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. Agricultural production was only two-thirds of pre-war levels. 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 Russian society Red Cross and 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, there is a need 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:
- The 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 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 the railway, then they were put on trains and taken 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, organized in 1916, special unit chemical troops of the US Armed Forces.

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 demographic losses Russia amounted to almost 13 million people, from which we must subtract emigrants (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, the losses of the Russian army amounted to 68,994 generals and officers, 5,243,799 soldiers. This includes the killed, wounded and missing.” Beskrovny L.G. The Russian Army and Navy 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, total amount Russia's human losses should amount to 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.

"Speaking of losses 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, we reconstruct time series population of the country for 1917-1926. At the same time, data on the natural and mechanical movement of the population for the indicated years contained in other sources and in the literature is recorded and taken into account in the computer memory. 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, “over 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.

The historian M. Bernshtam, in his work “Parties in the Civil War,” tried to compile total balance losses of the population of Russia during the war years of 1917-1920: “According to the special directory of the Central Statistical Office, the number of population on the territory of the USSR after 1917, excluding the population of the territories that separated from Russia and were 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. The total number of killed and died, in his opinion, is 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: “In Eastern Siberia Horrible murders were committed, 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 to be burned, and “the adult male population is to be 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 person 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 there is no gypsy Yashka in the book, there is Chinese Yu-yu, and in the film, shot 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 there were 80 thousand, and in different parts about 100 more, there were Uyghur, 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 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 protests in Nizhny Novgorod region The most organized and large-scale uprising was 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 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, nor in rather than showing differences with its leaders. During the period of the creative period, they naturally had to diverge from our theory and practice."

Indeed, the peasants disagreed with the Bolsheviks: instead of respectfully giving them all the grain they had 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 in the territory Western Siberia, liberated from Kolchak’s troops, a bloody 100,000-strong peasant revolt against the Bolsheviks blazed.
“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.
That same year, peasant uprisings against the Bolsheviks flared 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!

DYNAMICS OF THE POPULATION OF RUSSIA for 1897-1914.

R.I. Sifman

I. EXISTING CALCULATORS OF THE POPULATION OF RUSSIA for 1897-1914.

The need for estimates of the population of Russia after the first general census of 1897 is caused by the obvious unreliability of the corresponding data from official pre-revolutionary statistics. This issue was repeatedly addressed by both individual authors before the revolution and Soviet researchers.

Data from the Central Statistical Committee (CSC). After the 1897 census, the CSK regularly published in its yearbooks data on the population both for Russia as a whole and for administrative divisions (provinces, districts). However, even with the most superficial critical examination of these data, they turn out to be so unconvincing that the possibility of their use has been questioned by all authors who have touched on this issue. If we carry out the simplest control of the data published by the Central Scientific Research Center, i.e., compare the difference between the population at the beginning and end of the year with the excess of the number of births over number of deaths, then it turns out that the overall population growth both for the territory of the state as a whole and for European Russia over a number of years exceeds natural growth by hundreds of thousands, and sometimes millions, although it is obvious that this could not be, since the balance of external migration of Russia in general, very insignificant compared to natural growth was negative, and there was an outflow of population from European Russia to the Asian provinces.

It is known that summary data on the population of the Russian Empire as a whole and European Russia were obtained by the CSK by summing up data from local calculations of provincial statistical committees. What guided these local calculations remains unknown.

Judging by the fact that the CSK data for individual provinces diverges from the figures published by the corresponding provincial statistical committees, it can be assumed that the information presented by the latter was subject to processing at the CSK. But it remains unclear why the CSK did not carry out the generally accepted control of local calculations, that is, they did not compare them in total with the balance of natural growth and migration.

The error in the calculations of the Central Committee was, as indicated by a number of authors, mainly the result of unreliable data on the mechanical movement of the population. In the notes to information about the population in the CSK yearbooks since 1909, an instruction appeared to include mechanical movement in the calculation “where there was any data on this issue.” Previously, it was noted that “mechanical motion was not taken into account due to lack of data.” In fact, mechanical growth apparently began to be included in calculations earlier, since already from 1903 the total population growth exceeded natural growth.

