Population of the Russian Empire. Population of the Russian Empire (1897-1917) Population of the Russian Empire in 1913
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Let's try, with numbers in hand, to prove the inconsistency of most myths about Tsarist Russia
In this article from the series “Pre-Revolutionary Russia” we will discuss a number of aspects related to the standard of living of our people a hundred years ago.
An essential social parameter is wealth stratification. Many people think that the fruits of Russia's achievements were enjoyed by a few percent of the population, wallowing in luxury, while the rest of the people languished in poverty. For example, the thesis has long been circulating in journalism that at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries, 40% of peasant recruits first tried meat only in the army.
What can I say? The persistence of even the most implausible statements is amazing.
Judge for yourself. According to the reference book “Russia 1913”, per 100 people of the rural population in 1905 there were 39 heads of cattle, 57 sheep and goats, 11 pigs. In total, 107 heads of livestock per 100 people. Before joining the army, the peasant son lived in a family, and, as we know, peasant families of those times were large, with many children. This is an important point, because if a family had at least five people (parents and three children), then on average it accounted for 5.4 heads of cattle. And after this they tell us that a significant part of the peasant sons, throughout their entire pre-conscription life, neither in their family, nor with relatives, nor with friends, nor on holidays, have ever tasted meat anywhere!
Of course, the distribution of livestock among households was not the same: some people lived richer, others poorer. But it would be completely strange to say that in many peasant households there was not a single cow, not a single pig, etc. By the way, Professor B.N. Mironov, in his fundamental work “The Welfare of the Population and Revolutions in Imperial Russia,” showed how many times the incomes of the 10% of the most affluent segments of the population exceeded the incomes of the 10% of the least affluent population in 1901-04. The difference turned out to be small: only 5.8 times.
Mironov points to another eloquent fact that indirectly confirms this thesis. When, after well-known events, the expropriation of private estates occurred, then in 36 provinces of European Russia, where there was significant private land ownership, the stock of peasant land increased by only 23%. The notorious “exploiting class” did not have much land.
When dealing with pre-revolutionary statistics, one must always make allowances for how much the realities of that era differed from our 21st century. Imagine an economy in which the lion's share of trade occurs without cash registers and in cash, or even barter. In such conditions, it is very easy to underestimate the turnover of your farm with the age-old goal of paying less taxes.
It is also necessary to take into account that the absolute majority of the country’s population lived in the countryside a hundred years ago. How can you check how much a peasant has grown for his own consumption? By the way, the collection of data for the compilation of agricultural statistics occurred in the following way: the central statistical committee simply sent out questionnaires to the volosts with questions for peasants and private landowners. To say that the information received turned out to be approximate and underestimated is to say nothing.
This problem was well known to contemporaries, but in those years there was simply no technical ability to establish accurate accounting. By the way, the first All-Russian agricultural census was carried out in 1916. Unexpectedly, it turned out that compared to 1913, the number of horses increased by 16%, cattle by 45%, and small cattle by 83%! It would seem, on the contrary, that during the war the situation should have worsened, but we see exactly the opposite picture. What's the matter? Obviously, the data for 1913 were simply greatly underestimated.
When it comes to a resident's diet Russian Empire, one should not discount fishing and hunting, although, of course, the situation in these areas can only be judged on the basis of rough estimates. I will again use Mironov’s work “The Welfare of the Population and the Revolution in Imperial Russia.” So, in 1913, commercial hunting in 10 European and 6 Siberian provinces produced 3.6 million wild birds. By 1912, in 50 provinces of European Russia, the annual catch of fish for sale was 35.6 million poods. It is obvious that fish were caught not only for trade, but also for personal consumption, which means that the total catch was noticeably greater.
Before the revolution, research was carried out on the nutrition of peasants. Information on this matter covers 13 provinces of European Russia for the period 1896-1915. and characterize the consumption of the following set of products: bread, potatoes, vegetables, fruits, dairy, meat, fish, butter, vegetable oil, eggs and sugar. Mironov's study states that peasants as a whole received 2952 kcal per capita per day. At the same time, an adult man from the poor strata of the peasantry consumed 3182 kcal per day, the middle peasant - 4500 kcal, and the rich - 5662 kcal.
Labor in rural areas was paid as follows. In the black soil zone, according to data for 1911-1915, during the spring sowing period, a worker received 71 kopecks a day, a female worker - 45 kopecks; in the non-chernozem zone - 95 and 57 kopecks, respectively. During haymaking, the payment increased to 100 and 57 kopecks in the black soil zone, and in the non-chernozem zone - 119 and 70 kopecks, respectively. And finally, for harvesting grain they paid like this: 112 and 74; 109 and 74 kopecks.
The average salary of workers in European Russia for all groups of industries in 1913 was 264 rubles per year. Is it a lot or a little? To answer this question, you need to know the price order of those times.
Here are the data from the reference book “Russia 1913”:
A carpenter's pay for one day of work in Moscow in 1913 was 175 kopecks. With this money he could buy:
- wheat flour, grade I, coarse - 10.3 kg
or
- coarse wheat bread - 11 kg
or
- beef, grade I - 3 kg
or
- granulated sugar- 6 kg
or
- fresh bream - 3 kg
or
- sunflower oil - 6.1 kg
or
- hard coal (Donetsk) - 72.9 kg
Many workers had land before the revolution. Unfortunately, we do not have relevant information for all regions of the country, but on average for 31 provinces the share of such workers was 31.3%. At the same time, in Moscow - 39.8%, in the Tula province - 35.0%, Vladimir - 40.1%, Kaluga - 40.5%, Tambov - 43.1%, Ryazan - 47.2%. (data taken from the book by A.G. Rashin “The Formation of the Working Class of Russia”).
Interesting statistics on the income of the pre-revolutionary intelligentsia are given in the works of S.V. Volkov “The intellectual layer in Soviet society” and “Why the Russian Federation is not Russia yet.” The salaries of junior officers were 660-1260 rubles per year, senior officers - 1740-3900, generals - up to 7800. In addition, rent was paid: 70-250, 150-600 and 300-2000 rubles, respectively.
Zemstvo doctors received 1200-1500 rubles a year, pharmacists received an average of 667.2 rubles. University professors received at least 2,000 rubles a year, and on average 3,000-5,000 rubles; teachers high school with higher education earned from 900 to 2500 rubles (with 20 years of experience), without higher education- 750-1550 rubles. Directors of gymnasiums received 3,000-4,000 rubles, and directors of secondary schools - 5,200 rubles.
The empire paid special attention to the state of railway transport, and salaries in this area were especially high. For railway chiefs they amounted to 12-15 thousand rubles, and for officials supervising the construction of railways - 11-16 thousand.
At first glance, it may seem that these figures contradict Mironov’s thesis about the relatively small differentiation of incomes of the poorest and richest strata in Tsarist Russia, but this is not so. Mironov compared the richest 10% with the poorest 10% of the country's inhabitants, and Volkov's figures refer to a very narrow group of the population of the Russian Empire. There were very few ministers, governors and other major representatives of the ruling elite. The highest ranks that made up the first four classes of the Imperial Table of Ranks numbered about 6,000 people.
Accusers of the Russian Empire, trying to prove the “degradation of tsarism,” like to claim that the average height of soldiers in the empire decreased. The logic is simple: they began to eat worse, get sick more often, etc., and here is the result: more and more frail and short people are entering the army. Where did Suvorov’s “miracle heroes” supposedly go?
But here are the real data provided by the largest domestic specialist in the field of historical anthropometry, Professor Mironov:
Year of birth of the recruit - 1851-1855; height - 165.8 cm
Year of birth of the recruit - 1866-1870; height - 165.1 cm
Year of birth of the recruit - 1886-1890; height - 167.6 cm
Year of birth of the recruit - 1906-1910; height - 168.0 cm
For comparison: the height of a recruit in Germany in 1900 was 169 cm, and in France - 167 cm, that is, according to this indicator, Russia was at the level of the most developed and prosperous countries in Europe. By the way, in Suvorov’s times the average height of recruits was about 161-163 cm, which is significantly lower than the height of a recruit during the reign of Nicholas II, so the thesis about Suvorov’s heroes, who allegedly exceeded their descendants in height, is not supported by numbers.
By the way, manipulation of height is a cliched technique of black PR. As one would expect, the last king personally suffered in this regard. They call him almost a dwarf. Yes, Nikolai’s height was 167-168 cm, which is not much by today’s standards, but he was born in 1868, and then the height of recruits was approximately 165.1 cm. Moreover, we must not forget that they tried to recruit taller and stronger people into the army. And since Nikolai was taller than the average recruit, then even more so his height exceeded the average height of men of his generation. Moreover, previous generations of men were even shorter, that is, the last Tsar of Russia was noticeably taller than the overwhelming majority of the population of our country.
Go ahead. When assessing the economic and social indicators of the Russian Empire, one cannot help but mention one frequently occurring statistical focus. When the per capita indicators of our country are compared with the achievements of other countries, then in Russia the entire population is taken into account, while in other countries only the population of metropolises is taken into account. A typical example is the British Empire, which was then home to about 450 million people. The colonies were a gigantic market for British goods, and also supplied raw materials to the metropolis, and when the First World War began World War, the inhabitants of the colonies fought on the side of Britain.
That is, how to use the colonies in your own interests is all one country, but when it comes to calculating per capita indicators, the colonies immediately become “foreign”. Remember the children's fairy tale about a man who shared tops and roots with a bear? This is it, and the same reasoning applies to France and Germany.
In addition, comparing per capita indicators of countries with different age structures is incorrect: after all, a small child does not make any contribution to the economy, so the more children there are in a society, the lower the per capita indicators. It is more correct to divide the absolute gross indicators not by the entire population, but only by the working age population, or by the number of households. In this regard, it must be borne in mind that at the beginning of the 20th century there was a demographic boom in Russia, and there were many children.
The total population of the country in 1913 was about 170 million people, and the growth rate was approximately 1.7% per year. And this is also an important indicator, but it should be discussed separately, which we will do in subsequent articles.
Plan
Introduction
1 Population
1.1 Population according to the Central Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs
1.2 Population according to the State Inspectorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs
1.3 Population calculation for 1897-1914.
1.4 Number, composition and density of population by province and region
1.5 Population of Russia in comparison with other states
1.6 Ratio of urban and rural population
1.7 Population in 1800-1913
1.8 Other population data
2 Population density
3 Sex composition of the population
4 National composition
5 Religions
6 Age composition
7 Estates
8 Population literacy
8.1 Enrollment
9 Employment
10 Sources and notes
Introduction
The population of the Russian Empire at all times of its existence was multinational, although the core of the empire’s population, the so-called titular nation, were Russians, who consolidated into a single people from the East Slavic group of tribes in the 14th - 16th centuries.
Almost all the peoples of the country were mainly engaged in agriculture, some led a nomadic life. Nevertheless, the share of the urban population grew constantly, especially rapidly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
1. Population
At the end of the 19th century, the first general population census of the Russian Empire was carried out (January 28, 1897), which most adequately reflected the number and composition of the inhabitants of the empire. Typically, the Central Statistical Committee (CSK) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs carried out population counts, mainly through mechanical calculation of data on fertility and mortality, presented by provincial statistical committees. These data, published in the Statistical Yearbook of Russia, fairly accurately reflected the natural population growth, but did not fully take into account migration processes - both internal (between provinces, between cities and villages) and external (emigration and immigration). If the latter, due to their small scale, did not have a noticeable impact on the total population, then the errors due to underestimation of the internal migration factor were much more significant. Since 1906, the Central Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs tried to adjust its calculations, introducing amendments to the expanding resettlement movement. But still, the current system of counting the population did not allow completely avoiding repeated counting of migrants - at the place of permanent residence (registration) and place of stay. As a result, the data from the CSK Ministry of Internal Affairs somewhat overestimated the real population, and this circumstance should be kept in mind when using materials from the CSK Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Population according to the Central Statistics Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Population according to the State Inspectorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs
According to adjusted calculations by the Office of the Chief Medical Inspector of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the population of Russia (without Finland) at the middle of the year was: 1909 - 156.0 million, 1910 - 158.3 million, 1911 - 160.8 million, 1912 - 164.0 million, 1913 - 166.7 million people.
According to calculations by the Office of the Chief Medical Inspector of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which were based on data on fertility and mortality, the population of Russia (without Finland) as of January 1, 1914 was 174,074.9 thousand people, i.e. approximately 1.1 million people less than according to the Central Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. But the Department considered this figure to be too high. The compilers of the “Report” of the Office for 1913 noted that “ the total population according to local statistical committees is exaggerated, exceeding the sum of the population figures from the 1897 census and the natural increase figures for the elapsed time" According to the calculations of the compilers of the “Report”, the population of Russia (excluding Finland) in mid-1913 was 166,650 thousand people.
Population calculation for 1897-1914. Number, composition and density of population by province and region
Population of Russia in comparison with other countries Ratio of urban and rural population
The rural population of the empire significantly outnumbered the urban population. Of the total population of 174,099,600 people, 24,648,400 people lived in cities, i.e. only 14.2% (data from 1913).
In terms of the ratio of urban and rural population, Russia occupied one of the last places among the largest states of the early 20th century.
As can be seen from the table, the largest percentage of the empire’s urban population is in the Vistula provinces, followed in gradual order by: Finland, Central Asian regions, European Russia, the Caucasus and Siberia.
If we consider the percentage of the urban population for individual provinces, it is clear that a few provinces with large industrial, commercial and administrative centers influence the increase in the percentage. Of the 51 provinces of European Russia, there are seven such provinces: Estland, Tauride, Courland, Kherson, Livland, Moscow and St. Petersburg, where the percentage of the urban population is above 20. Of these, two capital provinces especially stand out (50.2% and 74.0% ). In the Vistula region, out of 9 provinces, there are only two where the percentage of the urban population is above 20 (Petrokovskaya - 40.2%, Warsaw - 41.7%). In the Caucasus, there are four out of twenty such provinces (Tiflis - 22.1%, Baku - 26.6%, Batumi - 25.6%, Black Sea - 45.5%). In Siberia, two out of ten (Amur - 28.6% and Primorsk - 32.9%). Among the Central Asian regions there were no such things, and only in the Fergana region the percentage of the urban population was close to 20 (19.8%). There is also only one province in Finland, Nyland, where the percentage of the urban population exceeded 20 (46.3%). So, out of 99 provinces and regions of the Russian Empire, there are only 14 where the urban population accounted for over 20% of the total population, while in the remaining 85 this percentage is below 20.
In two provinces and regions the percentage of urban population is below 5%; in forty (including three Finnish ones) - from 5% to 10%; in twenty-nine (including one Finnish) - from 10% to 15%; in twenty (including two Finnish ones) - from 15% to 20%.
The percentage of the urban population increases on the one hand to the west and southwest, on the other hand - to the east and southeast of the Ural range, with exceptions in the form of industrial and commercial provinces: Vladimir, Yaroslavl, etc. In the Caucasus, the percentage of urban residents is greater in provinces and regions lying behind the main ridge, except for the Kutaisi province, where it is lower than in all other regions and provinces of the Caucasus. In the Central Asian regions, there is an increase in the percentage of the urban population towards the southeast.
Population 1800-1913 Other population data
2. Population density
The entire population of the empire, i.e. 174,099,600 people (1913), lived in a space of 19,155,588 square miles, therefore there were 9.1 people per square mile. A significant part of the population was concentrated in cities; if we take only the rural population, then there were 7.8 people per square verst.
The most densely populated region of the empire was the Vistula region, where in the Petrokovskaya province there were 190.0 inhabitants per square verst, and the least densely populated was Siberia, where in the Yakutsk region there were less than 0.1 inhabitants per square verst.
“The densest population stretches in a semicircle, a wider strip to the west from Warsaw through Kyiv and Kursk to Moscow; from this strip it thins out more or less quickly and reaches the weakest relation to space in the far North and the Volga region. In Asian Russia, the population is most dense in the Caucasus, and from parts of the latter - in Transcaucasia and especially in the valley of the Riona River and the middle reaches of the river. Chickens. Next in terms of population density comes Turkestan; it is most densely populated in the Zeravshan valley and Fergana region. Finally, Siberia, in which the southwestern part is the most populated, closest to European Russia, the further you go to the east and especially to the north, the more the population drops, reaching in the Turukhansk region a ratio of 1 inhabitant per 2 sq. miles."
- Zolotarev A. M. Notes of military statistics of Russia. T.I. St. Petersburg, 1894.
3. Sex composition of the population
According to the gender composition, the population of the empire was distributed as follows: in European Russia, the Vistula provinces and Finland there were more women than men, in other areas men predominated. Thus, in certain parts of the empire there were women for every 100 men:
In general, throughout the empire there were 99.6 women per 100 men.
