D. Rockefeller and described the meeting in his memoirs: “[Rockefeller] was very well-informed about things in
Baku... and about our resources... I proposed two arrangements. First, he would give a letter of guarantee to his bank to pay our supplier invoices from future earnings on petroleum products.... Rockefeller thought for a long time, and then looked at me attentively and unexpectedly agreed. Second, he would give a letter to suppliers in which he would recommend us as buyers well known to him and recommend that we be given the same discount on invoices as Standard Oil. Rockefeller accepted this much more readily. It was around five in the afternoon, and tea was served. The old man poured tea for me, offered me cookies with jam, and then invited me to take a stroll. He walked quickly and for a long time, half an hour, and we went around the entire forest park. I was hardly able to keep up with him, and my leg ached.” During the return sea voyage from the US to Europe, Serebrovsky finished his book
The Oil and Gas Industry in America [Нефтяная и газовая промышленность в Америка], which summarized his stay in the US. During his brief stay in London, he had the book published in Russian. Serebrovsky was dubbed the "Soviet
Rockefeller" for his work on the Caucasian oil fields, and introduction of American drilling tools and techniques. Serebrovsky also contributed to the formation of the gas-oil production department of the
Azerbaijan State Oil Academy. and has an offsite oil field named after him.
Soviet Gold Production Reform Having successfully completed his assignment to return the
Caucasian oil fields to production, Serebrovsky was charged by
Joseph Stalin with the task of reforming the Soviet gold industry. Stalin had read several books about the 1849
California gold rush, including works by
Bret Harte and
Blaise Cendrars' book ''Sutter's Gold'', later turned into an
American film. Serebrovsky immediately travelled to
Alaska posing as a simple "Professor of Mines" (he was in fact a professor at the
Moscow Mining Institute as well as a key functionary of the regime); his plan was to duplicate American mining techniques in the USSR. At one of the first Alaskan mines he visited, Serebrovsky met
Jack Littlepage, then age 33, who was a successful mining engineer. Littlepage initially dismissed Serebrovsky's offer of work in the USSR stating that he "did not like Bolsheviks" as they "seem to have the habit of
shooting people, especially engineers." However Serebrovsky persevered and persuaded Littlepage to emigrate to the USSR with his family for nearly 10 years before returning to the USA. Later, in 1936, Serebrovsky's Russian-language book
On the Gold Front [На Золотом фронте -
rus] was published; however his book was "withdrawn from circulation very shortly after it appeared because some of the men mentioned in it were later discovered to be conspirators.".
Death Serebrovsky was arrested on September 23, 1937, and on February 8, 1938, was convicted of “counter revolutionary activities” by the Military Collegium of the USSR Supreme Court. He was shot on February 10, 1938, at age 53. According to Stalin's own report, Serebrovsky was a "vicious
enemy of the people" who had delivered no less than 50m gold bars to
Leon Trotsky. Alexander Serebrovsky was posthumously rehabilitated on May 19, 1956. == Notes ==