Source of overvaluation mechanical gain There was an undercount of those leaving the population, which had several reasons:

Table 1. Population growth of the Russian Empire (without Finland) for 1905-1913, thousand.

Years	Urban population			Rural population			Whole population
		Natural growth		Total growth according to CSK calculations	Natural growth	Difference between total and natural growth (gr.1-gr.2)	Total growth according to CSK calculations	Natural growth	Difference between total and natural growth (gr.1-gr.2)

Sources: "Statistical yearbooks of Russia" for the corresponding years and "Reports of the Office of the Chief Medical Inspector".

The data on population dynamics in Moscow are very indicative in this regard. As a result of ignoring mechanical growth in the first years after the 1897 census and downplaying it in subsequent years (until 1908), the growth of the population of Moscow, according to the calculations of the Central Committee, lagged significantly behind reality. This was apparently discovered when obtaining data from a brief census of the population of Moscow in 1907. Probably as a result of the use of the latter in the CSK data, a huge jump in the population of Moscow for 1908 appears, expressed as 318 thousand people.

From 1909 to 1912 we see again a slight increase of 21 - 30 thousand people per year, and then a new jump in 1913 of 200 thousand, which is probably the result of using the 1912 census. Such jumps were, of course, reflected in the population movement throughout the country as a whole.

As for the original calculation figure - the population size for 1897 for the Russian Empire as a whole (126,368 thousand excluding Finland) - it is difficult to guess where it came from. It is less than the permanent population according to the 1897 census (126,587 thousand), but more numbers current population (125,640 thousand).

A.A. Chuprov managed to reveal the origin of this figure. It represents the resident population according to the first edition of the provisional census results obtained from the local census rolls. A.A. Chuprov notes that, apparently, the CSK itself subsequently forgot where this figure was taken from.

Other calculations. The CSC's estimates after the 1897 census were subject to criticism already during the period of their publication. Thus, the Office of the Chief Medical Inspector of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (hereinafter UGVI) systematically cited in its reports, in parallel with the data of the Central Medical Center, its own data on the population, calculated on the basis of natural increase. According to the reports of the UGVI, as of mid-1913, the population of the empire as a whole (without Finland) was 6.3 million less than according to the CSK data (see Table 2).

Table 2. Population of the Russian Empire (without Finland) at the middle of the year according to the CSK data and the “Reports” of the UGVI. million people

Years	CSK data	UGVI data

In our post-revolutionary publications there are a number of revision options for the official calculations of the population of Russia before the First World War (works by V.A. Zaitsev, E.Z. Volkov, data from the USSR Central Statistical Office. They all agree that the Central Statistics Committee figures are exaggerated, but give different estimates of the degree this exaggeration.Criticism of the population information published by the CSK is given in A.G. Rashin's major study on the movement of the population of Russia over 100 years.

II. CALCULATION OF THE POPULATION OF RUSSIA FOR 1897-1914. ACCORDING TO DATA ON NATURAL AND MECHANICAL MOTION

Calculation method. Possibilities of obtaining reliable weather data on the population of Russia for 1897 - 1914. Due to the incompleteness of current records, population movements are quite limited. Nevertheless, a detailed analysis of the sources of vital statistics records for individual parts of the country and migration from Russia and back (the results of this analysis are presented below) led us to the conclusion that despite the significant defects in the current population records data, they still allow, subject to some amendments and additional calculations, make an approximate calculation of the dynamics of the Russian population after the 1897 census by balancing the balance between natural and mechanical growth.

Our task was complicated by the fact that we did not have the opportunity to compare the results of our calculations with the data of the subsequent census. Some authors (for example, E.Z. Volkov) used the agricultural censuses of 1916 and 1917 for this purpose. .