In particular, out of 51 provinces of European Russia, in eighteen (St. Petersburg, Tauride, Bessarabian, Kherson, Grodno, Astrakhan, Orenburg, Vilna, Volyn, Don Army region, Ekaterinoslav, Kharkov, Minsk, Moscow, Podolsk, Vitebsk, Kiev and Poltava) the male population predominated over the female population, while in the remaining 32 provinces the female population predominated over the male population. At the same time, women had a noticeable advantage (over 110 per 100 men) in seven provinces (Tula, Vyatka, Vladimir, Tver, Kostroma, Kaluga and Yaroslavl).
In the 9 Vistula provinces, the sex ratio is quite equal; the male population predominated in five provinces. The same is true in 8 Finnish provinces, where only the Nyland province stood out, in which there were 104.4 women per 100 men.
In the Caucasus, men predominated everywhere, especially in the Transcaucasus; only in the Stavropol province and the Kuban region the numbers of women and men were quite close.
Men also predominated everywhere in the regions Central Asia, with the greatest predominance in the Samarkand region (82.4 women per 100 men) and the smallest in the Ural region (92.0).
Of the provinces of Siberia, only in the Tobolsk region were women predominant (100.6); the greatest predominance of men was in the Primorsky region, in which there were 64.9 women per 100 men, and in the Sakhalin region, where the male population was twice as large as the female population.
See also sections: “Armed Forces”, “Public Education”
Table 1
Apparent consumption of the most important products in Russia in 1906-1913. (1)
| Years | Wheat | Rye | Barley | Oats | Potato | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| total thousand poods. | a penny per soul. | total thousand poods. | a penny per soul. | total thousand poods. | a penny per soul. | total thousand poods. | a penny per soul. | total thousand poods. | per capita | |
| 1906 | 677983 | 4,6 | 966009 | 6,5 | 297117 | 2,0 | 510097 | 3,5 | 1594037 | 10,8 |
| 1907 | 818276 | 5,4 | 1210137 | 8,0 | 369833 | 2,4 | 790936 | 5,2 | 1760268 | 11,6 |
| 1908 | 958141 | 6,1 | 1201128 | 7,7 | 374839 | 2,4 | 822403 | 5,3 | 1814324 | 11,6 |
| 1909 | 1090281 | 6,9 | 1364922 | 8,5 | 449057 | 2,8 | 956798 | 6,0 | 1984479 | 12,5 |
| 1910 | 1008761 | 6,2 | 1317500 | 8,1 | 404033 | 2,5 | 859926 | 5,3 | 2222951 | 13,6 |
| 1911 | 706000 | 4,2 | 1144753 | 6,9 | 318342 | 1,9 | 692066 | 4,2 | 1935434 | 11,6 |
| 1912 | 1171362 | 6,8 | 1604290 | 9,3 | 471712 | 2,7 | 914190 | 5,2 | 2303734 | 13,9 |
| 1913 | 1267595 | 7,1 | 1286763 | 7,2 | 454893 | 2,6 | 876866 | 4,9 | 1749598 | 9,9 |
Table 1 (continued)
| Years | Alcohol | Beer | Sugar | Tea | Coffee | Salt | Tobacco | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| total thousand buckets | buckets per head | total thousand buckets | buckets per head | total thousand poods. | per capita pound. | total thousand poods. | per capita pound. | total thousand poods. | per capita pound. | only million poods. | per capita pound. | total thousand poods. | per capita pound. | |
| 1906 | 84479 | 0,62 | 71456 | 0,50 | 52510 | 144 | 5070 | 1,42 | 666 | 0,19 | - | - | 4562 | 1,2 |
| 1907 | 85926 | 0,63 | 75604 | 0,51 | 53427 | 14,3 | 5612 | 1,48 | 700 | 0,18 | 113,0 | 29,7 | 4396 | 1,2 |
| 1908 | 84980 | 0,61 | 71203 | 0,47 | 58048 | 15,2 | 5276 | 1,36 | 711 | 0,18 | 110,6 | 28,6 | 5311 | 1,4 |
| 1909 | 83271 | 0,58 | 75208 | 0,48 | 60746 | 15,5 | 4481 | 1,12 | 719 | 0,18 | 140,5 | 35,2 | 5169 | 1,3 |
| 1910 | 88369 | 0,60 | 82820 | 0,51 | 71390 | 17,0 | 4085 | 1,00 | 713 | 0,17 | 129,6 | 31,4 | 4820 | 1,2 |
| 1911 | 92573 | 0,56 | 89436 | 0,53 | 72818 | 17,8 | 4216 | 1,01 | 703 | 0,17 | 126,7 | 29,8 | 7060 | 1,7 |
| 1912 | - | - | 86688 | 0,53 | 75489 | 18,0 | 4045 | 0,93 | 723 | 0,16 | 129,1 | 29,9 | 6697 | 1,5 |
| 1913 | - | - | - | - | - | - | 4212 | 0,94 | 697 | 0,17 | - | - | - | - |
Table 1 (continued)
| Years | Cotton | Kerosene | Coal | Cast iron | Copper | Zinc | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| total thousand poods. | Per capita pound. | only million poods. | poods per capita | only million poods. | poods per capita | total thousand poods. | poods per capita | total thousand poods. | per capita pound. | total thousand poods. | per capita pound. | |
| 1906 | 18453 | 5,0 | 4590 | 3,1 | 1557 | 10,5 | 175674 | 1,20 | 1386 | 0,4 | 1187 | 0,3 |
| 1907 | 19874 | 5,2 | 482,4 | 3,2 | 1795 | 11,8 | 163904 | 1,10 | 1205 | 0,3 | 1137 | 0,3 |
| 1908 | 19799 | 5,3 | 480,2 | 3,1 | 1820 | 11,7 | 177443 | 1,16 | 1416 | 0,4 | 1277 | 0,3 |
| 1909 | 23189 | 5,9 | 514,9 | 3,2 | 1857 | 11,7 | 180140 | 1,15 | 1481 | 0,4 | 1284 | 0,3 |
| 1910 | 25871 | 6,3 | 536,3 | 3,3 | 1847 | 11,3 | 205538 | 1,27 | 2041 | 0,5 | 1674 | 0,4 |
| 1911 | 25713 | 6,3 | 506,7 | 3,0 | 2067 | 12,3 | 248667 | 1,51 | 2385 | 0,6 | 1244 | 0,3 |
| 1912 | 23941 | 5,4 | 517,0 | 2,9 | 2279 | 13,2 | 295602 | 1,76 | 2401 | 0,6 | - | - |
| 1913 | - | - | 505,2 | 2,8 | 2619 | 15,1 | 323394 | 1,81 | 2811 | 0,6 | - | - |
Source: Statistical Yearbook for 1914. Ed. IN AND. Sharago. St. Petersburg, 1914. P.660
- (1) - The term “apparent consumption” and the methodology for calculating the latter were borrowed by the compilers of the “Statistical Yearbook” from foreign statistics, in which the so-called “apparent consumption” was calculated by adding to the production of a particular product its import from abroad and subtracting from the resulting export amounts. This table does not take into account the export of part of the bread in the form of flour, which constitutes from 0.4 to 0.8 percent of the bread remaining for consumption; Barley consumption also includes the cost of brewing (about 3.5%), and also includes the cost of distilling rye, potatoes and other products (from 9 to 9.5%). When calculating alcohol consumption, its consumption for technical needs, the production of wine and vodka products, and the distillation of alcohol from grapes and fruits is included. For cotton, data on its processing in factories is provided. (A.P. Korelin).
table 2
Annual consumption of staple foodstuffs and industrial goods per capita in Russia in 1913 (in kg)
Source: National economy of the USSR. 1922-1972. Anniversary statistical yearbook. Ed. Central Statistical Office of the USSR. M., 1972. P. 372 (T.M. Kitanina)
Table 3
Meat consumption in Russia in 1912-1913.
| Regions | Number of provinces | Population thousand people | Number of food livestock in terms of cattle | Per capita | Meat consumption, thousand poods | Per capita poods |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| European Russia | 50 | 127279,4 | 40541,3 | 0,32 | 88669,5 | 0,70 |
| A) | 12917,6 | 54152,9 | 4,19 | |||
| b) | 114361,8 | 34516,6 | 0,30 | |||
| Caucasus | 12 | 12512,8 | 8811,6 | 0,70 | 8556,8 | 0,68 |
| A) | 1314,5 | 4575,4 | 3,48 | |||
| b) | 11198,4 | 3990,4 | 0,36 | |||
| Asian Russia | 17 | 20692,1 | 15600,2 | 0,75 | 14905,7 | 0,72 |
| A) | 1725,6 | 7513,9 | 4,35 | |||
| b) | 18966,5 | 7391,8 | 0,40 | |||
| Poland | 6 | 6471,5 | 1620,8 | 0,25 | 9899,4 | 1,53 |
| A) | 1101,0 | 3417,8 | 3,10 | |||
| b) | 5370,5 | 6481,6 | 1,20 | |||
| By Empire | 85 | 165955,9 | 66573,9 | 0,40 | 122040,4 | 0,74 |
| A) | 16058,8 | 69660,1 | 4,34 | |||
| b) | 149897,1 | 52380,3 | 0,35 |
Source: Statistical materials on the issue of meat consumption in the Russian Empire in 1913. Pg., 1915. Data from the Veterinary Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The report does not include the Kamchatka and Sakhalin regions, as well as 4 of the 10 Polish provinces.
Line a) provides data on provincial (regional) cities and settlements with more than 50,000 people. both sexes; in line b) - for all other villages and localities.
The compiler included information on Polish provinces into a separate group, converted the types of livestock to cattle, calculated the number of livestock per capita, and also clarified per capita meat consumption - up to hundredths of a pood. It is necessary to take into account the inaccuracy of some indicators specified by the department (A.M. Anfimov).
Table 4
Consumption of peasants in European Russia (per person)
Source: Dikhtyar G.A. Internal trade in pre-revolutionary Russia. M., 1960. P.30. The author's calculations are based on the results of budget surveys conducted by zemstvo statisticians in 1900-1913. (Consumption standards for the rural population according to budget research. M., Economic Department of the All-Russian Union of Cities. 1915. P. 1, 2). “The materials of these surveys,” the author notes, “do not allow us to trace either the dynamics of consumption or the differentiation of food consumption by different class groups of the peasantry.”
Table 5
Consumption of peasants in the Tula province according to budget studies of 1911-1914.
| Products | Units | In groups with sowing in the yard | On average per capita for all budgets | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| measurements | up to 1 dec. | 2-3 dec. | over 15 des. | ||
| Number of budgets | 33 | 75 | 21 | 655 | |
| Rye flour and cereals converted to grain | kg | 219 | 216 | 323 | 250 |
| potatoes | kg | 270 | 266 | 317 | 266 |
| Vegetable oil | kg | 315 | 1,99 | 2,33 | 2,09 |
| Cow butter | kg | 0,3 | 0,6 | 0,6 | 0,6 |
| Milk | kg | 47,1 | 101,1 | 132,8 | 92,4 |
| Meat, lard, poultry | kg | 16,1 | 13,3 | 30,8 | 18,8 |
| Fish | kg | 2,9 | 1,7 | 3,7 | 2,1 |
| Eggs | PC. | 27 | 35 | 34 | 35 |
| Salt | kg | 10,2 | 9,4 | 15,1 | 11,0 |
| Us | kg | 0,3 | 0,2 | 0,4 | 0,3 |
| Sugar | kg | 4,9 | 2,9 | 4,9 | 3,3 |
| Vodka | bottle | 3 | 3 | 8 | 5 |
| Wine | bottle | 0,2 | 0,2 | 0,4 | 0,3 |
| Beer | bottle | 1,0 | 0,7 | 1,8 | 0,7 |
| Population vol. gender | shower | 193 | 477 | 236 | 4765 |
| Food expenses (per capita) | rub. | 35,14 | 33,72 | 53,24 | 37,56 |
| Including money | rub. | 23,45 | 11,83 | 14,84 | 12,53 |
Source: Food supply of the peasant population of the Tula province (according to the monographic description of 1911-1914). Tula, 1907. We made the translation to metric measures. (A.M. Anfimov).
Table 6
Consumption of workers of the Seredsky factory district of the Kostroma province depending on the annual income of the workers (1911)
Source: Dikhtyar G.A. Internal trade in pre-revolutionary Russia. M., 1960. P.56
Table 7
Average per capita consumption of essential food products in Moscow in 1898-1912. (pd. per year)
Source: Consumption of the most important consumer products in Moscow. Statistical Department of the Moscow City Government. Vol. IV. M., 1916. S. 14, 15. (A.P. Korelin)
(1) - With an absolute increase in meat consumption over 10 years, per capita consumption decreased by 20%. At 184 pounds per year, the average daily per capita consumption was a little over 1/2 pound (48.5 spools). 10 years ago it was 205 pounds. per year, i.e. 5 pud.
(2) - Based on 1 pood of 40 pieces of herring.
Table 8
Average annual consumption of essential food products by the Moscow population over five years in 1898-1912. (thousand poods)
| Years | Population (thousand people) abs. / V % | Wheat flour | Rye flour | Cereals | Potato | Fish | Sugar | Meat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1898-1902 | 1129 | 5389 | 7209 | 2316 | 3018 | 1626 | 2276 | 5853 |
| 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | |
| 1903-1907 | 1299 | 6702 | 8172 | 2058 | 3068 | 1769 | 2289 | 6266 |
| 115,0 | 124,4 | 113,3 | 88,8 | 101,6 | 108,8 | 144,5 | 107,0 | |
| 1908-1912 | 1526 | 7393 | 8463 | 1987 | 3773 | 2027 | 3077 | 7071 |
| 135,2 | 137,2 | 117,4 | 35,8 | 125,0 | 124,7 | 135,2 | 120,8 |
Source: Consumption of the most important consumer products in Moscow. Statistical Department of the Moscow City Duma. Vol. IV. M., 1916. S. 5, 7, 10, 21, 23, 25, 27, 31, 32. (A.P. Korelin).
Table 9
Production and consumption of alcohol in Russia in 1912-1913. (buckets 40 degrees)
| Number of provinces | Production of thousand buckets | Consumption of thousand buckets | Per capita converted to liter | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| European Russia | 50 | 100104 | 86071 | 8,2 |
| Caucasus | 3 | 2164 | 3922 | 8,6 |
| Transcaucasia | 2 | 57 | 371 | 2,9 |
| Western Siberia | 4 | 4097 | 5702 | 7,5 |
| Eastern Siberia | 2 | 1578 | 1513 | 11,0 |
| Priamursky region | 2 | 617 | 1049 | 15,0 |
| Turkestan | 3 | 308 | 562 | 1,7 |
| Total | 66 | 108875 | 98640 | 8,0 |
Source: Collection of statistical and economic information on agriculture in Russia and foreign countries. Pg., 1917. S. 183-195. In Transcaucasia - data for Tiflis and Kutaisi provinces, in Western Siberia - for Tobolsk, Tomsk, Yenisei provinces. and in the Akmola region, in Eastern Siberia- in the Irkutsk province. and Transbaikal region, in the Amur region - in the Amur and Primorsky regions, in Turkestan - in the Semipalatinsk, Semirechensk and Syr-Darya regions. 1 bucket = 12.3 l.
Table 9a
Alcohol consumption in Russia per capita of both sexes
| Year | Veder (in 40-degree terms) | Converted to liters | Price 1 liter (kopecks) | Net treasury income (million rubles) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1903 | 0,52 | 6,4 | - | - |
| 1904 | 0,51 | 6,3 | - | - |
| 1905 | 0,53 | 6,5 | 18 | 443 |
| 1906 | 0,60 | 7,4 | - | 506 |
| 1907 | 0,59 | 7,3 | - | 511 |
| 1908 | 0,57 | 7,0 | - | 509 |
| 1909 | 0,55 | 6,8 | - | 527 |
| 1910 | 0,56 | 6,9 | - | 574 |
| 1911 | 0,56 | 6,9 | 16 | 597 |
| 1912 | 0,58 | 7,1 | 16 | 626 |
| 1913 | 0,60 | 7,4 | 17 | 675 |
Source: National economy in 1913. Pg., 1914. P. 97, 103, 106.
- Bucket = 12.3 liters (A.M.Anfimov)
From the “Explanatory Note to the State Control Report on the Execution of State Schedules and Financial Estimates for 1913” Pg., 1914., pp. 196-198
Sugar consumption
Our sugar consumption cannot but be considered extremely insufficient, for on average it amounts to only 17-19 pounds per year per person, while in England it reaches 100 pounds, in Germany - 52 pounds, in France - 43 pounds, and in Austria - 31 lbs.
