Population Statistics of Russia: The Russian Empire, the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation

Abstract

This chapter provides: (1) an overview of the statistical systems and methods of maintaining population statistics in the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation: (2) population statistics in territorial units comparable to the Russian Federation based on primary materials; and (3) a general view of long-term population dynamics from the late imperial era to the new Russian Federation. There is a large gap between research dealing with population during the imperial period and that which examines the period after the October Revolution, since few studies utilized primary data in investigating population figures of the imperial era.

Revised from Russian Research Center Working Paper Series, No. 2, pp. 1–38, December 2007, “Long-Term Population Statistics for Russia 1867–2002” by Kazuhiro Kumo, Takako Morinaga and Yoshisada Shida. With kind permission of the Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University, Japan. All rights reserved.

Appendices

Appendix: Time Series of Alternative Estimates of the Total Population of the Territory Covered by the Present Russian Federation in the Imperial Era

As said in the main text, it is possible to produce a time series for the population of European Russia that meets certain standards, with the problem being the populations of regions outside European Russia, such as the Caucasus, Siberia, and the Russia’s far east. Here the authors make alternative estimates based on the statistics for European Russia during the Imperial era.

• (1) The populations of each province during the imperial era can be obtained as (a) actual data only for certain years, namely 1867, 1870, 1883, 1885, 1886, 1891, and after. In addition, because data on births and deaths for each province exist for every year from 1867, it is possible to extrapolate (b) estimated populations for the other years by subtracting figures for natural increase from the populations in 1916. Furthermore, it is possible to adjust the actual data for the years mentioned above to the area of the European part of the present Russian Federation. The population of the present territory of European Russia was between 60 % and 63.5 % of the population of imperial European Russia, but the trend was for this percentage to decline. For the other years, meanwhile, only the total population (not the population of each province) of imperial European Russia could be obtained. For these total populations, the authors adopted a (c) procedure of focusing on years for which it was possible to make adjustments for area and applying, with some leeway, the ratio of the total population of the present territory of European Russia and the total population of imperial European Russia, and calculating means for years for which both total and by-province populations were available. The authors used this procedure to calculate the total population of the territory covered by modern European Russia.

• (2) The populations of the non-European territory of the present Russian Federation in the imperial era were obtained from (a') actual data for 1885 and 1904 and after. Although statistics do not exist for other years, it is possible to produce a (b') time series for cases where the rate of increase was exactly the same as that of imperial European Russia. The total population of this territory as a proportion of the total population of the territory of modern European Russia increased continuously from 1885, when it was 18.3 %, to 1916, when it was 26.9 %. For 1885 and earlier (c'), the authors fixed the total population of this territory as a proportion of the territory of modern European Russia at 18 %, steadily increasing this percentage for the years that followed, and then applying actual percentages once again to 1904 and after, to calculate hypothetical populations for the non-European parts of the present Russian Federation. In doing this the calculation for the base total populations of European Russia used both (b) and (c).

The above figures were then put together to present a time series for the total population of the territory covered by the present Russian Federation. The results are shown in Figure 2.A alongside the estimated (main) time series from the main text, and one can see that the two series are similar. This is because both series are based on dynamic statistics for imperial European Russia, and because during the imperial era the total population of the non-European part of the present Russian Federation as a proportion of the total population of the territory of the present Russian Federation was always less than 23 %. However, neither method accurately takes into account the population dynamics of the non-European part of the present Russian Federation. If it were possible to use time series for indicators such as grain yields, it would obviously be better to use such figures. Again, though, the problem is whether such data would be obtainable and reliable.

Fig. 2.A.

Comparison of substitute time series of estimates of the total population of the territory covered by modern Russia

Notes

• 1. As an example of the modernization that occurred during the imperial era, the volume of domestically produced steel for railways overtook the volume of imports of such steel during the late 1800s. See Falkus (1972).

• 2. However, some say that 5 % or less of the total population was missed (Valentei 1985), and given that they provide an otherwise unavailable insight into the period from the early eighteenth century to the end of the nineteenth century, they are well worth looking at.

• 3. Koeppen (1847) studied only the 1830s, Den (1902) only the end of the eighteenth century and beginning of the nineteenth century, and Troinitskii (1861) only the mid-nineteenth century.

• 4. The same can be said of studies by Vodarskii (1973), Vishnevski (2006), and other researchers. Many studies rely completely on Rashin (1956) for their descriptions of the population from the late 1800s to the early 1900s. In the authors’ view, none of the research on population dynamics in this period has surpassed Rashin’s (1956) approach of constructing almost all of his data from publications by the Imperial Central Statistical Committee.