We refused, however, to use these censuses as the final control points of our calculations. Census of 1897 and censuses of 1916 and 1917 taken into account various categories population and covered different territories. To bring the results of these censuses into a comparable form would require so many corrections and recalculations that the inaccuracies associated with these recalculations could be greater possible error our calculations.

The question arises: what population figure should be taken as the starting point for calculations?

The current population according to the 1897 census, as is known, is almost 1 million less than the permanent population. In reality, such a large excess obviously could not have happened, since the difference between both categories of the population in general could only have arisen due to a small number of people living abroad.
The editors of census publications explain this difference, firstly, by the confusion during the census of the concepts of permanent and assigned population, due to which persons living permanently in one area, but assigned to another, were registered twice, and secondly, by the untimely exclusion of the deceased or those who have finally moved out at their place of registration.

The same opinion regarding the reasons for the discrepancy between the figures of the current and permanent population according to the 1897 census was shared by S. A. Novoselsky. Considering these explanations to be quite plausible, we will base our calculations on the current population according to the 1897 census.

Calculation of natural population growth in Russia

general characteristics completeness of registration. The natural movement of the population in tsarist Russia was established according to the records of the clergy, which for the bulk of the population represented a registration of rituals performed at births and deaths.

For people of the Orthodox faith (69.4% of the total population of the empire in 1897), the reliability of data on births and deaths obtained on the basis of church registration does not raise any particular doubts. Rituals at birth and death were so deeply rooted in consciousness and the entire way of life that it was almost impossible to bypass them. Only some cases of death shortly after birth before the baptism ceremony could be excluded from registration. True, in provinces with a sparse population, where parishes were very extended and services were performed by visiting priests (northern provinces, Siberia), children were baptized late, and therefore sometimes not only those who died a few days or weeks after birth remained unbaptized, but also those who died more late age.

Primary reports were compiled by the clergy by extracting from metric records. This work was usually entrusted to lower spiritual personnel (psalm-readers, etc.). A., given the low cultural level of the latter, the primary parish reports, the compilation of which was a relatively complex statistical operation, naturally suffered from numerous errors. It must be assumed that if in individual provinces, as a result of these development errors, rather large deviations from the truth could result, then in the materials about births and deaths for the country as a whole, these errors could not lead to any significant distortions.

The registration of vital statistics among Catholics and Protestants was in approximately the same state as among the Orthodox. In those provinces where persons of these faiths were represented in small numbers and were therefore unable to form independent parishes, cases of late registration and passes were, as in provinces with a sparse Orthodox population, a fairly common phenomenon. However, here too these gaps could not have a significant impact on natural growth, since they mainly affected both births and deaths. The total number of persons with relatively reliable registration of natural increase (Orthodox, Protestants, Catholics) amounted to 81.4% of the total population of the Russian Empire (according to the 1897 census).

The situation was worse with respect to the number of schismatics and non-Christian religions.

Clergy not belonging to the dominant religion were naturally not in such contact with government agencies as the Orthodox clergy. It did not consider itself, to the same extent as the latter, obligated to fulfill the demands placed on it authorities, and on the other hand, it did not enjoy the trust of these bodies. As a result, the registration of births and deaths was often entrusted not to clergy, but to special government trustees. For example, among Jews, registration was carried out not by the so-called spiritual rabbi performing the rituals, but by a “official” rabbi, specially authorized by the government to maintain metric records.

Sectarian priests were not at all recognized by the government, and the registration of vital statistics among sectarians was entrusted to the police or transferred to them for direct control.

The registration of births and deaths among these population groups, since it was not carried out by the persons performing the rituals, was obviously not, as among the Orthodox, guaranteed by the obligatory nature of these rituals. The population belonging to such nationalities and groups, not expecting anything good from any contact with government agencies, avoided registration in every possible way.

The remark of the Warsaw Statistical Committee that Jews avoid any kind of registration and try, as far as possible, to be born, live and die outside it, can be extended to other non-Christian groups and to schismatics.