This phenomenon is explained primarily by the low availability of sugar for the population due to its high cost on sale.
According to the law on our current rationing, for each year the amount of sugar to be released into the domestic market, the size of emergency reserves of sugar at factories and the maximum prices for sugar within the country are predetermined, if exceeded, the release of sugar from the reserve is allowed.
These conditions cannot but help keep prices at elevated levels, which in turn slows down consumption growth. (Sugar prices on the Kiev market in 1913-1914 ranged from 3 rubles 87 kopecks to 4 rubles 04 kopecks per pood).
Table 1c
Annual earnings of industrial and agricultural workers by regions of European Russia in 1901-1910.
| Number of provinces | Annual agricultural income worker in 1881-1891(1) | In 1901 | In 1910 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| prom. worker, rub. (2) | agricultural worker, rub. (3) | % of industrial earnings working | prom. worker, rub. (4) | agricultural worker, rub. (5) | % of industrial earnings working | |||
| Northern | 3 | 63 | 191 | 49 | 25,6 | 254 | 146 | 57,5 |
| Northwestern | 3 | 77 | 291 | 65 | 22,3 | 337 | 150 | 44,5 |
| West | 6 | 45 | 172 | 51 | 30,2 | 215 | 129 | 60,0 |
| Baltic | 3 | 82 | 278 | 94 | 33,8 | 315 | 216 | 68,6 |
| Industrial | 6 | 64 | 183 | 71 | 38,8 | 217 | 148 | 68,2 |
| Middle Volga | 4 | 58 | 173 | 54 | 31,2 | 190 | 122 | 64,2 |
| Severochernozemny | 7 | 52 | 118 | 52 | 44,1 | 182 | 120 | 65,9 |
| South Chernozem | 3 | 60 | 166 | 59 | 35,5 | 183 | 126 | 68,8 |
| Southwestern | 3 | 42 | 96 | 51 | 53,1 | 147 | 116 | 78,9 |
| Southern steppe | 5 | 89 | 293 | 87 | 29,7 | 371 | 165 | 44,5 |
| Nizhnevolzhsky | 7 | 61 | 199 | 53 | 26,6 | 150 | 130 | 86,7 |
| Total for European Russia | 50 | 61 | 197 | 62 | 31,5 | 233 | 143 | 61,4 |
| According to Non-Chernozem. strip | 25 | 63 | 210 | 63 | 30,0 | 241 | 147 | 61,0 |
| According to Chernozem. strip | 25 | 61 | 158 | 60 | 38,0 | 203 | 132 | 65,0 |
(1)- Agricultural and statistical information based on materials received from the owners. Vol. V. Free-hired labor on owner-occupied farms and the movement of workers in connection with a socio-economic overview of European Russia in agricultural and industrial relations. Comp. S.A. Korolenko. St. Petersburg, 1892. Applications. pp. 142-143.
(2) - Set of reports of factory inspectors for 1901. St. Petersburg, 1903. pp. 162-165.
(3) - Materials of the highest commission established on November 16, 1901 to study the issue of movement from 1861 to 1900. the well-being of the rural population of the average agricultural provinces in comparison with other areas of European Russia. St. Petersburg, 1903. Ch.P.
(4) - Set of reports of factory inspectors for 1910. St. Petersburg, 1911. P.280-283.
(5) - Prices for labor in rural farms of private owners of European or Asian Russia in 1910. St. Petersburg, 1913. S.P. HP. (A.M. Anfimov).
Table 11
Distribution of workers (in%) by earnings in June 1914 in various groups of production
| Production groups | Worker's daily earnings | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| up to 50 kopecks | 50 k. - 1 rub. | 1 rub. - 2 r. | 2 r. - Zr. | 3 r. - 4 rub. | 4 rub. - 5 rub. | over 5r. | |
| Cotton processing | 14,4 | 62,3 | 21,6 | 1,4 | 0,2 | 0,05 | 0,04 |
| Wool processing | 36,2 | 44,4 | 18,2 | 1,0 | 0,07 | 0,03 | 0,06 |
| Silk processing | 27,3 | 55,4 | 16,3 | 1,0 | 0,05 | 0,01 | - |
| Processing of flax, hemp and jute | 35,5 | 52,4 | 11,5 | 0,5 | 0,05 | 0,01 | - |
| Mixed production for processing fibrous substances | 3,3 | 48,0 | 38,4 | 9,1 | 0,8 | 0,3 | 0,1 |
| Paper and printing production | 18,7 | 40,5 | 28,9 | 8,6 | 2,2 | 0,7 | 0,4 |
| Mechanical processing of wood | 7,3 | 34,2 | 45,5 | 10,7 | 1,6 | 0,5 | 0,2 |
| Metal processing, machine production | 4,6 | 17,9 | 41,8 | 23,1 | 7,9 | 3,2 | 1,5 |
| Mineral processing | 24,2 | 37,4 | 31,4 | 5,3 | 0,8 | 0,3 | 0,6 |
| Processing of animal products | 15,0 | 34,0 | 33,7 | 13,2 | 3,2 | 0,8 | 0,1 |
| Processing of food and flavoring substances | 22,8 | 49,6 | 23,8 | 2,9 | 0,6 | 0,2 | 0,1 |
| Chemical production | 14,7 | 35,5 | 40,8 | 7,2 | 1,4 | 0,3 | 0,1 |
| Mining industry | 0,2 | 47,7 | 38,7 | 8,2 | 3,6 | 1,0 | 0,6 |
| Productions not included in previous groups | 0,8 | 20,6 | 53,0 | 16,9 | 6,5 | 1,9 | 0,3 |
| Total | 16,4 | 46,5 | 27,4 | 6,7 | 1,9 | 0,7 | 0,4 |
Source: Earnings of factory workers in Russia (June 1914 and June 1916). Vol. 1., M., 1918. P.20-21 (Calculations by N.A. Ivanova).
Table 12
Average annual salary in rubles. workers of various industries of the factory industry of European Russia in 1910-1913.
| Production groups | 1910 | 1911 | 1912 | 1913 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Cotton processing | 218 | 218 | 220 | 215 |
| 2. Wool processing | 239 | 246 | 245 | 210 |
| 3. Silk processing | 218 | 212 | 223 | 208 |
| 4. Processing of flax, hemp and jute | 169 | 170 | 180 | 192 |
| 5. Mixed production for processing fibrous substances. | 285 | 276 | 272 | 209 |
| 6. Production: paper, paper products and printing. | 277 | 283 | 288 | 261 |
| 7. Mechanical processing of wood. | 250 | 256 | 258 | 249 |
| 8. Metal processing | 380 | 397 | 400 | 402 |
| 9. Processing of minerals | 224 | 233 | 239 | 261 |
| 10. Processing of animal products. | 294 | 296 | 300 | 303 |
| 11. Nutrient and flavor processing | 149 | 159 | 156 | 189 |
| 12. Chemical production | 260 | 268 | 273 | 249 |
| 13. Oil production and oil drilling | 370 | 309 | 338 | 366 |
| 14. Other production not included in previous groups | 424 | 438 | 403 | 443 |
| For all production groups | 243 | 251 | 255 | 264 |
A quarter of you will perish from famine, pestilence and sword.
V. Bryusov. The horse is pale (1903).
ADDRESS TO READERS.
First of all, it is necessary to clarify that from the end of 1917 to the autumn of 1922, the country was ruled by two leaders: Lenin, and then immediately Stalin. Tales written during the Brezhnev years about a certain period of rule by a friendly or not very friendly Politburo, which lasted almost until the congress of the victors, have nothing in common with history.
“Comrade Stalin, having become General Secretary, concentrated immense power in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be able to use this power carefully enough,” Lenin writes with horror on December 24, 1922. PSS, vol. 45, p. 345. Stalin held this post for only 8 months, but this time was enough for the politically experienced Ilyich to understand what had happened...
In the preface to the Trotsky Archive (4 volumes) there is a significant remark: “In 1924-1925, Trotsky was actually completely alone, finding himself without like-minded people.”
I thank all readers who wished to help me with criticism or information that supplemented the facts presented. Please indicate the exact sources from which the data was obtained, indicating the author, title of the work, year and place of publication, and pages on which the specific quotation is located. Sincerely - the author.
“Accounting and control are the main things required for the proper functioning of a communist society.” Lenin V.I. PSS, vol. 36, p. 266.
Russia's losses as a result of 4 years of the First World War and 3 years of civil war amounted to more than 40 billion gold rubles, which exceeded 25% of the country's total pre-war wealth. More than 20 million people died and became disabled. Industrial production in 1920 decreased by 7 times compared to 1913. Products Agriculture was only two-thirds of the pre-war level. The crop failure that affected many grain-producing regions in the summer of 1920 further aggravated the food crisis in the country. The difficult situation in industry and agriculture was deepened by the collapse of transport. Thousands of kilometers of railway tracks were destroyed. More than half of the locomotives and about a quarter of the carriages were faulty. Kovkel I.I., Yarmusik E.S. History of Belarus from ancient times to our time. - Minsk, 2000, p. 340.
Researchers of Soviet history know that there is not a single national statistics in the world that is as false as the official statistics of the population of the USSR.
History teaches that a civil war is more destructive and deadly than a war with any enemy. It leaves behind widespread poverty, hunger and destruction.
But the last reliable censuses and records of the population of Russia end in 1913-1917.
After these years, complete falsification begins. Neither the population census in 1920, nor the census in 1926, much less the “rejected” census of 1937 and then the “accepted” census of 1939 are reliable.
We know that on January 1, 1911, the population of Russia was 163.9 million souls (together with Finland 167 million).
As historian L. Semennikova believes, “according to statistical data, in 1913 the country’s population was about 174,100 thousand people (165 peoples were included in its composition).” Science and Life, 1996, No. 12, p. 8.
TSB (3rd ed.) the total population of the Russian Empire before the First World War is 180.6 million people.
In 1914 it increased to 182 million souls. According to statistics at the end of 1916, 186 million people lived in Russia, that is, the increase over 16 years of the 20th century was 60 million. Kovalevsky P. Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. - Moscow, 1990, No. 11, p. 164.
At the beginning of 1917, a number of researchers raised the final figure of the country's population to 190 million. But after 1917 and until the 1959 census, no one knew for sure, except for the elected “rulers,” how many inhabitants there were on the territory of the state.
The extent of violence, maulings and murders, and losses of its inhabitants are also hidden. Demographers only guess about them and estimate them approximately. And the Russians are silent! How could it be otherwise: printed works and evidence revealing this massacre are unknown to them. What is known from school textbooks, for the most part, is not facts, but fiction of propaganda.
One of the most confusing is the question of the number of people who left the country during the years of the revolution and civil war. The exact number of fugitives is unknown.
Ivan Bunin: “I was not one of those who was taken by surprise by it, for whom its size and atrocities were a surprise, but still the reality exceeded all my expectations: no one who did not see it will understand what the Russian revolution soon turned into. This spectacle was sheer horror for anyone who had not lost the image and likeness of God, and from Russia, after Lenin seized power, hundreds of thousands of people who had the slightest opportunity to escape fled" (I. Bunin. "Cursed Days").
The newspaper of the right Socialist Revolutionaries “Volya Rossii”, which had a good information network, provided the following data. On November 1, 1920, there were about 2 million emigrants from the territory of the former Russian Empire in Europe. In Poland - one million, in Germany - 560 thousand, in France - 175 thousand, in Austria and Constantinople - 50 thousand each, in Italy and Serbia - 20 thousand each. In November, another 150 thousand people arrived from Crimea. Subsequently, emigrants from Poland and other countries of Eastern Europe flocked to France, and many to both Americas.
The question of the number of emigrants from Russia cannot be resolved on the basis of sources located only in the USSR. At the same time, in the 20-30s the issue was considered in a number of foreign works based on foreign data.
At the same time, we note that in the 1920s, extremely contradictory data on the number of emigration compiled by charitable organizations and institutions appeared in foreign emigrant publications. This information is sometimes mentioned in modern literature.
In the book by Hans von Rimschi, the number of emigrants is determined (based on data from the American Red Cross) at 2,935 thousand people. This figure included several hundred thousand Poles who repatriated to Poland and registered as refugees with the American Red Cross, a significant number of Russian prisoners of war still in 1920-1921. in Germany (Rimscha Hans Von. Der russische Biirgerkrieg und die russische Emigration 1917-1921. Jena, Fromann, 1924, s.50-51).
Data from the League of Nations for August 1921 determine the number of emigrants at 1,444 thousand (including 650 thousand in Poland, 300 thousand in Germany, 250 thousand in France, 50 thousand in Yugoslavia, 31 thousand in Greece, 30 thousand in Bulgaria). It is believed that the number of Russians in Germany reached its highest point in 1922-1923 - 600 thousand in the entire country, of which 360 thousand in Berlin.
F. Lorimer, considering the data on emigrants, joins E. Kulischer’s written calculations, which determined the number of emigrants from Russia at approximately 1.5 million, and together with repatriates and other migrants - about 2 million (Kulischer E. Europe on the Move: War and popular changes. 1917-1947. N. Y., 1948, p. 54).
By December 1924, there were about 600 thousand Russian emigrants in Germany alone, up to 40 thousand in Bulgaria, about 400 thousand in France, and more than 100 thousand in Manchuria. True, not all of them were emigrants in the strict sense of the word: many served on the Chinese Eastern Railway even before the revolution.
Russian emigrants also settled in Great Britain, Turkey, Greece, Sweden, Finland, Spain, Egypt, Kenya, Afghanistan, Australia, and in total 25 countries, not counting the countries of America, primarily the USA, Argentina and Canada.
But if we turn to domestic literature, we will find that estimates of the total number of emigrants sometimes differ by two to three times.
IN AND. Lenin wrote in 1921 that there were from 1.5 to 2 million Russian emigrants abroad at that time (Lenin V.I. PSS, vol. 43, p. 49, 126; vol. 44, p. 5, 39, although in one case he named the figure 700 thousand people - vol. 43, p. 138).
V.V. Comin, arguing that there were 1.5-2 million people in the white emigration, relied on information from the Geneva mission of the Russian Red Cross Society and the Russian Literary Society in Damascus. Komin V.V. The political and ideological collapse of the Russian petty-bourgeois counter-revolution abroad. Kalinin, 1977, part 1, pp. 30, 32.
L.M. Spirin, stating that the number of Russian emigration was 1.5 million, used data from the refugee section of the International Labor Office (late 20s). According to these data, the number of registered emigrants was 919 thousand. Spirin L.M. Classes and parties in the Russian Civil War 1917-1920. - M., 1968, p. 382-383.
S.N. Semanov gives the figure of 1 million 875 thousand emigrants in Europe alone as of November 1, 1920 - Semanov S.N. Liquidation of the anti-Soviet Kronstadt rebellion in 1921. M., 1973, p. 123.
Data on eastern emigration - to Harbin, Shanghai - are not taken into account by these historians. Southern emigration is also not taken into account - to Persia, Afghanistan, India, although quite numerous Russian colonies existed in these countries
On the other hand, clearly understated information was given by J. Simpson (Simpson Sir John Hope. The Refugee Problem: Report of a Survey. L., Oxford University Press, 1939), determining the number of emigrants from Russia on January 1, 1922 at 718 thousand in Europe and the Middle East and 145 thousand in the Far East. These data include only officially registered (received so-called Nansen passports) emigrants.
G. Barikhnovsky believed that there were less than 1 million emigrants. Barikhnovsky G.F. The ideological and political collapse of the white emigration and the defeat of the internal counter-revolution. L., 1978, pp. 15-16.
According to I. Trifonov, the number of repatriated people in 1921-1931. exceeded 180 thousand. Trifonov I.Ya. Elimination of the exploiting classes in the USSR. M., 1975, p. 178. Moreover, the author, citing Lenin’s data about 1.5-2 million emigrants, in relation to the 20-30s, calls the figure 860 thousand. Ibid., pp. 168-169.
In total, about 2.5% of the population, or about 3.5 million people, probably left the country.
On January 6, 1922, the newspaper Vossische Zeitung, respected among the intelligentsia, published in Berlin, brought the problem of refugees to the German public for discussion.
The article “The New Great Migration of Peoples” said: “The Great War caused a movement among the peoples of Europe and Asia, which may be the beginning of a large historical process in the form of a great migration of peoples. A special role is played by Russian emigration, of which there are no similar examples in recent history. Moreover, in this emigration we are talking about a whole complex of political, economic, social and cultural problems and they cannot be resolved either by general phrases or by immediate measures... For Europe, the need has become ripe to consider Russian emigration not as a temporary incident... But it is precisely the community of destinies that it created This war is for the vanquished, prompting them to think beyond the immediate hardships about future opportunities for cooperation.”