• 5. The areas of provinces in the imperial era were calculated using maps produced by organizations such as the Imperial Geographic Society. See MVD RI (1858, 1863). The authors attempted, for the early imperial era, to use changes in regional areas to estimate changes in administrative divisions, and then use these estimates to investigate the changes in administrative divisions. However, the approach was abandoned because differences in the precision of the maps altered the numbers.

• 6. These administrative divisions refer to economic regions (ekonomicheskie raioni).

• 7. The biggest differences were with the vast yet sparsely populated West Siberia economic region (4.13 %, 1897), and the Southern economic region (3.22 %, 1926), which centers on modern Ukraine. The effect of the former difference is likely to be small, and the latter region is not part of the modern Russian Federation.

• 8. Goskomstat Rossii (1998) gives the total population at the time of the 1917 revolution as 91,000,000. Even ignoring the fact that this figure is too simplistic in comparison with those of other years, it is difficult to believe that it is possible to obtain reliable population statistics for that year. The Tsentralnii statisticheskii komitet MVD (1918) describes the 1917 population figure as “preliminary.” In February 2007, when the 1917 population statistics were checked using archived historical materials from the Russian State Economic Archive RGAE, this population figure was described as the “possible population in 1917” (veroiatnaia chislennost naseleniia) (RGAE, F.1562, O.20, D.1a). On July 31, 2007 four population statisticians were interviewed on this matter at the headquarters of Russia’s Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) and said that the 1917 figure published in Goskomstat Rossii (1998) was an estimate, which the publication made no mention of. There is also no mention of the fact that populations for each region based on the 1937 population census were affected by personnel such as border guards and soldiers being treated differently in the statistics. In addition, the figures for the total populations of the republics in 1937 differ from those disclosed elsewhere. Although it claims that the number of soldiers etc., which were only recorded for the federation as a whole, were not just added to the estimate of the population of the Russian Republic, it does not mention that the estimation method was based on estimates. Moreover, it presents figures representing the results of the 1897 population census of imperial Russia that have been converted to match the present territory of Russia. According to these figures, the population of the territory of the present Russian Federation (excluding Kaliningrad, the Kurile Islands, and southern Sakhalin) in 1897 was 67,473,000. Among the historical materials examined at the Russian State Economic Archive was the TsSU SSSR (1941), which calculates the 1897 populations of the administrative divisions as they were in 1941 using detailed area proportions. Using these figures to calculate the total population of the territory of modern Russia gives a figure of 66,314,000, which casts doubt over the accuracy of the figure presented in Goskomstat Rossii (1998), for which the methods of calculation used are not explained at all clearly.

• 9. The results of the 1937 population census have not been officially made public by the statistical authorities. Zhiromskaia (2000) conducted her study using archived historical materials. TsSU SSSR (1937) tells one that not only was a total population figure calculated, but that tables of data for things like occupations by educational attainment and domicile (i.e. urban or rural) were also produced.

• 10. Ispov (2001) deals with the 1941–1945 period (i.e. World War II), but does not adjust the territories (or mention this lack of adjustment) of the Crimean Autonomous Republic (then part of Russia, now part of Ukraine) or of the Karelo-Finnish Republic (then a Soviet republic separate from Russia, now part of Russia).

• 11. From here onwards all dates until 1917 use the Russian calendar in this chapter. The Gregorian (western) calendar is 13 days behind the Russian calendar in 20th-21st century.

• 12. It has been posited that household-based taxation encouraged households to band together to form new households, so as to reduce the tax burden (Kluchevsky 1918).

• 13. Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi Imperii, sobranie 2, tom 9, otdelenie 2, 7684. (Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire, Collection 2, Volume 9, Section 2)

• 14. Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi Imperii, sobranie 2, tom 33, otdelenie 1, 32826. (Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire, Collection 2, Volume 33, Section 1)

• 15. Some writers have pointed out that, nevertheless, a fully functioning, centralized statistical system did not really exist (Goskomstat Rossii 1998; Yamaguchi 2003). The predominant view is that the activities the zemstvo statistical bureaus conducted independently were extremely useful in gathering regional statistics. However, while they achieved a lot of success in compiling statistics on agriculture, their population statistics probably did not surpass those of the regional statistical bureaus under the supervision of the Central Statistical Committee. This is partly because zemstvo statistical bureaus were only established originally in 34 provinces, and even at the outbreak of World War I they only existed in 43 provinces, which covered only around half of the territory of the empire (Goskomstat Rossii 1998).

• 16. Confessions (ispovedanie) normally refers to admitting and repenting for sins. In this context, however, it appears to have a broader meaning, which includes believers reporting births, deaths, and so on to the church.

• 17. The reports that were sent to the tsar were handwritten. They contained from several dozen to several hundred pages, and schedules of statistics were included at the back. These schedules listed the number of births, deaths (for each sex), and marriages in each of the province’s uezds (districts). See, for example, Otchet (1864a).