When calculating the value of natural population growth for the empire, we made adjustments for inaccurate registration in those territories where groups for which there is reason to assume the possibility of underestimation of natural growth are settled in significant numbers. At the same time, we abandoned amendments for schismatics due to the lack of materials for such amendments, and also taking into account that the latter constituted only a very insignificant amount in the total population (1.75% in 1897).

It is known that in the collections of the CSK information about natural movement population were published only for 50 provinces of European Russia, where in 1897 only 74.3% of the empire’s population lived. It does not follow from this, however, that the data for the remaining 25.7% of the population were of such poor quality that they cannot be used.

Materials on the Asian part of Russia were not included in the publications of the CSK due to the fact that they provided summaries by age, months of the year and other characteristics; for the Asian provinces, with the exception of some parts of Siberia, the development of such detailed information was not established.

As for the reliability of recording the total number of births and deaths, for most Siberian provinces it raises no more doubts than for a number of provinces in European Russia. The situation with the reliability of registration was worse in Central Asia and the Caucasus.

An analysis of existing materials has shown that, as a supplement to the data published in the collections of the Central Social Sciences Committee, it is possible to use statistical annexes to the “most important reports” of governors and reports on the state of public health of the UGVI, covering the population of the entire state.

Natural increase population of European Russia. Orthodox, Catholics and Lutherans - a population that has a relatively reliable registration of natural movement - accounted for about 90% of the total population of the European part of Russia, which already serves as a guarantee of the relative good quality of data on natural growth for this main part of the Russian Empire.

There are indications in the literature that the registration of the natural movement of the Jewish population of European Russia is incomplete, especially the under-registration of female births. In general, in European Russia, per 100 girls born among the Jewish population for the period 1897-1910. There were 126-133 boys, while for the Orthodox population the births of boys are 104-105% in relation to the births of girls.

It must, however, be taken into account that among Jews the registration of male deaths was carried out better than that of female deaths.

Correction for under-registration of female births and deaths led us to a general adjustment for the natural increase of Jews of 15%. This amendment, which should be considered minimal, since in relation to males among Jews there was also some underestimation of natural growth, was made for all years from 1897 to 1914.

Natural population growth in Siberia. The bulk of the population of Siberia (85.8%) were Orthodox. Among the Orthodox population of Siberia one could expect, as already indicated, some undercounting of both births and deaths, caused by the large territory of parishes in these places. However, it is hardly possible to assume any significant underestimation of natural growth here.

Registration of the so-called foreign population among national minorities was poorly done, or rather almost not done at all. But this underestimation cannot have any significant significance for our calculations. A number of special studies on the small nationalities of Siberia have established that under the conditions of Tsarist Russia they either had a very slight increase, or did not have it at all, or even died out. The lack of information on these nationalities cannot therefore affect the data on the natural population growth of Siberia, in the sense of underestimating it, which we should be especially wary of from the point of view of the correctness of our calculations.

Overall natural increase rates for Siberia as a whole were higher than for European Russia, and remained at approximately the same level for the entire period 1897-1913 (see Table 3). The latter, to some extent, indicates that the registration of the natural movement of the population of Siberia reached by the beginning of the 20th century. already quite full.

Based on the above, we accepted the natural increase in the population of Siberia without any corrections, using the data of local statistical bodies as they were published in statistical annexes to the governor’s reports, and for individual years we used data published in the collections of the UGVI (with amendments for account of the difference between preliminary and final data). The indicators of natural population growth in Siberia derived in this way for the entire 17-year period only slightly exceeded the indicators given in the reports of the UGVI. Taking this into account, when calculating natural growth for other parts of the state, in a number of cases we also used the latter.

Table 3. Vital rates of the population of Siberia for 1897-1913, %

Years	Odds
	fertility	mortality	natural increase

Natural population growth of the Vistula provinces. The calculation of natural growth for 10 Polish provinces (Privislinsky region) is complicated by the underestimation of the birth and death rates of the Jewish population, which made up 14% of the total population of the region.