Looking at what was happening in Russia, the emigration saw: any opposition in the country was being destroyed. Immediately (in 1918) the Bolsheviks closed all opposition (including socialist) newspapers. Censorship is introduced.
In April 1918, the anarchist party was defeated, and in July 1918, the Bolsheviks broke off relations with their only allies in the revolution - the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, the party of the peasantry. In February 1921, arrests of Mensheviks began, and in 1922, a trial of the leaders of the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party took place.
This is how a regime of military dictatorship of one party emerged, directed against 90% of the country's population. Dictatorship was understood, of course, as “violence not limited by law.” Stalin I.V. Speech at Sverdlovsk University June 9, 1925
The emigration was dumbfounded and drew conclusions that only yesterday seemed impossible to them.
Paradoxical as it may sound, Bolshevism is the third phenomenon of Russian great power, Russian imperialism - the first was the Muscovite kingdom, the second was the Peter the Great's empire. Bolshevism is for a strong centralized state. The will to social truth was combined with the will to state power, and the second will turned out to be stronger. Bolshevism entered Russian life as a highly militarized force. But the old Russian state was always militarized. The problem of power was the main one for Lenin and the Bolsheviks. And they created a police state, very similar in methods of administration to the old Russian state... The Soviet state became the same as any despotic state, it acts by the same means, violence and lies. Berdyaev N. A. Origins and meaning of Russian communism.
Even the old Slavophil dream of moving the capital from St. Petersburg to Moscow, to the Kremlin, was realized by red communism. A communist revolution in one country inevitably leads to nationalism and nationalist politics. Berdyaev N. A.
Therefore, when assessing the size of emigration, it is necessary to take into account: a considerable part of the White Guards who left their homeland later returned to Soviet Russia.
In State and Revolution, Ilyich promised: “...the suppression of the minority of exploiters by the majority of yesterday’s wage slaves is so comparatively easy, simple and natural than the suppression of uprisings of slaves, serfs, and wage workers, that it will cost humanity much less” (Lenin V.I. PSS, vol. 33, p. 90).
The leader even ventured to estimate the total “cost” of the world revolution - half a million, a million people (PSS, vol. 37, p. 60).
Fragmentary information about population losses for individual specific regions can be found here and there. It is known, for example, that Moscow, in which 1,580 thousand people lived by the beginning of 1917, in 1917-1920. lost almost half of the inhabitants (49.1%) - this is said in the article about the capital in 5 volumes. ITU, 1st ed. (M., 1927, column 389).
Due to the flow of workers to the front and to the countryside, with the typhus epidemic and general economic devastation, Moscow in 1918-1921. lost almost half of its population: in February 1917 there were 2,044 thousand people in Moscow, and in 1920 - 1,028 thousand people. In 1919, the mortality rate increased especially, but from 1922 the population decline in the capital began to decrease, and its numbers grew rapidly. TSB, 1st ed. t.40, M., 1938, p.355.
These are the data on the dynamics of the city’s population cited by the author of the article in the review collection about Soviet Moscow, which was published in 1920.
“According to November 20, 1915, there were already 1,983,716 inhabitants in Moscow, and the following year the capital crossed the second million. On February 1, 1917, just on the eve of the revolution, 2,017,173 people lived in Moscow, and in the modern territory of the capital (including some suburban areas annexed in May and June 1917) the number of Moscow residents reached 2,043,594.
According to the census in August 1920, 1,028,218 inhabitants were counted in Moscow. In other words, since the census on April 21, 1918, the population decline in Moscow amounted to 687,804 people, or 40.1%. This population decline is unprecedented in European history. Only St. Petersburg has surpassed Moscow in terms of its degree of depopulation. Since February 1, 1917, when the population of Moscow reached its maximum, the number of residents of the capital fell by 1,015,000 people or almost half (more precisely, by 49.6%).
Meanwhile, the population of St. Petersburg (within the city government) in 1917 reached, according to the calculations of the city statistical bureau, 2,440,000 people. According to the census of August 28, 1920, there were only 706,800 people in St. Petersburg, so since the revolution, the number of inhabitants of St. Petersburg has decreased by 1,733,200 people, or by 71%. In other words, the population of St. Petersburg was declining almost twice as fast as Moscow.” Red Moscow, M., 1920.
But the final figures do not provide an exact answer to the question: how much did the country’s population decrease from 1914 to 1922?
Yes and why - too.
The country silently listened as Alexander Vertinsky cursed it:
- I don’t know why and who needs this,
Who sent them to death with an unshaking hand,
Only so merciless, so evil and unnecessary
They were lowered into eternal rest...
Immediately after the war, sociologist Pitirim Sorokin reflected on the sad statistics in Prague:
- Russian state entered the war with a population of 176 million subjects.
In 1920, the RSFSR, together with all the union Soviet republics, including Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, etc., had only 129 million people.
In six years, the Russian state lost 47 million citizens. This is the first payment for the sins of war and revolution.
Anyone who understands the importance of population size for the fate of the state and society, this figure says a lot...
This decrease of 47 million is explained by the separation from Russia of a number of regions that became independent states.
Now the question is: what is the situation with the population of the territory that makes up the modern RSFSR and the republics allied with it?
Has it decreased or increased?
The following numbers give the answer.
According to the 1920 census, the population of 47 provinces of European Russia and Ukraine has decreased since 1914 by 11,504,473 people, or 13% (from 85,000,370 to 73,495,897).
The population of all Soviet republics decreased by 21 million, which is 154 million, a loss of 13.6%.
War and revolution devoured not only all those born, for nevertheless a certain number continued to be born. It cannot be said that the appetite of these persons was moderate and their stomach was modest.
Even if they provided a number of real values, it would be difficult to recognize the price of such “conquests” as cheap.
But on top of that they absorbed 21 million victims.
Of the 21 million, the following falls on direct victims of the world war:
killed and dead from wounds and diseases - 1,000,000 people,
missing and captured (most of whom returned) 3,911,000 people. (in official data, the missing and captured are not separated from each other, so I give the general figure), plus 3,748,000 wounded, in total for direct casualties of the war - no more than 2-2.5 million. The number of direct victims was hardly less victims of the civil war.
As a result, we can accept the number of direct victims of war and revolution as close to 5 million. The remaining 16 million are due to their indirect victims: increased mortality and falling birth rates. Sorokin P.A. Current state Russia. (Prague, 1922).
“Cruel time! As historians now testify, 14-18 million people died during the civil war, of which only 900 thousand were killed at the fronts. The rest became victims of typhoid, Spanish flu, other diseases, and then the White and Red Terror. “War communism” was partly caused by the horrors of the civil war, partly by the delusions of an entire generation of revolutionaries. Direct confiscation of food from peasants without any compensation, rations for workers - from 250 grams to half a kilo of black bread, forced labor, executions and prison for market transactions, a huge army of homeless children who lost their parents, hunger, savagery in many places of the country - this was the harsh price to pay for the most radical of all revolutions that have ever shaken the peoples of the earth! Burlatsky F. Leaders and advisers. M., 1990, p. 70.
In 1929, former major general and minister of war of the Provisional Government, and at that time teacher at the Military Academy of the Red Army Headquarters A.I. Verkhovsky published a detailed article in Ogonyok about the threat of intervention.
Special attention demographic calculations deserve it.
“Dry columns of numbers given in statistical tables usually pass by ordinary attention,” he writes. - But if you look closely at them, what terrible numbers there are sometimes!
The Publishing House of the Communist Academy published compiled by B.A. Gukhman “Basic issues of the USSR economy in tables and diagrams.”
Table 1 shows the dynamics of the population of the USSR. It shows that on January 1, 1914, 139 million people lived in the territory now occupied by our Union. By January 1, 1917, the table estimates that the population was 141 million. Meanwhile, population growth before the war was approximately 1.5% per year, which gives an increase of 2 million people per year. Consequently, from 1914 to 1917 the population should have increased by 6 million and reached not 141, but 145 million.
We see that 4 million is not enough. These are victims of the world war. Of these, we consider 1.5 million to be killed and missing, and 2.5 million should be attributed to the decrease in the birth rate.
The next figure in the table refers to August 1, 1922, i.e. covers 5 years of civil war and its immediate consequences. If population development had proceeded normally, then in 5 years its growth would have been about 10 million, and, therefore, the USSR in 1922 should have had 151 million.
Meanwhile, in 1922 the population was 131 million people, i.e. 10 million less than in 1917. The Civil War cost us another 20 million people, i.e. 5 times more than the world war.” Verkhovsky A. Intervention is not acceptable. Ogonyok, 1929, No. 29, p. 11.
The total human losses suffered by the country during the World War and Civil War and intervention (1914-1920) exceeded 20 million people. - History of the USSR. The era of socialism. M., 1974, p. 71.
The total population losses in the civil war at the fronts and in the rear from hunger, disease and terror of the White Guards amounted to 8 million people. TSB, 3rd ed. The losses of the Communist Party at the fronts amounted to over 50 thousand people. TSB, 3rd ed.
There were also illnesses.
At the end of 1918 - beginning of 1919. The worldwide influenza pandemic (called the “Spanish flu”) affected about 300 million people and claimed up to 40 million lives in 10 months. Then a second, although less strong, wave arose. The malignancy of this pandemic can be judged by the number of deaths. In India, about 5 million people died from it, in the United States in 2 months - about 450 thousand, in Italy - about 270 thousand people; In total, this epidemic claimed about 20 million victims, and the number of diseases also amounted to hundreds of millions.
Then the third wave came. Probably 0.75 billion people got sick with the Spanish flu in 3 years. The Earth's population at that time was 1.9 billion. Losses from the Spanish Flu exceeded the mortality rate of the 1st World War on all its fronts combined. Up to 100 million people died in the world at that time. The “Spanish flu” supposedly existed in two forms: in elderly patients, it was usually expressed in severe pneumonia, death occurred after 1.5-2 weeks. But there were few such patients. More often, for some unknown reason, young people from 20 to 40 years old died from the Spanish flu... Mostly people under the age of 40 died from cardiac arrest, this happened two to three days after the onset of the disease.
At first, young Soviet Russia was lucky: the first wave of the “Spanish disease” did not touch it. But at the end of the summer of 1918, epidemic flu came from Galicia to Ukraine. In Kyiv alone, 700 thousand cases were recorded. Then the epidemic through the Oryol and Voronezh provinces began to spread to the east, in the Volga region, and to the north-west - to both capitals.
Doctor V. Glinchikov, who at that time worked at the Petropavlovsk Hospital in Petrograd, noted that in the first days of the epidemic, of the 149 people brought to them with the “Spanish flu,” 119 people died. In the city as a whole, the mortality rate from influenza complications reached 54%.
During the epidemic, over 2.5 million cases of the Spanish flu were registered in Russia. The clinical manifestations of the Spanish flu have been well described and studied. There were clinical manifestations completely atypical for influenza, characteristic of brain lesions. In particular, “hiccupping” or “sneezing” encephalitis, sometimes occurring even without a typical influenza fever. These painful diseases are damage to certain areas of the brain when a person hiccups or sneezes continuously for quite a long time, day and night. Some died from this. There were other monosymptomatic forms of the disease. Their nature has not yet been determined.
In 1918, simultaneous epidemics of plague and cholera suddenly began in the country.
In addition, in 1918-1922. In Russia there are also several epidemics of unprecedented forms of typhus. During these years, more than 7.5 million cases of typhus alone were registered. Probably more than 700 thousand people died from it. But it was impossible to count all the sick.
1919. “Due to the extreme overcrowding of Moscow prisons and prison hospitals, typhus took on an epidemic character there.” Anatoly Mariengof. My age.
A contemporary wrote: “Entire carriages are dying of typhus. Not a single doctor. No medications. Whole families are delirious. There are corpses along the road. There are piles of corpses at the stations.”
It was typhus, and not the Red Army, that destroyed Kolchak’s troops. “When our troops,” wrote People’s Commissar of Health N.A. Semashko, - entered the Urals and Turkestan, a huge avalanche of epidemic diseases (typhoid of all three types) moved towards our army from Kolchak’s and Dutov’s troops. Suffice it to mention that of the 60,000-strong enemy army that came over to our side in the very first days after the defeat of Kolchak and Dutov, 80% were infected with typhus. Typhus on the Eastern Front, relapsing fever, mainly on the South-Eastern Front, rushed towards us in a stormy stream. And even typhoid fever, this sure sign of the lack of basic sanitary measures - at least vaccinations, spread in a wide wave throughout the Dutov army and spread to us "...
In captured Omsk, the capital of Kolchak, the Red Army found 15 thousand abandoned sick enemies. Calling the epidemic “the inheritance of the whites,” the victors waged a fight on two fronts, the main one being against typhus.
The situation was catastrophic. In Omsk, 500 people fell ill every day and 150 died. The epidemic swept through the Refugee Shelter, the post office, the orphanage, and workers' dormitories; the sick lay piled up on bunks and on rotten mattresses on the floor.
Kolchak's armies, retreating to the east under the onslaught of Tukhachevsky's troops, took everything with them, including prisoners, and among them there were many typhus patients. At first they were driven in stages along railway, then they put us on trains and took us to Transbaikalia. People died in trains. The corpses were thrown out of the cars, drawing a dotted line of rotting bodies along the rails.
So by 1919, all of Siberia was infected. Tukhachevsky recalled that the road from Omsk to Krasnoyarsk was a kingdom of typhus.
Winter 1919–1920 The epidemic in Novonikolaevsk, the capital of typhus, led to the death of tens of thousands of people (an exact count of victims was not kept). The city's population was halved. At the Krivoshchekovo station there were 3 stacks of 500 corpses each. Another 20 carriages containing the dead were nearby.
“All the houses were occupied by Chekatif, and the city was dictatorial by Chekatrup, who built two crematoria and dug miles of deep trenches for burying corpses,” according to the CCT report, see: GANO. F.R-1133. Op. 1. D. 431v. L. 150.).
In total, during the days of the epidemic, 28 military and 15 civilian medical institutions functioned in the city. Chaos reigned. Historian E. Kosyakova writes: “At the beginning of January 1920, in the overcrowded Eighth Novonikolaevsk Hospital, patients lay on beds, in the aisles, and under the beds. In the infirmaries, contrary to sanitary requirements, double bunks were installed. Typhoid patients, therapeutic patients and the wounded were housed in one room, which in fact was not a place of treatment, but a source of typhoid infection.
The strange thing was that this disease affected not only Siberia, but also the North. In 1921-1922 Of the 3 thousand population of Murmansk, 1,560 people suffered from typhus. Cases of smallpox, Spanish flu and scurvy were recorded.
In 1921-1922 and in the Crimea there were epidemics of typhoid and - in noticeable proportions - cholera, there were outbreaks of plague, smallpox, scarlet fever and dysentery. According to the People's Commissariat of Health, in the Yekaterinburg province at the beginning of January 1922, 2 thousand patients with typhus were recorded, mainly at train stations. A typhus epidemic was also observed in Moscow. There, as of January 12, 1922, there were 1,500 patients with relapsing fever and 600 patients with typhus. Pravda, No. 8, January 12, 1922, p.2.
In the same year, 1921, an epidemic of tropical malaria began, which also affected the northern regions. The mortality rate reached 80%!
The causes of these sudden severe epidemics are still unknown. At first they thought that malaria and typhus came to Russia from the Turkish front. But the malaria epidemic in its usual form cannot persist in those regions where it is colder than +16 degrees Celsius; How it penetrated into the Arkhangelsk province, the Caucasus and Siberia is not clear. To this day it is not clear where the cholera bacilli came from in Siberian rivers - in those regions that were almost not populated. However, hypotheses were expressed that during these years bacteriological weapons were used against Russia for the first time.
Indeed, after the landing of British and American troops in Murmansk and Arkhangelsk, in Crimea and Novorossiysk, in Primorye and the Caucasus, outbreaks of these unknown epidemics immediately began.
It turns out that during the First World War, a top-secret center, the Royal Engineers Experimental Station, was created in the town of Porton Down near Salisbury (Wiltshire), where physiologists, pathologists and meteorologists from the best universities in Britain carried out experiments on people.
During the existence of this secret complex, more than 20 thousand people became participants in thousands of tests of pathogens of plague and anthrax, other deadly diseases, as well as poisonous gases.
At first, experiments were conducted on animals. But since in experiments on animals it is difficult to find out exactly how the effects of chemicals on human organs and tissues occur, in 1917 a special laboratory appeared in Porton Down, intended for experiments on humans.