• 18. Like those based on the parish registers of the Orthodox Church, statistics based on the parish registers of the Protestant and Roman Catholic churches are believed to be fairly accurate. Note that the dates recorded were the date of baptism not the date of birth, such that infants who died before they were baptized were not recorded, and the date of burial not the date of death (MVD RI 1866). The reports sent to the tsar by provincial governors recorded the population of the region for the year to which they related. See, for example, Otchet (1864b).

• 19. The separatists (Old Believers, raskolniki) left the Orthodox Church after opposing changes in rites that were made by the Church in the 1650s. Some of their sects rejected all contact with other sects and lived in the interior of Russia, making it very difficult to obtain information about them.

• 20. Statistics were not compiled from the surveys. They were merely intended to supplement the household censuses by recording information on things like people who had moved house (MVD RI 1866).

• 21. Sobranie ukazov, 1866, st.141. (Collection of Decrees, 1866, Chapter 141.).

• 22. Obviously, there may have been a large number of problems with the methods used when conducting the fieldwork for this, Russia’s first, population census. Although labelled as a self-administered survey, Valentei (1985) has pointed out that because of the low level of literacy at the time, those conducting the surveys were often the surveyors who filled in the forms.

• 23. Dekret soveta narodnikh komissarov o gosudarstvennoi statistike ot 25 iulia 1918. (Decree of the Council of People’s Commissars on State Statistics from July 25, 1918).

• 24. <Polozhenie ob organizatsii mestnikh statisticheskikh uchrezhdenii> ot 3-go sentiabria 1918 g. (Regulations on the organization of local statistical agencies from September 3, 1918.)

• 25. <Postanovlenie sovet narodnykh komissarov SSSR> ot 17-go iulia 1923. (Resolution of the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR on July 17, 1923.)

• 26. For example, the population census carried out in 1920 only managed to cover the European parts of the Soviet Union. Other regions could not be surveyed.

• 27. Only a single volume of tables of data from the 1939 population census was published. It included populations by region and sex, the number of workers by level of educational attainment (i.e., graduation from junior or senior high school) and sex, working populations by region and industry, working populations by sex and region, and population composition by region and ethnic group. See Poletaev and Polskii (1992).

• 28. See Clem (1986) for more information on population censuses in the Soviet Union.

• 29. ZAGS is an organization that registers matters such as births, deaths, marriages, and divorces. It retains the same name in modern Russia that it had during the Soviet era, and is under the supervision of the Ministry of Justice. See <Kodeks o brake i seme RSFSR ot iunia 1969 goda> (Code of Marriage and Family in RFSFR from June 1969). The decision to establish ZAGS was made between 1917 and 1918, with the organization intended to replace the parish registers that had been used until then. Apparently, however, because of factors such as the turmoil of the civil war, it was not until the end of 1919 that the cities of European Russia introduced the new system, and even in 1923 the system still only covered urban areas, albeit across the nation (TsSU SSSR 1928a). By 1926 the system seems to have been functioning throughout the whole of the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic, given that the number of infants under one year old recorded in the 1926 census nearly matched the number of births minus infant mortalities derived from the ZAGS records. However, it is posited that the ZAGS system remained inadequate in the following regions: the Yakutia Autonomous Republic, the Bashkortostan Autonomous Republic, the Dagestan Autonomous Republic, the Ingush and Chechen autonomous oblasts and other parts of the north Caucasus, Sakhalin, Kamchatka, central Asia, and the Caucasus (TsSU SSSR 1928b; TsSU RSFSR 1928).

• 30. Obzor Federalnogo zakona No,143-FZ ot 15. 11. 97 <Ob aktakh grazhdanskogo sostoianiia> (v redaktsii Federalnikh zakonov ot 25. 10. 2001; N138-F3 ot 29. 04. 2002 N44-F3 ot 22. 04. 2003; N46-F3 ot 07. 07. 2003 N120-F3) (Review of Federal Law <On Acts of Civil Status>, as amended by Federal Law of 25. 10. 2001.)

• 31. Residency registration (propiska) is under the purview of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. <Polozhenie o pasportnoi sisteme v SSSR> ust. postanovleniem SM SSSR ot 28 avgusta 1974 g. N677 (s izmeneniiami ot 28 ianvaria 1983 g. , 15 avgusta 1990 g.) (Regulations on the Passport System in the USSR> Resolution of the USSR on August 28, 1974 No.677 (as amended on January 28, 1983, August 15, 1990); Postanovlenie pravitelstva RF ot 17 iulia 1995 g. N713 (v redaktsii ot 16 marta 2000 g.) (RF Government Decree of July 17 1995 No.713 (as amended on March 16, 2000). Residency of half a month or more in the Soviet era, and 10 days or more in modern Russia, needed to be reported within three days. In the Soviet era (from 1974 onwards), failure to register residency was punishable by a fine of between ten and 50 roubles. However, the propiska system only became effective in 1932 (Andreev et al. 1998).