Just as in European Russia, records of births and deaths were made in relation to the Jewish population not by those who performed the rituals, which led to an underestimation of the phenomena of the natural movement of the Jewish population, and to correct these indicators it is necessary, just as in European Russia , accept an amendment of 15%.

Natural population growth in Central Asia and the Caucasus. The greatest difficulties arise in calculating the natural population growth of Central Asia. All our information about the state and movement of the population of Central Asia before the revolution is extremely inadequate. Neither the census nor the current registration of population movements provides any reliable figures here.

There is official recognition of the poor quality of pre-revolutionary data on population movements in Central Asia. A commission chaired by Count Palen, which examined the activities of the regional administration of the Turkestan Governor-General, gives the following description of the work of statistical committees in the field of population registration: “Information on population movements, the number of marriages, births and deaths, its distribution by nationality and religion, collected annually through the district administration, are obviously incorrect, since the natives do not keep any metric records, and the duties assigned to the volost administrators for maintaining household lists showing income and population decline are usually not fulfilled.In addition, the forms of tables and statements developed by the committee are so complex that that filling them out correctly is hardly possible for illiterate and unintelligent clerks with bailiffs and volost administrators, not to mention the natives officials, quite often they do not understand the Russian language. Under such conditions, the creators of almost all collected statistical data are the clerks at the local police officers, who, at best, draw the required information from available data for previous years, and at worst, fill out the tables and statements they send with fantastic figures."

This characteristic can also be attributed to the activities of the Syrdarya Statistical Committee. The “Audit Report” also evaluates the data of the statistical committees of some other regions of Central Asia.

In Central Asia, the accounting for the Syrdarya and Samarkand regions was apparently especially bad. The birth rate was based on registration data for 1897 - 1901. in the Samarkand region 6 per 1000 population per year, in the Syrdarya region - 13.1, the corresponding mortality rates are 6.4 and 7.5.

By excluding these two regions, for the remaining 7 we obtain the dynamics of natural population movement, revealing a certain increase in the fertility, mortality and natural increase rates in the last pre-war years, i.e. the usual picture of changes in coefficients with improving registration. Therefore, we calculated the natural population growth in Central Asia as a whole based on the coefficients for these 7 regions for the last years of the period 1897 - 1913.

This technique should be considered rather crude, since it remains unclear whether the registration in the last years of the period we are studying has improved so much that it is possible to recognize the coefficients for these years as corresponding to reality. Birth and death rates were probably still underestimated as a result of under-registration. However, comparing them with data for the European part of Russia and analyzing the age structure of the population according to the 1897 census leads us to the conclusion that if the coefficients for the last years of the period we are studying deviate from the truth, then for these years the error in natural growth rates cannot be very big.

The average annual rate of natural population growth in Central Asia was for 1909 - 1913. 14 per 1000 population, the coefficient for European Russia for the same period is about 16 (according to CSK). In any case, the lack of additional data does not allow any other clarifications to be made into this calculation.

Around the Caucasus, with the exception of two regions with a predominant Russian population (Kuban and Stavropol) with a total population of 2.8 million people out of 9.3 million total population (according to the 1897 census), the state of vital registration was approximately the same, as well as in Central Asia. Without dwelling here in detail on the results of our data analysis, we will only note that here too we came to the conclusion that the only possible way correction of these data is the calculation of natural increase for the entire period of time based on the coefficients calculated for recent years. We accepted the information for the Kuban and Stavropol regions without amendments according to the reports of the UGVI.

Natural population growth in Russia as a whole. The results of our calculations of natural population growth for individual parts of the country are summarized in table. 4.

Table 4. Natural population growth in Russia for the period 1897-1913. (as amended), thousand

Years	European Russia	Privislenskie provinces	Caucasus	Siberia	middle Asia	Total
Total for 1897-1913

In addition to natural growth, external migration had some influence on the dynamics of Russia’s population, which we now turn to consider.

III. EXTERNAL MIGRATION FOR 1897 - 1913

Emigration in Tsarist Russia was not regulated by law and remained a semi-legal phenomenon until the revolution, which is why migration statistics in Russia were almost absent.

