Russia
Sergei Witte
1849–1915 Finance Minister to 1903; first Chairman of the Council of Ministers, 1905–1906
Born in Tiflis (Tbilisi) in 1849, Sergei Witte made his career in the railways before serving as Russian finance minister until 1903. He promoted industry with foreign capital, put the ruble on the gold standard in 1897 and accelerated construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway. In August 1905 he went to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to negotiate peace with Japan; that year he also framed the October Manifesto and became the first chairman of the Council of Ministers, effectively prime minister. Court opposition to reform ended his influence, and he resigned in 1906 before the first Duma met. He died in 1915; his memoirs, hidden in a French bank, appeared in English in 1921.