• 32. Although the registers of births, deaths, etc. and residency registers cannot record everything, people obviously have various incentives to report events and changes in their lives. See Matthews (1993).

• 33. Infant mortality rates can be calculated from tables showing the number of deaths by age in months (there are no tables showing the number of deaths of infants up to one year old.) Rates for the other events (births, deaths, etc.) can be calculated as long as a total population figure (i.e., the denominator), can be obtained. Unfortunately, figures for the total population were only provided in a limited number of years.

• 34. When calculated by extrapolating from crude death rate and crude birth rate statistics, the total registered population in European Russia in 1897 was around 94,800,000. The census, meanwhile, gives a figure of just over 93,400,000 for European Russia.

• 35. The method used here is extremely simple and involves the application of dynamic statistics on the whole of imperial European Russia to the modern Russian Federation. The Appendix contains alternative estimates of the total population made using the ratio between the European and non-European parts of the present Russian Federation for years for which actual data could be obtained.

• 36. Leasure and Lewis (1966) also calculated the proportions of the land areas of imperial Russian gubernias outside European Russia (the Caucasus, Siberia, the Russia’s far east, etc.) that were included in the territory of the RSFSR. They used these proportions to calculate the 1916 total population of regions outside European Russia.

• 37. Although the Russia’s far east covers a vast area, development there did not begin in earnest until after the start of the twentieth century. Until then its population was extremely small. Even in 1904, the entire population east of Lake Baikal was less than 1.2 million (Tsentralnii statisticheskii komitet M. V. D., 1905).

• 38. Part of the Konigsberg region that was broken up and combined with Poland and the Soviet Union after World War II was renamed Kaliningrad in 1946, and currently exists as a Russian enclave sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania.

• 39. Because the authors could only obtain by-region birth and death statistics for some of the years between 1867 and 1890, they abandoned efforts to harmonize the old and new territories. Crude birth and death rates for imperial European Russia were always included in the preamble to the official statistics described earlier.

• 40. The total population for 1937 was not obtained from official statistics or archived historical materials, but from Poliakov, Zhiromskaia, Tiurina and Vodarskii’s (2007) collection of archived historical materials relating to the 1937 population census. This is because from the start of the study to the writing of this chapter, the results of the 1937 census were out on loan to officials of the RGAE, and the authors were unable to examine them, although they did examine all the other original historical material.

• 41. Sulkevich (1940) provides a short summary of this.

• 42. The decline in the crude death rate from 1891 is statistically significant, while the crude birth rate shows no clear upward or downward trend.

• 43. Rashin (1956) produced and discussed processed statistics for periods five years apart.

• 44. Although the authors were able to obtain dynamic statistics for 1927–1938 and dynamic and population statistics for 1942–1945 from the Russian State Economic Archive, data was lacking for some regions for every one of the years (see notes to Table 2.1).

• 45. At the time of writing in July 2015, the historical materials they used were archived as “RGAE, Fond 1562, Opis 33s, Delo 2638.” The “s” following the Opis series number stands for sekretno, which means “classified,” and it is unclear how they were able to access them. The authors were refused access.

• 46. According to RGAE, F. 1562, O. 20, D. 626, L. 2-3 (1946) and RGAE, F. 1562, O. 20, D. 684 (1947), the population was 90,295,000 at the beginning of 1946 and 94,661,000 on February 1, 1947. However, compared with the 1950 population of 101,438,000, these figures are too small. Moreover, the difference between the figures for 1946 and 1947 is too large. Between 1946 and 1949, increases/decreases due to inter-Union republican and international migration were tiny, so it was decided that one could not rely on the total population figures for these years. Note also that the authors were unable to find out the total population in 1948–1949 using archived historical materials. (The Delo list in the Soviet Union’s Central Statistical Board’s Opisi 20 series of population statistics did not contain any total population statistics for these years.)

• 47. Statistics for 1856 and 1858 were not used because they relied entirely on data from the household census, and the Ministry of the Interior’s Central Statistical Committee noted that they were incomplete (MVD RI 1858, 1863).

• 48. According to documents discovered by Zemskov (2000) in the Russian State Historical Archive, between 700,000 and 1,300,000 people were sent to labor camps each year between 1935 and 1940 (note that the authors have not examined these documents).

• 49. During World War II, the eastern front shifted frequently, and TsSU SSSR (1942), which presents population statistics for the first day of every month in 1942, shows that the occupied regions for which data was lacking changed from month to month.