Instead of migration statistics, there were statistics of exit and entry across the borders of the Russian Empire according to customs registration data. The latter covered all cases of crossing the border with documents in hand. Since all passengers crossing the border in one direction or another, both by sea and by land, were subject to mandatory registration, legal migration was fully taken into account by this source; Naturally, cases of illegal border crossings were not taken into account.

Those who crossed the border, bypassing customs, were people who did not have the means to obtain documents, those hiding from military service, and other similar categories of the population. The possibilities of such a circumvention of the legal order when crossing the border with Germany were outlined in a memo from the Ministry of Trade and Industry: “...Despite the existence in Germany of a government order, according to which Russian citizens who do not have a passport and cannot as proof of their property security, present the amount of 400 marks... Russian emigrants who crossed the border secretly and do not have foreign passports, if they present other emigrant tickets from the Hamburg or Bremen shipping company, are freely allowed by the gendarmerie police authorities into Germany. To circumvent the requirement of Russian law, a Russian emigrant only needs to place himself at the disposal of an agent of an emigration office cooperating with one or another of the above-mentioned shipping companies. Such an agent, who is well aware of where and when the vigilance of the Russian border authorities does not serve as an obstacle to secret border crossing , willingly takes on the task of organizing such a transition and offers its services to legitimize the emigrant before the authorities on the other side of the border."

To what extent were cases of illegal border crossings a frequent occurrence? Determining the possible number of these cases is apparently crucial for assessing the possibility of using customs data to characterize the size of emigration traffic between Russia and other countries. The best way to resolve this issue is to monitor data on departure of Russian citizens based on Russian materials by comparing them with settlement figures according to the statistics of immigration countries.

According to calculations given in the work of V.V. Osinsky, the total number of immigrants from Russia who settled in different countries, in 1901 - 1910 is 1656 thousand people. The excess of Russian citizens who arrived along the European and Asian borders over those who left during the same period is 1,574 thousand people. Thus, the difference over a decade is expressed as 82 thousand people, or 5%. This degree of accuracy is undoubtedly acceptable for our calculations.

To what has been said, it must be added that, apparently, some of the immigrants along the Asian border remained unaccounted for. Reviews of passenger traffic across external borders in the CSK Yearbooks note that many Chinese and Koreans illegally enter the empire, and their number cannot be determined even approximately. Some of them apparently settled in Russia, and to some extent this illegal immigration could compensate for illegal emigration. Thus, to determine the size of migration movement throughout the Russian Empire, it is quite acceptable to accept data on passenger movement across its borders.

The weather data below on the influx of Russians and the outflow of foreign nationals includes all registered cases of border crossings both with passports and with short-term documents (see Table 5). The latter were issued to border residents to facilitate crossing the border for a short time (the so-called “legitimation tickets”) and to peasants heading for agricultural work in Germany (“reserved seat passports”).

Table 5. Passenger traffic across the borders of Russia for the period 1897-1913, thousand.

Years	Russian subjects		foreign nationals		Net outflow of Russian subjects	Net outflow of foreign nationals	Balance (column 6 - column 7)
	arrived	dropped out	arrived	dropped out
Total for 1897-1913

Sources: "Statistical Yearbooks of Russia" and "Reviews of Foreign Trade" of the Department of Customs Duties of the Ministry of Trade and Industry for the corresponding years ("Review of Russian Foreign Trade along the European and Asian Borders").

The vast majority - about 9/10 of all movements across the border - occur in these short-term temporary moves, which are not important for the characteristics of migration movements. We had, however, to take these cases into account when calculating the balances of outflow and inflow of population, since due to the high cost of foreign passports, emigrants often used short-term documents. This is also indicated by the systematic excess of the number of departures over the number of arrivals according to short-term documents.