Later it was reorganized into the Microbiological Research Center. The CCU was located at Harvard Hospital in west Salisbury. The subjects (mostly soldiers) agreed to the experiments voluntarily, but almost no one knew what risks they were taking. The tragic story of the “Porton veterans” was told by British historian Ulf Schmidt in the book Secret Science: A Century of Poison Warfare and Human Experiments.
In addition to Porton Down, the author also reports on the activities of the Edgewood Arsenal, a special unit of the chemical forces of the US Armed Forces, organized in 1916.
The black plague, as if returning from the Middle Ages, caused particular fear among doctors. Mikhel D.V. The fight against plague in the South-East of Russia (1917–1925). - On Sat. History of science and technology. 2006, No. 5, p. 58–67.
In 1921, Novonikolaevsk experienced a wave of cholera epidemic, which came along with the flow of refugees from starving areas.
In 1922, despite the consequences of the famine, the rampant infectious epidemics in the country decreased. Thus, at the end of 1921, more than 5.5 million people in Soviet Russia suffered from typhus, typhoid and relapsing fever.
The main centers of typhus were the Volga region, Ukraine, Tambov province and the Urals, where the destructive epidemic struck, first of all, the Ufa and Yekaterinburg provinces.
But already in the spring of 1922, the number of patients dropped to 100 thousand people, although the turning point in the fight against typhus came only a year later. Thus, in Ukraine, the number of typhus diseases and deaths from it in 1923 decreased by 7 times. In total, in the USSR the number of diseases per year decreased by 30 times. Volga region.
The fight against typhus, cholera and malaria continued until the mid-1920s. American Sovietologist Robert Gates believes that Russia during Lenin's reign lost 10 million people from terror and civil war. (Washington Post, 4/30/1989).
Stalin's defenders zealously dispute these data, inventing fake statistics. Here, for example, is what the chairman of the CIPF Gennady Zyuganov writes: “In 1917, the population of Russia within its current borders was 91 million people. By 1926, when the first Soviet population census was carried out, its population in the RSFSR (that is, again in the territory of present-day Russia) had grown to 92.7 million people. And this despite the fact that only 5 years earlier the destructive and bloody Civil War ended.” Zyuganov G.A. Stalin and modernity. http://www.politpros.com/library/9/223.
Where did he get these numbers from, from which statistical collections exactly, the main communist of Russia does not stutter, hoping that they will believe him without evidence.
Communists have always exploited the naivety of others.
What really happened?
Vladimir Shubkin’s article “Difficult Farewell” (New World, No. 4, 1989) is devoted to the loss of population during the times of Lenin and Stalin. According to Shubkin, during Lenin’s reign from the autumn of 1917 to 1922, Russia’s demographic losses amounted to almost 13 million people, from which emigrants must be subtracted (1.5-2 million people).
The author, referring to the study by Yu.A. Polyakova, indicates that the total human losses from 1917 to 1922, taking into account failed births and emigration, amount to about 25 million people (Academician S. Strumilin estimated losses from 1917 to 1920 at 21 million).
During the years of collectivization and famine (1932-1933), the human losses of the USSR, according to V. Shubkin’s calculations, amounted to 10-13 million people.
If we continue with arithmetic, then during the First World War, in more than four years, the Russian Empire lost 20 - 8 = 12 million people.
It turns out that Russia’s average annual losses during the First World War amounted to 2.7 million people.
Apparently, this includes civilian casualties.
However, these figures are also disputed.
In 1919-1920, the publication of a 65-volume list of killed, wounded and missing lower ranks of the Russian army in 1914-1918 was completed. Its preparation began back in 1916 by employees of the General Staff of the Russian Empire. Based on this work, the Soviet historian reports: “During 3.5 years of war, losses Russian army amounted to 68,994 generals and officers, 5,243,799 soldiers. This includes the killed, wounded and missing." Beskrovny L.G. The Army and Navy of Russia at the beginning of the 20th Century. Essays on military-economic potential. M., 1986. P.17.
In addition, we must take into account those who were captured. At the end of the war, 2,385,441 Russian prisoners were registered in Germany, 1,503,412 in Austria-Hungary, 19,795 in Turkey and 2,452 in Bulgaria, for a total of 3,911,100. Proceedings of the Commission to survey the sanitary consequences of the war of 1914-1920. Vol. 1. P. 169.
Thus, the total human losses of Russia should be 9,223,893 soldiers and officers.
But from here we must subtract 1,709,938 wounded who returned to duty from field hospitals. As a result, minus this contingent, the number of killed, died from wounds, seriously wounded and prisoners will be 7,513,955 people.
All figures are given according to information from 1919. In 1920, work on the lists of losses, including clarifying the number of prisoners of war and missing in action, made it possible to revise the total military losses and determine them at 7,326,515 people. Proceedings of the Survey Commission... P. 170.
The unprecedented scale of the 1st World War indeed led to a huge number of prisoners of war. But the question of the number of military personnel of the Russian army who were in enemy captivity is still debatable.
Thus, the encyclopedia “The Great October Socialist Revolution” names over 3.4 million Russian prisoners of war. (M., 1987. P. 445).
According to E.Yu. Sergeev, a total of about 1.4 million soldiers and officers of the Russian army were captured. Sergeev E.Yu. Russian prisoners of war in Germany and Austria-Hungary // New and recent history. 1996. N 4. P. 66.
Historian O.S. Nagornaya names a similar figure - 1.5 million people (Nagornaya O.S. Another military experience: Russian prisoners of war of the First World War in Germany (1914-1922). M., 2010. P. 9).
Other data from S.N. Vasilyeva: “by January 1, 1918, the Russian army lost prisoners: soldiers - 3,395,105 people, and officers and class officials - 14,323 people, which amounted to 74.9% of all combat losses, or 21.2% of the total number of mobilized" . (Vasilieva S.N. Prisoners of war of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia during the First World War: Textbook for a special course. M., 1999. P. 14-15).
This discrepancy in numbers (more than 2 times) is apparently a consequence of poorly organized accounting and registration of prisoners of war.
But if you delve deeper into the statistics, all these figures do not look very convincing.
“Talking about the losses of the Russian population as a result of two wars and a revolution,” writes historian Yu. Polyakov, “a strange discrepancy in the population of pre-war Russia is striking, which, according to various authors, reaches 30 million people. This discrepancy in the demographic literature is explained primarily by territorial discrepancies. Some take data on the territory of the Russian state in the pre-war (1914) borders, others - on the territory within the borders established in 1920-1921. and those that existed before 1939, the third - by territory within modern borders with a retrospective for 1917 and 1914. Calculations are sometimes carried out with the inclusion of Finland, the Bukhara Emirate and the Khanate of Khiva, sometimes without excluding them. We do not resort to population data in 1913-1920, calculated for the territory within modern borders. These data, important for showing the dynamics of the growth of the current population, are not very useful in historical studies devoted to the First World War, the October Revolution and the Civil War.
These figures indicate the population in the territory that exists now, but in 1913-1920. it did not correspond to either the legal or actual borders of Russia. Let us recall that according to these data, the population of the country on the eve of the First World War was 159.2 million people, and at the beginning of 1917 - 163 million (USSR in figures in 1977 - M., 1978, p. 7). The difference in determining the size of the pre-war (at the end of 1913 or the beginning of 1914) population of Russia (within the boundaries established in 1920-1921 and existing before September 17, 1939) reaches 13 million people (from 132.8 million to 145.7 million).
Statistical collections of the 60s determine the population at that time at 139.3 million people. Confusing data is provided (for the territory within the borders before 1939) for 1917, 1919, 1920, 1921, etc.
An important source is the 1917 census. A significant part of its materials has been published. Studying them (including unpublished arrays stored in archives) is quite useful. But the census materials do not cover the country as a whole, war conditions affected the accuracy of the data, and in determining the national composition, its information has the same defects as all pre-revolutionary statistics, which made serious mistakes in determining nationality, based only on linguistic affiliation.
Meanwhile, the difference in determining the population size, according to citizens’ own statements (this principle is accepted by modern statistics), is very large. A number of nationalities were not taken into account at all before the revolution.
The 1920 census also, unfortunately, cannot be named among the basic sources, although its materials undoubtedly should be taken into account.
The census was carried out in the days (August 1920) when there was a war with bourgeois-landlord Poland and the front-line and front-line areas were inaccessible to census takers, when Wrangel still occupied the Crimea and Northern Taurida, when counter-revolutionary governments existed in Georgia and Armenia, and significant territories Siberia and the Far East were under the rule of interventionists and White Guards, when nationalist and kulak gangs operated in different parts of the country (many census takers were killed). Therefore, the population of many outlying territories was calculated according to pre-revolutionary information.
The census also had shortcomings in determining the national composition of the population (for example, the small peoples of the North were united in a group under the dubious name “Hyperboreans”). There are many contradictions in the data on population losses in the First World War and the Civil War (the number of killed, those who died from epidemics, etc.), on refugees from the front-line territories occupied by Austro-German troops in 1917, on the demographic consequences of crop failure and famine.
Statistical collections of the 60s give figures of 143.5 million people as of January 1, 1917, 138 million as of January 1, 1919, 136.8 million as of August 1920.
In 1973-1979 at the Institute of History of the USSR, under the leadership of the author of these lines (Polyakov), a method was developed and implemented for using (with the use of a computer) the 1926 census data to determine the country's population in previous years. This census recorded the composition of the country's population with an accuracy and scientific level unprecedented in Russia. The materials of the 1926 census were published widely and completely - in 56 volumes. The essence of the methodology in general form is as follows: based on the 1926 census data, primarily based on the age structure of the population, the dynamic series of the country's population for 1917-1926 is restored. At the same time, data on natural and mechanical movement population for the indicated years. Therefore, this technique can be called a technique for the retrospective use of population census materials, taking into account the complex of additional data at the disposal of the historian.
As a result of the calculations, many hundreds of tables were obtained characterizing the population movement in 1917-1926. for different regions and the country as a whole, determining the number and proportion of the peoples of the country. In particular, the number and National composition population of Russia in the fall of 1917 in the territory within the borders of 1926 (147,644.3 thousand). It seemed to us extremely important to carry out calculations based on the actual territory of Russia in the fall of 1917 (that is, without the areas occupied by Austro-German troops), because the population located behind the front line was then excluded from the economic and political life of Russia. We determined the actual territory on the basis of military maps recording the front line in the autumn of 1917.
The population size for the actual territory of Russia in the fall of 1917, excluding Finland, the Bukhara Emirate and the Khanate of Khiva, was determined to be 153,617 thousand people; without Finland, including Khiva and Bukhara - 156,617 thousand people; with Finland (together with the Pechenga volost), Khiva and Bukhara - 159,965 thousand people.” Polyakov Yu.A. Population of Soviet Russia in 1917-1920. (Historiography and sources). - On Sat. Problems of the Russian social movement and historical science. M., Nauka, 1981. pp. 170-176.
If we recall the figure of 180.6 million people named in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, then which of those mentioned by Yu.A. Polyakov does not take any figures, but in the fall of 1917 the population deficit in Russia will not be 12 million, but will fluctuate between 27 and 37.5 million people.
How can these figures be compared? In 1917, the population of Sweden, for example, was estimated at 5.5 million people. In other words, this statistical error is equal to 5-7 Sweden.
The situation is similar with the losses of the country's population in the civil war.
“The countless victims suffered in the war against the White Guards and interventionists (the country’s population decreased by 13 million people from 1917 to 1923) were rightly attributed to the class enemy - the culprit, the instigator of the war.” Polyakov Yu.A. 20s: the mood of the party vanguard. Questions of the history of the CPSU, 1989, No. 10, p. 30.
In the reference book V.V. Erlichman "Population losses in the 20th century." (M.: Russian Panorama, 2004) it is said that in the civil war of 1918-1920. approximately 10.5 million people died.
According to historian A. Kilichenkov, “in three years of fratricidal civil massacre, the country lost 13 million people and retained only 9.5% of the previous (before 1913) gross national product.” Science and Life, 1995, No. 8, p. 80.
Moscow State University professor L. Semyannikova objects: “the civil war, extremely bloody and destructive, claimed, according to Russian historians, 15-16 million lives.” Science and Life, 1995, No. 9, p. 46.
Historian M. Bernshtam, in his work “Parties in the Civil War,” tried to compile a general balance of Russian population losses during the war years of 1917-1920: “According to the special reference book of the Central Statistical Office, the number of population on the territory of the USSR after 1917 does not take into account the population of territories that moved away from Russia and those not included in the USSR amounted to 146,755,520 people. - Administrative-territorial composition of the USSR as of July 1, 1925 and July 1, 1926, in comparison with the pre-war division of Russia. Experience in establishing a connection between the administrative-territorial composition of pre-war Russia and the modern composition of the USSR. Central Statistical Office of the USSR. - M., 1926, p.49-58.
This is the initial figure of the population that, since October 1917, found itself in the zone of the socialist revolution. In the same territory, the census of August 28, 1920, including those in the army, found only 134,569,206 people. - Statistical Yearbook 1921. Vol. 1. Proceedings of the Central Statistical Office, vol. VIII, no. 3, M., 1922, p.8. The total population deficit is 12,186,314 people.
Thus, the historian summarizes, in less than the first three years of the socialist revolution on the territory of the former Russian Empire (from the autumn of 1917 to August 28, 1920), the population lost 8.3 percent of its original composition.
Over these years, emigration allegedly amounted to 86,000 people (Alekhin M. White Emigration. TSB, 1st ed., vol. 64. M., 1934, column 163), and natural decline - the excess of mortality over the birth rate - 873,623 people (Proceedings of the Central Statistical Office, vol. XVIII, M., 1924, p. 42).
Thus, losses from the revolution and civil war in the first less than three years of Soviet power, without emigration and natural decline, amounted to more than 11.2 million people. Here it is necessary to note, the author comments, that “natural decline” requires a reasonable interpretation: why the decline? Is the scientific term “natural” appropriate here? It is clear that the excess of mortality over birth rate is an unnatural phenomenon and relates to the demographic results of the revolution and the socialist experiment.”
However, if we assume that this war lasted 4 years (1918-1922), and take the total losses to be 15 million people, then the average annual losses of the country's population during this period amounted to 3.7 million people.
It turns out that the civil war was bloodier than the war with the Germans.
At the same time, the size of the Red Army reached 3 million people by the end of 1919, and 5.5 million people by the fall of 1920.
The famous demographer B.Ts. Urlanis, in his book “Wars and Population of Europe,” speaking about losses among the soldiers and commanders of the Red Army in the civil war, gives the following figures. Total number killed and died, in his opinion, 425 thousand people. About 125 thousand people were killed at the front, about 300 thousand people died in the active army and in military districts. Urlanis B. Ts. Wars and population of Europe. - M., 1960. pp. 183, 305. Moreover, the author writes that “the comparison and absolute value of the figures give reason to assume that the killed and wounded are included in the combat losses.” Urlanis B.Ts. There, p. 181.
The reference book “National Economy of the USSR in Figures” (M., 1925) contains completely different information about the losses of the Red Army in 1918-1922. In this book, according to official data from the statistics department of the Main Directorate of the Red Army, the combat losses of the Red Army in the civil war are named - 631,758 Red Army soldiers, and sanitary (with evacuation) - 581,066, and in total - 1,212,824 people (p. 110).
The white movement was quite small. By the end of the winter of 1919, that is, by the time of its maximum development, it, according to Soviet military reports, did not exceed 537 thousand people. Of these, no more than 175 thousand people died. - Kakaurin N.E. How the revolution fought, vol. 2, M.-L., 1926, p. 137.
Thus, there were 10 times more reds than whites. But there were also many more casualties in the ranks of the Red Army - either 3 or 8 times.
But, if we compare the three-year losses of the two opposing armies with the losses of the Russian population, then there is no escaping the question: who fought with whom?
White and red?
Or both of them with the people?
“Cruelty is inherent in any war, but in the Russian civil war there was incredible mercilessness. White officers and volunteers knew what would happen to them if they were captured by the Reds: more than once I saw terribly disfigured bodies with shoulder straps cut out on their shoulders.” Orlov, G. Diary of a Drozdovite. // Star. - 2012. - No. 11.
The Reds were no less brutally destroyed. “As soon as the party affiliation of the communists was established, they were hanged on the first branch.” Reden, N. Through the hell of the Russian revolution. Memoirs of a midshipman 1914-1919. - M., 2006.
The atrocities of Denikin's, Annenkov's, Kalmykov's, and Kolchak's are well known.
