High Expectations
On 26 January 1934 Joseph Stalin reported to the 17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (b) as one of the main achievements "Growth of population from 160.5 millions in the end of 1930 to the 168 millions in the end of 1933". On 1 December 1935 Joseph Stalin made a speech, on the Meeting of Kolkhozniks with the Soviet and Party leaders:
| “ | Everybody says that the material situation of workers has dramatically improved, that life has become better and more fun. It is of course true. But this has led the population to breed much faster than in the old days. The birth rate is higher, the death rate is lower and the pure population growth is far stronger. It is of course good and we welcome it. Now every year we have a population growth of three million souls. It means that every year we grow as much as the whole of Finland. | ” |
Combining his reports, one could have expected to have a population of about 180 million in 1937.
Official statistics based on the registered birth and death rates implied that the 1937 census should show a population of 170-172 million. On 21 September 1935 Sovnarkom adopted a decision On the organization of registration of natural population changes (О постановке учета естественного движения населения) most probably authored by Stalin:
| “ | The organs of registration were often used by the class enemies who had sneaked in there (priests, kulaks, whites) and made their own counterrevolutionary saboteurs work to deliberately hide population growth by registering the same deaths multiple times. | ” |
In fact, as discussed by A. G. Volkov, the idea that a significant number of people received multiple death certificates for the same person is absurd. On the other hand, not registering deaths, especially those who died during the 1930s famines and prison inmates, was common. For example, during the Holodomor, starving peasants tried (despite the official ban) to escape to the cities where they could earn or beg for food. Many of them died in the streets. In 1933, the street-cleaning service of Kiev picked up 9,472 dead bodies. Only 3,991 of them were officially registered while 5481 were disposed of without formal registration according to the instructions of the prosecutor's office.
Read more about this topic: Soviet Census (1937)
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