Since 1907, the Customs Department has included in its publications data on external passenger traffic also arrivals without residence permits, the number of which fluctuates from year to year between 0.72 and 1.55% of all arrivals. This category consists of persons who left without documents, who lost their documents, or who illegally left on short-term documents and who voluntarily appeared at Russian customs upon returning. But we did not include this category of migrants in the calculation, since it is impossible to single out from it those who were already counted once among those who arrived or departed.

IV. RESULTS OF CALCULATORS OF THE POPULATION OF RUSSIA FOR 1897 - 1914.

The general results of our calculations are summarized in table. 6.

Table 6. Calculation of the population of Russia (without Finland) for 1897 - 1914.

Years	Absolute data				Natural increase per 100 people of the average population
	Natural increase (corrected)	External migration	Population, million
	thousand people		for the beginning of the year	average annual

* Due to the fact that the result of the 1897 census refers to January 28, the growth for 1897 was taken not for the entire year, but only for 11 months.
** Current population according to the 1897 census,

The final figure for the population of the Russian Empire at the beginning of 1914, obtained by sequentially adding annual data on natural growth and movements across the border to the current population according to the 1897 census, is 165.7 million.

When assessing the reliability of this figure, it is necessary to take into account that, despite all the corrections made to the direct vital registration data, it is still possible that some underestimation of natural increase has been made. On the other hand, emigration was slightly underestimated due to undercounting of illegal border crossings. Both of these underestimations act in opposite directions, but it is difficult to say whether they completely compensate for each other.

Over a 17-year period of time - from the 1897 census to the beginning of 1914 - the population of Russia grew by 40.1 million people. The excess of births over deaths during this period was 41.2 million (annual average 2.4 million people).

Natural growth was thus a decisive factor in the formation of the population of Russia in the pre-revolutionary period. The balance of external migration had little effect on population dynamics and was negative.

Despite the low population, a large number of little-developed territories and exceptional natural resources, Russia was, as we know, a country of emigration. Poverty, economic backwardness, oppression of national minorities - all this contributed to the migration of people to other countries, primarily overseas. Over 17 years, Russia has lost over 1 million people as a result of external migration. The outflow of population was especially significant during the Russian-Japanese War and the reaction that followed the first revolution. Three years (1905-1907) accounted for almost half of the population loss over a 17-year period of time (515 thousand out of 1129 thousand), and 1905 accounted for 20% of these losses.

The dynamics of indicators calculated in relation to the population shows a decrease in population growth during the period under review. The average annual rate of natural growth over the five-year period (1897 - 1901) was 1.7%, for 1902 - 1906. - 1.68%o, 1907 - 1911 - 1.65%o. The natural population growth of Russia before the war was thus declining, although slowly, but quite consistently. The method of our calculations, unfortunately, does not make it possible to trace exactly what changes in fertility and mortality accounted for this growth dynamics.