At the beginning of the Ice Campaign, Kornilov declared: “I give you a very cruel order: do not take prisoners! I take responsibility for this order before God and the Russian people!” One of the participants in the campaign recalled the cruelty of ordinary volunteers during the “Ice March” when he wrote about the reprisals against those captured: “All the Bolsheviks captured by us with weapons in their hands were shot on the spot: alone, in dozens, hundreds. It was war "for extermination." Fedyuk V. P. White. Anti-Bolshevik movement in the south of Russia 1917-1918.
A witness, the writer William, spoke about the Denikinites in his memoirs. True, he is reluctant to talk about his own exploits, but he conveys in detail the stories of his accomplices in the struggle for the one and indivisible.
“They drove out the Reds - and how many of them were put down, the passion of the Lord! And they began to establish their own order. The liberation has begun. At first the sailors were harmed. Those stupid ones stayed, “our business, they say, is on the water, we will live with the cadets”... Well, everything is as it should be, in an amicable way: they kicked them out of the pier, forced them to dig a ditch for themselves, and then they will lead them to the edge and from revolvers one by one. So, can you believe it, they moved like crayfish in this ditch until they fell asleep. And then, in this place, the whole earth moved: that’s why they didn’t finish it off, so that others would be embarrassed.”
The commander of the US occupation corps in Siberia, General Greves, in turn, testifies: “Terrible murders were committed in Eastern Siberia, but they were not committed by the Bolsheviks, as was usually thought. I will not be mistaken if I say that in Eastern Siberia for every person killed by the Bolsheviks, 100 people were killed by anti-Bolshevik elements.”
“It is possible to put an end to... the uprising as soon as possible, without stopping at the most severe, even cruel measures against not only the rebels, but also the population supporting them... For concealment... there must be merciless punishment... For reconnaissance and communications, use local residents, taking hostages . In case of incorrect and untimely information or treason, the hostages will be executed and the houses belonging to them will be burned.” These are quotes from the order of the Supreme Ruler of Russia, Admiral A.V. Kolchak from March 23, 1919
And here are excerpts from the order of the specially authorized Kolchak S. Rozanov, governor of the Yenisei and part of the Irkutsk province dated March 27, 1919: in villages that do not extradite the Reds, “shoot the tenth”; villages that resist are burned, and “the adult male population is shot without exception,” property and bread are completely taken away in favor of the treasury; In case of resistance from fellow villagers, hostages will be “shot mercilessly.”
The political leaders of the Czechoslovak corps B. Pavlu and V. Girsa stated in their official memorandum to the allies in November 1919: “Admiral Kolchak surrounded himself with former tsarist officials, and since the peasants did not want to take up arms and sacrifice their lives for the return of these people to power , they were beaten, flogged and killed in cold blood by the thousands, after which the world called them “Bolsheviks.”
“The most significant weakness of the Omsk government is that the overwhelming majority is in opposition to it. Roughly speaking, approximately 97% of the population of Siberia today is hostile to Kolchak.” Testimony of Lieutenant Colonel Eichelberg. New time, 1988. No. 34. pp. 35-37.
However, it is also true that the Reds brutally dealt with rebellious workers and peasants.
It is interesting that during the civil war there were almost no Russians in the Red Army, although few people know this...
“You shouldn’t become a soldier, Vanek.
In the Red Army there will be bayonets and tea,
The Bolsheviks will manage without you."
In addition to the Latvian riflemen, over 25 thousand Chinese took part in the defense of Petrograd from Yudenich, and in total there were at least 200 thousand Chinese internationalists in the Red Army units. In 1919, more than 20 Chinese units operated in the Red Army - near Arkhangelsk and Vladikavkaz, in Perm and near Voronezh, in the Urals and beyond the Urals...
There is probably no one who has not seen the film “The Elusive Avengers”, but not many people know that the film is based on the book by P. Blyakhin “Little Red Devils”, and there are very few people who remember that in the book there is no gypsy Yashka, there is a Chinese Yu-yu, and in the film made in the 30s, instead of Yu there was a black Johnson.
The first organizer of Chinese units in the Red Army, Yakir, recalled that the Chinese were distinguished by high discipline, unquestioning obedience to orders, fatalism and self-sacrifice. In his book “Memoirs of the Civil War,” he writes: “The Chinese looked at salaries very seriously. You gave your life easily, but pay on time and feed well. Yes, that's it. Their representatives come to me and say that they hired 530 people and, therefore, I have to pay for all of them. And as many as there are no, then nothing - the rest of the money that is due to them, they will divide among everyone. I talked to them for a long time, convincing them that this was wrong, not our way. Still, they got theirs. Another argument was given - they say we should send the families of those killed to China. We had a lot of good things with them on the long, suffering journey through all of Ukraine, the entire Don, to the Voronezh province.”
What else?
There were approximately 90 thousand Latvians, plus 600 thousand Poles, 250 Hungarians, 150 Germans, 30 thousand Czechs and Slovaks, 50 thousand from Yugoslavia, there was a Finnish division, Persian regiments. In the Korean Red Army - 80 thousand, and in different parts about 100 more, there were Uighur, Estonian, Tatar, mountain units...
The personnel of the command staff is also curious.
“Many of Lenin’s fiercest enemies agreed to fight side by side with the hated Bolsheviks when it came to defending the Motherland.” Kerensky A.F. My life is underground. Smena, 1990, No. 11, p. 264.
The famous book by S. Kavtaradze “Military specialists in the service of Soviet power"According to his calculations, 70% of the tsarist generals served in the Red Army, and 18% in all the white armies. There is even a list of names - from general to captain - of General Staff officers who voluntarily joined the Red Army. Their motives were a mystery to me, until I read the memoirs of N.M. Potapov, the Quartermaster General of the Infantry, who led the counterintelligence of the General Staff in 1917. He was a difficult man.
I will briefly retell what I remember. I’ll just make a reservation first - part of his memoirs was published in the 60s in the Military Historical Journal, and I read the other in the Leninka manuscripts department.
So what's in the magazine?
In July 1917, Potapov met with M. Kedrov (they had been friends since childhood), N. Podvoisky and V. Bonch-Bruevich (the head of party intelligence, and his brother Mikhail for some time later headed the Field Operational Headquarters of the Red Army). These were the leaders of the Bolshevik Military, the future organizers of the Bolshevik coup. After long negotiations, they came to an agreement: 1. The General Staff will actively help the Bolsheviks in overthrowing the Provisional Government. 2. The people of the General Staff will move into the structures to create a new army to replace the disintegrated one.
Both parties fulfilled their obligations. After October, Potapov himself was appointed manager of the affairs of the War Ministry, since the People's Commissars were constantly on the move, in fact he served as the head of the People's Commissariat, and from June 1918 he worked as an expert. By the way, he played an important role in the Trest and Syndicate-2 operations. He was buried with honors in 1946.
Now about the manuscript. According to Potapov, the army, through the efforts of Kerensky and other democrats, was completely disintegrated. Russia was losing the war. The influence of the banking houses of Europe and the USA on the government was too noticeable.
The pragmatic Bolsheviks, in turn, needed to destroy false democracy in the army, establish iron discipline, and in addition, they defended the unity of Russia. The career patriotic officers understood perfectly well that Kolchak promised to give up Siberia to the Americans, and the British and French secured similar promises from Denikin and Wrangel. Actually, arms supplies from the West took place under these conditions. Order No. 1 was canceled.
Trotsky restored iron discipline and complete subordination of the rank and file to commanders within six months, resorting to the most severe measures, including executions. After the revolt of Stalin and Voroshilov, known as the military opposition, the Eighth Congress introduced unity of command in the army, prohibiting attempts by commissars to interfere. Tales of hostages were myths. The officers were well provided for, they were honored, awarded, their orders were unconditionally carried out, one after another the armies of their enemies were thrown out of Russia. This position suited them as professionals quite well. So, in any case, Potapov wrote.
Pitirim Sorokin, a contemporary of the events, testifies: “Since 1919, the government has actually ceased to be the power of the working masses and has become simply a tyranny, consisting of unprincipled intellectuals, declassed workers, criminals and assorted adventurers.” Terror, he noted, “began to a greater extent to be carried out against workers and peasants.” Sorokin P.A. The current state of Russia. New world. 1992. No. 4. P.198.
That's right - against workers and peasants. Suffice it to recall the executions in Tula and Astrakhan, Kronstadt and Antonovism, the suppression of hundreds of peasant revolts...
How can you not rebel when you are being robbed?
“If we in the cities can say that the revolutionary Soviet government is strong enough to withstand any attacks from the bourgeoisie, then this cannot be said in any case in the countryside. We must seriously pose the question of stratification in the countryside, about the creation of two opposing hostile forces in the village... Only if we can split the village into two irreconcilable hostile camps, if we can kindle there the same civil war that was going on not so long ago in the cities, if we manage to restore the village the poor against the rural bourgeoisie, - only then can we say that we will do in relation to the countryside what we were able to do for the cities." Yakov Sverdlov. Speech at a meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the IV convocation on May 20, 1918.
On June 29, 1918, speaking at the 3rd All-Russian Congress of the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party, delegate from the Ural region N.I. Melkov exposed the exploits of food detachments in the Ufa province, where “the food issue was “well organized” by the chairman of the food administration, Tsyurupa, who was made commissar of food for all of Russia, but the other side of the matter is clearer for us, the left Socialist-Revolutionaries, than for anyone else. or. We know how this bread was squeezed out of the villages, what atrocities this Red Army committed in the villages: purely bandit gangs appeared who began to rob, it reached the point of debauchery, etc.” Party of Left Socialist Revolutionaries. Documents and materials. 1917-1925 In 3 volumes. T. 2. Part 1. M., 2010. P. 246-247.
For the Bolsheviks, suppressing the resistance of their opponents was the only way to maintain power in a peasant country with the aim of turning it into the base of the international socialist revolution. The Bolsheviks were confident in the historical justification and justice of using merciless violence against their enemies and “exploiters” in general, as well as coercion in relation to the wavering middle strata of the city and countryside, primarily the peasantry. Based on the experience of the Paris Commune, V.I. Lenin considered the main reason for its death to be the inability to suppress the resistance of the overthrown exploiters. It is worth reflecting on his admission, repeated several times at the Tenth Congress of the RCP (b) in 1921, that “the petty-bourgeois counter-revolution is undoubtedly more dangerous than Denikin, Yudenich and Kolchak combined,” and ... “represents a danger in many ways times greater than all the Denikins, Kolchaks and Yudenichs put together.”
He wrote: “...The last and most numerous of the exploiting classes has risen against us in our country.” PSS, 5th ed., vol. 37, p. 40.
“Everywhere the greedy, glutted, brutal kulak united with the landowners and capitalists against the workers and against the poor in general... Everywhere it entered into an alliance with foreign capitalists against the workers of their country... There will be no peace: the kulak can and can easily be reconciled with the landowner , tsar and priest, even if they quarreled, but never with the working class. And that’s why we call the battle against the fists the last, decisive battle.” Lenin V.I. PSS, vol. 37, p. 39-40.
Already in July 1918, there were 96 peasant armed uprisings against Soviet power and its food policy.
On August 5, 1918, an uprising of peasants in the Penza province, dissatisfied with the food requisitions of the Soviet government, broke out. It covered the volosts of Penza and neighboring Morshansky districts (8 volosts in total). See: Chronicle of the Penza regional organization of the CPSU. 1884-1937 Saratov, 1988, p. 58.
On August 9 and 10, V.I. Lenin received telegrams from the chairman of the Penza Provincial Committee of the RCP (b) E.B. Bosch and the chairman of the Council of Provincial Commissars V.V. Kuraev with a message about the uprising and in response telegrams gave instructions on organizing its suppression (see .: Lenin V.I. Biographical Chronicle, T. 6. M., 1975, pp. 41, 46, 51 and 55; Lenin V.I. Complete collected works, vol. 50, pp. 143-144 , 148, 149 and 156).
Lenin sends a letter to Penza addressed to V.V. Kuraev, E.B. Bosch, A.E. Minkin.
August 11, 1918
To T-scham Kuraev, Bosch, Minkin and other Penza communists
T-shchi! The uprising of the five kulak volosts must lead to merciless suppression.
This is required by the interests of the entire revolution, because now everywhere there is a “last decisive battle” with the kulaks. You need to give a sample.
1) Hang (be sure to hang, so that the people can see) at least 100 notorious kulaks, rich people, bloodsuckers.
2) Publish their names.
3) Take away all their bread.
4) Assign hostages.
Make it so that hundreds of miles around people see, tremble, know, shout: they are strangling and will strangle the bloodsucking kulaks.
Wire receipt and execution.
Your Lenin.
P.S. Find tougher people. Fund 2, on. 1, no. 6898 - autograph. Lenin V.I. Unknown documents. 1891-1922 - M.: ROSSPEN, 1999. Doc. 137.
The Penza riot was suppressed on August 12, 1918. Local authorities managed to do this through agitation, with limited use of military force. Participants in the murder of five pro-army members and three members of the village council. Kuchki of the Penza district and the organizers of the rebellion (13 people) were arrested and shot.
The Bolsheviks brought down all the punishments on farmers who did not hand over grain and food: peasants were arrested, beaten, and shot. Naturally, villages and volosts rebelled, men took up pitchforks and axes, dug up hidden weapons and brutally dealt with the “commissars”.
Already in 1918, more than 250 major uprisings took place in Smolensk, Yaroslavl, Oryol, Moscow and other provinces; More than 100 thousand peasants of the Simbirsk and Samara provinces rebelled.
During the Civil War, Don and Kuban Cossacks, peasants of the Volga region, Ukraine, Belarus and Central Asia fought against the Bolsheviks.
In the summer of 1918, in Yaroslavl and the Yaroslavl province, thousands of urban workers and surrounding peasants rebelled against the Bolsheviks; in many volosts and villages, the entire population, including women, old people, and children, took up arms.
The report of the Headquarters of the Eastern Red Front contains a description of the uprising in the Sengileevsky and Belebeevsky districts of the Volga region in March 1919: “The peasants went wild, with pitchforks, with stakes and guns alone and in crowds climbing machine guns, despite the piles of corpses, their rage defies description.” Kubanin M.I. Anti-Soviet peasant movement during the civil war (war communism). - On the agrarian front, 1926, No. 2, p. 41.
Of all the anti-Soviet uprisings in the Nizhny Novgorod region, the most organized and large-scale was the uprising in Vetluzhsky and Varnavinsky districts in August 1918. The cause of the uprising was dissatisfaction with the food dictatorship of the Bolsheviks and the predatory actions of food detachments. The rebels numbered up to 10 thousand people. The open confrontation in the Urensky region lasted about a month, but individual gangs continued to operate until 1924.
A witness to the peasant revolt in the Shatsky district of the Tambov province in the fall of 1918 recalled: “I am a soldier, I was in many battles with the Germans, but I have never seen anything like this. A machine gun mows down the rows, and they walk, they see nothing, they crawl straight over the corpses, over the wounded, their eyes are terrible, the mothers of the children come forward, shouting: Mother, Intercessor, save, have mercy, we will all lie down for You. There was no longer any fear in them.” Steinberg I.Z. The moral face of the revolution. Berlin, 1923, p.62.
Since March 1918, Zlatoust and its environs have been fighting. At the same time, about two-thirds of the Kungur district was engulfed in the fire of the uprising.
By the summer of 1918, the “peasant” regions of the Urals also burst into flames of resistance.
Throughout the Ural region - from Verkhoturye and Novaya Lyalya to Verkhneuralsk and Zlatoust and from Bashkiria and the Kama region to Tyumen and Kurgan - detachments of peasants crushed the Bolsheviks. The number of rebels could not be counted. There were more than 40 thousand of them in the Okhanska-Osa area alone. 50 thousand rebels put the Reds to flight in the area of Bakal - Satka - Mesyagutovskaya volost. On July 20, the peasants took Kuzino and cut the Trans-Siberian Railway, blocking Yekaterinburg from the west.
In general, by the end of summer, vast territories were liberated from the Red rebels. This is almost the entire Southern and Middle, as well as part of the Western and Northern Urals (where there were no whites yet).
The Urals region was also burning: the peasants of the Glazov and Nolinsky districts of the Vyatka province took up arms. In the spring of 1918, the flames of the anti-Soviet uprising engulfed the Lauzinskaya, Duvinskaya, Tastubinskaya, Dyurtyulinskaya, Kizilbashskaya volosts of the Ufa province. In the Krasnoufimsk region, a battle took place between Yekaterinburg workers who came to requisition grain and local peasants who did not want to give up the grain. Workers against peasants! Neither one nor the other supported the whites, but this did not stop them from exterminating each other... On July 13-15 near Nyazepetrovsk and on July 16 near Upper Ufaley, the Krasnoufima rebels defeated units of the 3rd Red Army. Suvorov Dm. Unknown civil war, M., 2008.
