Some problems of assessing population losses during collectivization
Abstract
After the opening of the Soviet archives in the late 1980s, many researchers found the results of the 1939 census unreliable. Those who conducted the census recalled the sad fate of those who had organised the census of 1937, which was found to be flawed.They understood that the government wanted to see a large population represented in their results.
That’s why they decided to falsify the results. Our research shows that the major efforts that were put into a precise execution of the census did not go to waste. And the hundreds of census-takers, who were expected to find every person who lived in their district, tried their best to carry out their work with care. Study of the archive materials reveal how, during processing, results were handed to the government and made public by the country's leadership.
The study shows that the census of 1939 was accurate, and more reliable than those which had come before and after. And even a one percent adjustment to the figure which represents the population size, carried out seemingly without good reason, is not an error, because the number of people who avoided the census (due to their criminal past, lack of local registration, illness or other reasons) certainly exceeds 1%.
But any change to the estimate of the population losses should be avoided, since it was not included in prior censuses, and to acquire reliable results it is necessary that the data used have equal accuracy. In our census we also chose not to include those who met with the census-taker outside their home, and then wrongly stated their place of permanent residence in the test form. Thus, the size of the population in the 1939 census is considered at 2 million less than in the TsSU’s Soviet-era publications. In order to reach the same approximate level of reliability across the census results it was necessary to include certain corrections in the census of 1926 (due to lack of test forms, varying census lengths in cities and villages, and also due to undercount in the census of underage children) and 1937 (due to a different method of execution). The changes made allow for a more reliable assessment of the USSR’s losses from collectivisation and repression in the period 1929-1939.
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