N. Poletika, historian: “The Ukrainian village waged a brutal struggle against surplus appropriation and requisitions, ripping open the bellies of rural authorities and agents of Zagotzern and Zagotskot, filling these bellies with grain, carving Red Army stars on the forehead and chest, driving nails into the eyes, crucifying on crosses."
The uprisings were suppressed in the most brutal and usual way. In six months, 50 million hectares of land were confiscated from the kulaks and distributed between the poor and middle peasants.
As a result, by the end of 1918, the amount of land used by kulaks decreased from 80 million hectares to 30 million hectares.
Thus, the economic and political positions of the kulaks were greatly undermined.
The socio-economic face of the village has changed: the share of the peasant poor, which was 65% in 1917, decreased to 35% by the end of 1918; the middle peasants instead of 20% became 60%, and the kulaks instead of 15% became 5%.
But even a year later the situation has not changed.
Delegates from Tyumen told Lenin at the party congress: “To carry out surplus appropriation, they arranged the following things: those peasants who did not want to give appropriation, they were put in pits, filled with water and frozen...”
F. Mironov, commander of the Second Cavalry Army (1919, from an address to Lenin and Trotsky): “The people are groaning... I repeat, the people are ready to throw themselves into the arms of landowner bondage, if only the torment would not be as painful, as obvious as it is now. .."
In March 1919, at the VIII Congress of the RCP (b) G.E. Zinoviev briefly described the state of affairs in the countryside and the mood of the peasants: “If you go to the village now, you will see that they hate us with all their might.”
A.V. Lunacharsky in May 1919 informed V.I. Lenin about the situation in the Kostroma province: “In most districts there were no serious unrest. There were only purely hungry demands, not even riots, but simply demands for bread, which is not available... But in the east of the Kostroma province there are forest and grain kulak districts - Vetluzhsky and Varnavinsky, in the latter there is a whole rich, prosperous, Old Believer region, the so-called Urensky... A formal war is being waged with this region. We want to pump out those 200 or 300 thousand poods from there at any cost... The peasants are resisting and have become extremely embittered. I saw terrible photographs of our comrades, from whom Varnavin’s fists tore off the skin, whom they froze in the forest or burned alive...”
As noted in the same 1919 in a report to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the Council of People's Commissars and the Central Committee of the RCP (b), the chairman of the Higher Military Inspectorate N.I. Podvoisky:
"The workers and peasants who took the most direct part in the October Revolution, without understanding its historical significance, thought to use it to satisfy their immediate needs. Maximalist-minded with an anarcho-syndicalist bent, the peasants followed us during the destructive period of the October Revolution, showing no differences with its leaders in any way. During the creative period, they naturally had to diverge from our theory and practice."
Indeed, the peasants parted ways with the Bolsheviks: instead of respectfully giving them all the available bread, grown through labor, they tore out machine guns and sawn-off shotguns taken from the war from secluded places.
From the minutes of the meetings of the Special Commission for Supplying the Army and the Population of the Orenburg Province and the Kyrgyz Territory on providing assistance to the proletarian center on September 12, 1919.
We listened. Report by Comrade Martynov on the catastrophic food situation in the Center.
It was decided. Having heard the report of Comrade Martynov and the content of the conversation via direct wire with the authorized representative of the Council of People's Commissars, Comrade Blumberg, the Special Commission decides:
1. Mobilize members of the board, party and non-party workers of the provincial food committee to send them to the districts in order to strengthen the pouring of grain and its delivery to the stations.
2. Carry out a similar mobilization among the workers of the Special Commission, the food department of the Kyrgyz Revolutionary Committee and use the workers of the political department of the 1st Army to send them to the regions.
3. Urgently order the chairmen of the district food committees to take the most exceptional measures to strengthen the grain dumping, the responsibility of the chairmen and members of the boards of the district food committees.
4. The head of the transport department of the provincial food committee, Comrade Gorelkin, is ordered to show maximum energy to organize transport.
5. Send the following persons to the areas: Comrade Shchipkova - to the Orskaya railway area. (Saraktash, Orsk), t. Styvrina - to the district food committees of Isaevo-Dedovsky, Mikhailovsky and Pokrovsky, t. Andreeva - to Iletsky and Ak-Bulaksky, t. Golynicheva - to the Krasnokholmsky district produce committee, t. Chukhrita - to Aktyubinsk, giving him the broadest powers.
6.Send all available bread immediately to the centers.
7. Take all measures to remove from Iletsk all the stocks of bread and millet available there, for which purpose send the required number of wagons to Iletsk.
8. Apply to the Revolutionary Military Council with a request to take possible measures to provide the provincial food committee with transport in this urgent work, for which, if necessary, cancel the underwater patrol of the Revolutionary Military Council for some areas and issue a mandatory decree that the Revolutionary Military Council guarantees timely payment for drivers who brought grain.
9. Offer osprodivs 8 and 49 to temporarily serve the needs of the army with the help of their areas so that the remaining areas can be used to supply the centers...
Authentic with proper signatures
Archive of the KazSSR, f. 14. op. 2, d. 1. l 4. Certified copy.
Trinity-Pechora uprising, anti-Bolshevik rebellion in the upper Pechora during the civil war. The reason for it was the export of grain reserves by the Reds from Troitsko-Pechorsk to Vychegda. The initiator of the uprising was the chairman of the volost cell of the RCP (b), commandant of Troitsko-Pechorsk I.F. Melnikov. The conspirators included the commander of the Red Army company M.K. Pystin, priest V. Popov, deputy. Chairman of the Volost Executive Committee M.P. Pystin, forester N.S. Skorokhodov and others.
The uprising began on February 4, 1919. The rebels killed some of the Red Army soldiers, the rest went over to their side. During the uprising, the head of the Soviet garrison in Troitsko-Pechorsk, N.N., was killed. Suvorov, red commander A.M. Cheremnykh. District military commissar M.M. Frolov shot himself. The judicial panel of the rebels (chaired by P.A. Yudin) executed about 150 communists and activists of the Soviet regime - refugees from the Cherdyn district.
Then anti-Bolshevik riots broke out in the volost villages of Pokcha, Savinobor and Podcherye. After Kolchak’s army entered the upper reaches of Pechora, these volosts fell under the jurisdiction of the Siberian Provisional Government, and the participants in the uprising against Soviet power in Troitsko-Pechorsk entered the Separate Siberian Pechora Regiment, which proved to be one of the most combat-ready units of the Russian Army in offensive operations in the Urals.
Soviet historian M.I. Kubanin, reporting that 25-30% of the total population participated in the uprising against the Bolsheviks in the Tambov province, summed up: “There is no doubt that 25-30 percent of the village population means that the entire adult male population went to Antonov’s army.” Kubanin M.I. Anti-Soviet peasant movement during the civil war (war communism). - On the agrarian front, 1926, No. 2, p. 42.
M.I. Kubanin also writes about a number of other major uprisings during the years of military communism: about the Izhevsk People's Army, which had 70,000 people, which managed to hold out for over three months, about the Don Uprising, in which 30,000 armed Cossacks and peasants took part, and with a rear force of one hundred thousand man and broke through the red front.
In the summer-autumn of 1919, in the peasant uprising against the Bolsheviks in the Yaroslavl province, according to M.I. Lebedev, chairman of the Yaroslavl provincial Cheka, 25-30 thousand people took part. Regular units of the 6th Army of the Northern Front and detachments of the Cheka, as well as detachments of Yaroslavl workers (8.5 thousand people), who mercilessly dealt with the rebels, were thrown against the “white-greens”. In August 1919 alone, they killed 1,845 rebels and wounded 832, shot 485 rebels based on the verdicts of the revolutionary military tribunals, and sent more than 400 people to prison. Documentation Center for the Contemporary History of the Yaroslavl Region (CDNI YaO). F. 4773. Op. 6. D. 44. L. 62-63.
The scope of the insurgent movement in the Don and Kuban reached particular strength by the fall of 1921, when the Kuban insurgent army under the leadership of A.M. Przhevalsky made a desperate attempt to capture Krasnodar.
In 1920-1921 On the territory of Western Siberia, liberated from Kolchak’s troops, a bloody 100,000-strong peasant revolt against the Bolsheviks was blazing.
“In every village, in every hamlet,” wrote P. Turkhansky, “the peasants began to beat the communists: they killed their wives, children, relatives; They chopped with axes, cut off arms and legs, and opened up their stomachs. They dealt especially harshly with food workers.” Turkhansky P. Peasant uprising in Western Siberia in 1921. Memories. - Siberian Archive, Prague, 1929, No. 2.
The war for bread was fought to the death.
Here is an excerpt from the Report of the management department of the Novonikolayevsky district executive committee of the Soviets on the Kolyvan uprising to the management department of the Sibrevkom:
“In the rebellious areas, the komjacheki were almost completely exterminated. The only survivors were random ones who managed to escape. Even those expelled from the cell were exterminated. After the suppression of the uprising, the defeated cells were restored on their own, increased their activity, and a large influx of poor people into the cells was noticeable in the villages after the suppression of the uprising. The cells insist on arming them or creating special forces from them at the district party committees. There were no cases of cowardice or betrayal of cell members by individual cell members.
The police in Kolyvan were taken by surprise, 4 policemen and an assistant to the district police chief were killed. The remaining policemen (a small percentage fled) surrendered their weapons one by one to the rebels. About 10 policemen from the Kolyvan police took part in the uprising (passively). Of these, after we occupied Kolyvan, three were shot by order of the special department of the county check.
The reason for the unsatisfactoriness of the police is explained by its composition from local Kolyvan petty bourgeois (there are about 80-100 workers in the city).
The communist executive committees were killed, the kulak members took an active part in the uprising, often becoming the head of the rebel departments.”
http://basiliobasilid.livejournal.com/17945.html
The Siberian revolt was suppressed as ruthlessly as all the others.
“The experience of the civil war and peaceful socialist construction has convincingly proven that the kulaks are the enemies of Soviet power. Complete collectivization of agriculture was a method of eliminating the kulaks as a class.” (Essays on the Voronezh organization of the CPSU. M., 1979, p. 276).
The Statistical Directorate of the Red Army estimates the combat losses of the Red Army for 1919 at 131,396 people. In 1919, there was a war on 4 internal fronts against the White armies and on the Western Front against Poland and the Baltic states.
In 1921, none of the fronts any longer existed, and the same department estimates the losses of the “workers’ and peasants’” Red Army for this year at 171,185 people. Units of the Cheka of the Red Army were not included and their losses are not included here. The losses of the ChON, VOKhR and other communist detachments, as well as the police, may not be included.
Same year peasant uprisings they fought against the Bolsheviks in the Don and Ukraine, in Chuvashia and the Stavropol region.
Soviet historian L.M. Spirin generalizes: “We can say with confidence that there was not only not a single province, but also not a single district where there were no protests and uprisings of the population against the communist regime.”
When the civil war was still in full swing, on the initiative of F.E. Dzerzhinsky in Soviet Russia, units and troops for special, special purposes are being created everywhere (based on the resolution of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) of April 17, 1919). These are military party detachments at factory party cells, district committees, city committees, regional party committees and provincial party committees, organized to assist the bodies of Soviet power in the fight against counter-revolution, to perform guard duty at particularly important facilities, etc. They were formed from communists and Komsomol members.
The first CHONs arose in Petrograd and Moscow, then in the central provinces of the RSFSR (by September 1919 they had been created in 33 provinces). CHON of the front line of the Southern, Western and Southwestern fronts took part in front-line operations, although their main task was the fight against internal counter-revolution. CHON personnel were divided into personnel and police (variable).
On March 24, 1921, the Party Central Committee, based on the decision of the Tenth Congress of the RCP (b), adopted a resolution on the inclusion of ChON in the militia units of the Red Army. In September 1921, the command and headquarters of the country's ChON were established (commander A.K. Alexandrov, chief of staff V.A. Kangelari), for political leadership - the Council of the ChON under the Central Committee of the RCP (b) (Secretary of the Central Committee V.V. Kuibyshev, deputy chairman Cheka I.S. Unshlikht, commissar of the headquarters of the Red Army and commander of the ChON), in the provinces and districts - the command and headquarters of the ChON, the Councils of the ChON under the provincial committees and party committees.
They were quite a serious police force. In December 1921, the CHON had 39,673 personnel. and variable - 323,372 people. The CHON included infantry, cavalry, artillery and armored units. More than 360 thousand armed fighters!
Who did they fight with if the civil war officially ended in 1920? After all, special-purpose units were disbanded by decision of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) only in 1924-1925.
Until the very end of 1922, martial law remained in 36 provinces, regions and autonomous republics of the country, i.e. almost the entire country was under martial law.
CHON. Regulations, guidelines and circulars. - M.: ShtaCHONresp., 1921; Naida S.F. Special purpose units (1917-1925). Party leadership in the creation and activities of the ChON // Military Historical Journal, 1969. No. 4. P.106-112; Telnov N.S. From the history of the creation and combat activities of communist special-purpose units during the civil war. // Scientific notes of the Kolomna Pedagogical Institute. - Kolomna, 1961. Volume 6. P.73-99; Gavrilova N.G. Activities of the Communist Party in the leadership of special-purpose units during the civil war and the restoration of the national economy (based on materials from the Tula, Ryazan, Ivanovo-Voznesensk provinces). Diss. Ph.D. ist. Sci. - Ryazan, 1983; Krotov V.L. Activities of the Communist Party of Ukraine in the creation and combat use of special purpose units (CHON) in the fight against counter-revolution (1919-1924). dis. Ph.D. ist. Sci. - Kharkov, 1969; Murashko P.E. Communist Party of Belarus - organizer and leader of communist formations for special purposes (1918-1924) Diss. Ph.D. ist. Sciences - Minsk, 1973; Dementiev I.B. CHON of the Perm province in the fight against the enemies of Soviet power. Diss. Ph.D. ist. Sci. - Perm, 1972; Abramenko I.A. Creation of communist special forces in Western Siberia (1920). // Scientific notes of Tomsk University, 1962. No. 43. P.83-97; Vdovenko G.D. Communist detachments - Special purpose units of Eastern Siberia (1920-1921). - Dissertation. Ph.D. ist. nauk.- Tomsk, 1970; Fomin V.N. Special purpose units in the Far East in 1918-1925. - Bryansk, 1994; Dmitriev P. Special purpose units. - Soviet Review. No. 2.1980. P.44-45. Krotov V.L. Chonovtsy. - M.: Politizdat, 1974.
The time has come to finally look at the results of the civil war in order to realize: of the more than 11 million deaths, more than 10 million were civilians.
We need to admit: it was not just a civil war, but a war against the people, first of all, the peasantry of Russia, which was the main and most dangerous force in resisting the dictatorship of the exterminating power.
Like any war, it was waged in the interests of profit and robbery.
D. Mendeleev, the creator of the periodic table of elements, the most famous Russian scientist, studied not only chemistry, but also demography.
Hardly anyone would deny him a thorough approach to science. In his work “Towards a Knowledge of Russia,” Mendeleev predicted in 1905 (based on data from the All-Russian Population Census) that by the year 2000 the population of Russia would be 594 million people.
It was in 1905 that the Bolshevik Party actually began the struggle for power. The retribution for their so-called socialism turned out to be bitter.
On the land that for centuries was called Russia, by the end of the 20th century we were missing, judging by Mendeleev’s calculations, almost 300 million people (before the collapse of the USSR, about 270 million lived in it, and not about 600 million, as the scientist predicted).
B. Isakov, head of the department of statistics at the Plekhanov Moscow Institute of National Economy, states: “Roughly speaking, we are “halved.” Due to the “experiments” of the 20th century, the country lost every second inhabitant... Direct forms of genocide claimed from 80 to 100 million lives.”
Novosibirsk September 2013
Reviews of “Russia in 1917-1925. Arithmetic of losses" (Sergey Shramko)
A very interesting article rich in digital material. Thank you, Sergey!
Vladimir Eisner 02.10.2013 14:33.
I completely agree with the article, at least based on the example of my relatives.
My great-grandmother died young in 1918, when food detachments raked out all her grain, and she starved to eat somewhere in a rye field. As a result, she suffered a “volvulus” and died in terrible agony.
Further, my grandmother’s sister’s husband died from persecution already in 1920, when her two daughters were babies.
Another grandmother’s sister’s husband died of typhus in 1921, and her two daughters were also babies.
In my dad’s family, from 1918 to 1925, three brothers died of starvation when they were very young.
My mother’s two brothers died of hunger, and she herself, born in 1918, barely survived.
The food detachment wanted to shoot my grandmother when she was pregnant with my mother and shouted to them: “Oh, you robbers!”
But grandfather stood up and he was arrested, beaten and released barefoot 20 kilometers away.
Both my mother’s and my father’s parents had to leave with their families from warm houses in the city to remote villages in unsuitable houses. Due to hopelessness, contact with other relatives was lost, and we do not know the whole terrible picture from 1917 to 1925. Sincerely. Valentina Gazova 09/19/2013 09:06.
Reviews
Thank YOU Sergey for your enormous and clear work. Now, when the Khmer Rouge again begins to wave flags, erect terrible blocks to the tyrant here and there, mutter their utopian prayers, powder the brains of the youth, pollute fragile souls with heresy, WE must stand up with the whole world to defend our state in order to prevent the Middle Ages! Ignorance! - This is a terrible force, especially in the countryside, in the countryside. I see this in my native Siberian places. Those who knew real horror and went through it - they are no longer alive. Only the children of war remained. In my village, where 30 households remain, my aunt is the only one left - a child of the war. It turns out that she knows the horror of complete ruin, the destruction of high-quality human capital and all prospects. And the remaining youth are completely ignorant! She cares about that HISTORY! She needs to survive, she will survive! She’s drinking herself to death, ready to join the banner of the next proletarian even tomorrow; to divide, shred, exile and put against the wall! I lived in Siberia, from the stories of old people I know how a red bloody tornado swept through a land that did not know serfdom. Grandmother, remembering the time of peasant dispossession (dekulakization) collectivization, always started crying, praying and whispering: “Oh, poor Lord, what if you’re a granddaughter, you’ve been through such a thing, you’ve seen it with your own eyes, you’ve lived with it inside.” Now the fields are all abandoned, the farms are destroyed, and this all a consequence of those terrible times when the Stalinists and Leninists forged a new man, burning out in him the feelings of the owner, the master! The end result was completely dead villages. “Take the land, Vaska! After all, your grandfather went to the lead for it!” - I say to my fellow countryman, who recently turned fifty. And he’s sitting on a bench, already toothless, smoking a cigarette, spitting on the grass, wearing galoshes on his bare feet, and muttering a smoky smile” - “And fuck... I Nikolaich, it’s the land for me, what am I going to do with it!” The seed was thrown to this terrible fruit in the year 17. This mighty tree called HOLY RUSSIA collapsed, tearing out roots, roots, every single one from the fertile soil. Thank you very much for your work! Patience to YOU and creative ideas. God save us, God forbid another breakdown, a revolutionary bacchanalia... As they say, don’t wake up the fool!
Since the question of the economy of the Russian Empire for 1913 comes up regularly, I have long wanted to collect good statistical data on this period somewhere.
I managed to come across a selection of materials. I am posting a revised version (the original was unsuitable for the Internet). There are typos in the text, so it is necessary to monitor the “adequacy” of the numbers. But this is the best I've come across on the web on this issue. In the future I plan to bring the material to a more readable form.
I would like to hear comments from economists, especially on the empire’s budget.
I cannot establish who the author of this material is; if someone points it out, I will be happy to insert a link to it.
Russia 1913
Indeed, the pre-war five years are the time of the highest, last rise of pre-revolutionary Russia, which affected everything
the most important aspects of the country's life. The demographic situation in the empire was quite
favorable, although the average annual population growth decreased slightly (in
1897-1901 it was 1.7% in 1902-1906. - 1.68%, in 1907-1911. -
1.65%), which, however, is typical for all urbanizing countries. Due to
rapid growth of cities, the proportion of city residents is noticeably
increased, however, by the eve of the war it was only about 15%
population. Industrial development proceeded at a high pace. Having overcome
consequences of the severe economic crisis of 1900-1903. and subsequent
him depression, it during the years of pre-war economic recovery (1909-1913)
increased production volume almost 1.5 times. Moreover,
reflecting the country's ongoing industrialization process, heavy industry
its growth rate was noticeably higher than that of light (174.5% versus 137.7%). In terms of total industrial production, Russia ranked 5th-6th
place in the world, almost equal to France and surpassing it in a number of
the most important indicators of heavy industry.
Agricultural production has increased significantly,
total grains and potatoes, as well as a number of industrial crops: cotton, sugar
beets, tobacco. This was achieved mainly by increasing the area
cultivated lands on the outskirts of the empire - Siberia, Central Asia, but in some
least and due to increased productivity, wider use of machines,
improved implements, fertilizers, etc. Increased in absolute
in terms of livestock numbers, although per capita figures continued
decline steadily. The formation of modern infrastructure continued -
means of communication, means of communication, credit system. The Russian ruble was considered one
of hard convertible currencies, its gold backing was one of the most
durable in Europe.
Finally, in the cultural sector, the government made great efforts to
overcoming a serious illness Russian society- low literacy rates: expenditures for the Ministry of Education have increased since 1900
almost 5 times, amounting to 14.6% of budget expenditures in 1913.
: <авансы>Russia
The pace of economic and cultural development of the country, structural
changes in national economy seemed so impressive that the chairman
Syndical Chamber of Parisian Stockbrokers M. Vernail,
who came to St. Petersburg in the summer of 1913 to clarify the conditions for granting Russia
another loan, predicted the inevitable, as it seemed to him, within
over the next 30 years there will be a huge rise in Russian industry, which can
will be compared with the colossal shifts in the US economy in the last third of the 19th century
century. The French economic observer actually agreed with him
E. Teri, who also met on the instructions of his
government with the state of the Russian economy. His conclusion, made in the book “Russia in 1914. Economic Review”,
read: "... The economic and financial situation of Russia at the present
The moment is excellent, ... it is up to the government to make it even better."
Moreover, he warned: "If the majority
of the European nations, things would go the same way between 1912 and 1950, as
they went between 1900 and 1912, then by the middle of this century
Russia will dominate Europe both politically and
economic and financial terms." Professor Berlin
Agricultural Academy Auhagen, who examined in
1912 - 1913, a number of provinces of central Russia for the study of the course
agrarian reform, concluded his analysis as follows: “I conclude the presentation of my
opinions about the likely success of the government's undertaking, agreeing with
in the opinion of an outstanding rural owner, a native of Switzerland, who manages about
40 years of one of the largest estates in Russia in the Kharkov province, that
"Another 25 years of peace and 25 years of land management - then Russia will become different
country."
These predictions and projections came true only partly and
not at all in the same way and in the form as those quoted above suggested
authors. History has not given Russia the necessary years of calm and peace -
internal and external. And there are many reasons for this - economic, social,
political, which should be the subject of special study. Important when
this is correct to assess as the general trends in the development of the country at the beginning of the 20th century and
especially in the pre-war five years, and specific parameters of the level of this
developments in the most important spheres of life of Russian society. Make it very
not easy and, above all, due to the lack of a compact and affordable
source base.
:Russian statistics are at their best
Russian statistics are among the most complete in
world - in general, it adequately reflects the main trends
economic, socio-political and cultural life of society. However, when
It should be borne in mind that statistical data was collected by various departments: first of all, the Central
Statistical Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, statistical services
other ministries, bodies local government(zemstvos, city
Dumas), scientific and public organizations, etc. Methodology
and data collection techniques, as well as the territorial scope of surveys
sometimes varied significantly. For this reason in
Statistical publications sometimes provide various numerical indicators,
sometimes relating to the same aspects of social life, which requires special
attention of researchers to assessing the reliability and completeness of the used
sources. These circumstances seem to largely explain
factual inaccuracies and errors occurring in some modern
publications affecting certain important issues stories
pre-revolutionary Russia, including the most relevant and controversial
issues concerning modern times.
Departmental disunity, dispersion and
the inaccessibility of statistical materials also poses considerable
difficulties for researchers. Relatively few reference publications
complex content ("Statistical Yearbook of Russia" - publication
CSK Ministry of Internal Affairs, "Statistical Yearbook" - publication of the Council of Congresses
representatives of industry and trade) are incomplete and, moreover, in our time all
are becoming more rarities. Reprints of pre-revolutionary reference books in
Soviet times practically did not exist.
The purpose of this publication is to bring together
statistical and reference materials characterizing the most important aspects
life of Russian society on the eve of the First World War and thus give
an opportunity for readers interested in the Russian history of this period to
get an idea of the level of socio-economic, political
and cultural development of the country, as well as, if possible, the dynamics of this
development at the beginning of the 20th century. For this purpose, pre-revolutionary
reference publications, materials from various departments and public organizations,
both published and stored in archives, as well as press, regulatory
acts and some studies. In introductory reviews to sections and in notes to
The tables contain source characteristics of published materials. Some indicators are taken from sources in unchanged form, some
calculated by the compilers of the collection.
In an effort to avoid imposing one's conceptual ideas on readers
representations, compilers as analytical materials, giving, as it were,
key to interpreting statistical tables, used documents
government agencies (for example, state control, department
police) and public organizations (Council of Congresses of Industry Representatives
and trade). In cases where sources allowed,
comparison of indicators for Russia with corresponding data for other
countries or group of countries.
The directory consists of two parts. The first presents materials
mainly devoted to demographic and socio-economic issues; in
the second - to the socio-political and cultural spheres of life of Russian society
on the eve of the First World War.
The compilers do not claim to exhaustively cover all aspects
life in Russia at this time and will be grateful to specialists for criticizing omissions
and for possible additions that could be used in subsequent
publication of a reference book, if it turns out to be useful and attracts attention
readers.
I.TERRITORY AND POPULATION OF RUSSIA
By the eve of the First World War, the length of the Russian Empire from
north to south was 4383.2 versts (4675.9 km) and from east to west - 10,060
versts (10,732.3 km). The total length of land and sea borders was measured at 64
909.5 versts (69,245 km), of which the former accounted for 18,639.5 versts
(19,941.5 km), the share of oceans and external seas is about 46,270 versts (49,360.4
km). These data, as well as figures for the total area of the country, calculated from topographic
maps back in the late 80s of the 19th century by Major General of the Main Staff I.A.
Strelbitsky (See: Strelbitsky I.A., Calculus of surfaces and the Russian Empire
in its general composition during the reign of Emperor Alexander III and adjacent to Russia
Asian states. St. Petersburg, 1889. P.2-3), with some further clarifications
(See: Anniversary collection of the Central Statistical Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. St. Petersburg, 1913.
Sec. II. P.5) were used in all pre-revolutionary publications. Augmented
materials from the Central Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, they give a fairly complete picture of the territory,
administrative division, location of cities and towns of the Russian
empires.
Table 1 Space, administrative division and location
settlements of the Russian Empire on January 1, 1914
| Provinces, regions, districts | Territory (without significant internal waters) in thousand square meters. verst | Number of cities | Number of posads | Number of other settlements | Number of rural societies |
| European Russia | |||||
| Total of 51 lips. | 4250574,8 | 63851 | 51 | 511599 | 121837 |
| : | |||||
| Total for the Empire | 19155587,7 | 931 | 54 | 599281 | 169348 |
| Without Finland | 18869545,9 | 893 | 54 | 589293 | 169348 |
Source: Statistical Yearbook of Russia. 1914 Edition
CSK Ministry of Internal Affairs. Pg., 1915. Department 1. P. 1-25.
Administratively, the Russian Empire was divided into
99 large parts - 78 provinces, 21 regions and 2 independent districts.
The provinces and regions were divided into 777 counties and districts (in Finland
parishes - 51). Counties and parishes, in turn, were divided into camps, departments and
plots - 2523 (and 274 leismanships in Finland).
Along with this, there were governorships, special administrative
divisions - general governorships, in large cities - city governments.
Viceroyalty: Caucasian (provinces, regions, districts: Baku,
Batumi, Dagestan, Elisavetpol, Kars, Kuban, Kutaisi,
Terek, Tiflis, Black Sea, Erivan; Zagatala and Sukhumi districts
and Baku city administration).
At the time under review, only one general
population census (January 28, 1897), which most adequately reflected
the number and composition of the inhabitants of the empire.
: As a result, CSK’s data was slightly overestimated
population size, and this circumstance should be kept in mind when
use of these materials (See: Kabuzan V.M. On the reliability of population records
Russia (1858 - 1917) // Source study of Russian history. 1981 M.,
1982. P. 112, 113, 116; Sifman R.I. Dynamics of the population of Russia for
1897 -1914 // Marriage, fertility, mortality in Russia and the USSR. M., 1977.
P.62-82).
Table 2 The permanent population of the Russian Empire by
according to the Central Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in 1897 and 1909-1914. (as of January, thousand people).
| Regions | 1897 | 1909 | 1910 | 1911 | 1912 | 1913 | 1914 |
| European Russia | 94244,1 | 116505,5 | 118690,6 | 120558,0 | 122550,7 | 125683,8 | 128864,3 |
| Poland | 9456,1 | 11671,8 | 12129,2 | 12467,3 | 12776,1 | 11960,5* | 12247,6* |
| Caucasus | 9354,8 | 11392,4 | 11735,1 | 12037,2 | 12288,1 | 12512,8, | 12921,7 |
| Siberia | 5784,4 | 7878,5 | 8220,1 | 8719,2 | 9577,9 | 9788,4 | 10000,7 |
| middle Asia | 7747,2 | 9631,3 | 9973,4 | 10107,3 | 10727,0 | 10957,4 | 11103,5 |
| Finland | 2555,5 | 3015,7 | 3030,4 | 3084,4 | 3140,1 | 3196,7 | 3241,0 |
| Total by empires | 129142,1 | 160095,2 | 163778,8 | 167003,4 | 171059,9 | 174009,6 | 178378,8 |
| Without Finland | 126586,6 | 157079,5 | 160748,4 | 163919,0 | 167919,8 | 170902,9 | 175137,8 |
Significant overestimation of population
According to adjusted calculations by the Office of the Chief Medical Officer
inspector of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, population of Russia (without Finland) at the middle of the year
was: 1909 - 156.0 million, 1910 - 158.3 million, 1911 - 160.8 million, 1912
-164.0 million, 1913 - 166.7 million people. (Ni: Sifman
R.I. Uka z. Op. P. 66).
According to estimates of the Office of the Chief Medical Officer
inspector of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which were based on data on fertility and
mortality, population of Russia (without Finland) as of January 1, 1914
was 174074.9 thousand people, i.e. by about
1.1 million people are less than the data of the Central Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. But the Department also considered this figure
overpriced. The compilers of the Department's "Report" for 1913 noted that
"total population according to local statistical committees
is exaggerated, exceeding the sum of the population figures from the 1897 census and
figures of natural increase over the past period." According to the calculation
compilers, the population of Russia (without Finland) in mid-1913.
amounted to 166,650 thousand people. (See: Report on the state of public health and medical
aid in Russia in 1913. Pg., 1915. S. 1, 66-67, 98-99).
Table 2a Calculation of the population of Russia (without Finland) for
1897-1914
| Years | Natural growth (adjusted thousand people) | External migration thousand people | Number population at the beginning of the year, million | Number average annual population million | Natural increase per 100 people average annual population, million |
| 1897 | 2075,7 | -6,9 | 125,6 | 126,7 | 1,79 |
| 1898 | 2010,2 | -15,1 | 127,7 | 128,7 | 1,56 |
| 1899 | 2305,7 | -42,8 | 129,7 | 130,8 | 1,76 |
| 1900 | 2375,2 | -66,7 | 131,9 | 133,1 | 1,78 |
| 1901 | 2184,8 | -19,6 | 134,2 | 135,3 | 1,61 |
| 1902 | 2412,4 | -13,7 | 136,4 | 137,6 | 1,75 |
| 1903 | 2518,0 | -87,2 | 138,8 | 140,0 | 1,80 |
| 1904 | 2582,7 | -70,7 | 141,2 | 142,5 | 1,81 |
| 1905 | 1980,6 | -228,3 | 143,7 | 144,6 | 1,37 |
| 1906 | 2502,5 | -147,4 | 145,5 | 146,7 | 1,71 |
| 1907 | 2769,8 | -139,1 | 147,8 | 149,2 | 1,86 |
| 1908 | 2520,4 | -46,5 | 150,5 | 151,8 | 1,66 |
| 1909 | 2375,6 | -10,8 | 153,0 | 154,2 | 1,54 |
| 1910 | 2266,0 | -105,8 | 155,3 | 153,4 | 1,44 |
| 1911 | 2779,1 | -56,0 | 157,5 | 158,9 | 1,75 |
| 1912 | 2823,9 | -64,8 | 160,2 | 161,6 | 1,75 |
| 1913 | 2754,5 | +25,1 | 163,7 | 164,4 | 1,68 |
| 1914 | 165,7 |