1 - This study was carried out in its main part in the early 30s, but has not been previously published. The author recalls with gratitude O. A. Kvitkin and S. G. Strumilin, whose consultations she used in carrying out this work. [The article was first published in the book: Marriage, fertility and mortality in Russia and the USSR. Ed. A G. Vishnevsky. M., 1977, p. 62-82. The last lifetime publication of R.I. Sifman].
2 - In the CSK archive, stored in the Leningrad branch of the Historical Archive, it was not possible to find any instructions to local authorities on the issue of methods for calculating the population. We reviewed all the files of the CSK for 1897-1914. under the population statistics section and not even any mention of the existence of the instruction was found.
3 - See: Preface to the book by E. Z. Volkov “Population dynamics of the USSR over 80 years”. M., 1930
4 - See: Chuprov A.A. Regarding the “plan” for transforming the statistical part of the empire, proposed by the Central Statistical Committee. Statistical Bulletin. Book 1 and 2. 1916-17 Ed. Society named after A. I. Chuprov for development, social sciences. M., 1917, p. 91.
5 - Sources of data on the population of Moscow: Statistical Yearbook of Moscow and Moscow Province. Vol. 2. Statistical data for Moscow for 1914-25. M., 1927; Census of Moscow 1902. Part I. "Population". M., 1906; Calculation of the population of Moscow in February 1907. Vol. 1. M., 1907.
6 - See: Chuprov A.A. Decree. Works, p. 90.
7 - The Office of the Chief Medical Inspector received directly from local statistical committees throughout the empire, i.e. including Poland, the Caucasus, Siberia and Central Asia, preliminary data on the natural movement of the population, which he provided in his publications. - "Office of the Chief Inspector of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Report on the state of public health and the organization of medical care in Russia."
8 - Zaitsev V.K. On the question of the population of European Russia. - In the book: The influence of crop failures on the national economy of Russia. Part II. M., 1927.
9 - Volkov E.Z. Population dynamics of the USSR over 80 years.
10 - Rashin A.G. Population of Russia over 100 years. M., 1956, p. 20-24.
11 - See: Volkov E.Z. Decree. Works, p. 131 - 182.
12 - General summary for the Empire of the results of the development of data from the first general population census, carried out on January 28, 1897. St. Petersburg, 1905, part I, p. V.
13 - See: Novoselsky S.A. On the issue of reducing mortality and birth rates in Russia. - "Bulletin of public hygiene, forensic and practical medicine", 1914, No. 3.
14 - See: Statistical timebook of the Russian Empire. St. Petersburg, 1872, p. V; Bushen A. On the structure of sources of population statistics in Russia. St. Petersburg, 1864, p. 81.
Of the more recent studies containing an assessment of the reliability of registration of births and deaths in Russia, it should be noted: Novoselsky S.A. Review of the most important data on demography and sanitary statistics of Russia. - Calendar for doctors of all departments for 1916. Part II. Pg., 1916.
15 - See: Whipple J. Ch., Novoselsky S. A. Fundamentals of demographic and sanitary statistics, p. 279-280.
16 - See: Patkanov S.T. On the growth of the foreign population of Siberia. St. Petersburg, 1911.
17 - This was indicated in the “Proceedings of the Warsaw Statistical Committee”. Vol. VII, XII, XVI.
18 - Report on the audit of the Turkestan region, carried out by the Highest order by Senator Chamberlain Count K.K. Palen. St. Petersburg, 1910, p. 309-310.
19 - See: Pantyukhov, On the statistics of Caucasian pathology, Medical collection published by the Caucasian Medical Society, 1898, No. 61.
20 - Materials on the issue of streamlining the emigration movement from Russia. Ministry of Trade and Industry, St. Petersburg, 1906, p. 54-55.
21 - See, Obolensky (Osinsky) V.V. International and intercontinental migrations in pre-war Russia and the USSR. M., 1928, p. 17.
22 - See: Patkanov S. T. External passenger traffic between Russia and other states for the period of time 1897 - 1907. //Yearbook of Russia for 1909

The summer heat and political coolness provide an opportunity to step back a little from the bustle and look at our problems from some distance, from some perspective.

It is always interesting to somehow evaluate “Russia’s path” over the past 100 years. Usually such general assessments come down to emotional and empty chatter, with an eternal search for those to blame and preaching of previously known saving truths. But there is a way to avoid the temptation of such childish games. To do this, you need to turn not to emotions, but to FACTS AND FIGURES. Real data, not manipulated to fit a ready-made answer, gives reason not to “ring like a bell on a veche tower,” but to think...

Let's take one of the main, integral resources of any state - population. This is what the last 100 years of our country's development look like when you look at it from this angle.

In 1914, the population of the Russian Empire was, according to some estimates (data from our State Statistics Committee), 166 million people, according to others (Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Empire) - 178 million. The population of the Earth then was 1782 million people. That is, the Russian Empire included about 10% of Humanity. For comparison: the population of the United States at that time was about 100 million. The Russian Empire was the third largest country in the world - after China and India. As for the population of Russia within its current borders, on the eve of the First World War it was 90 million people. - more than half of the Empire’s inhabitants, 5% of the Earth’s population.

Now the Russian Federation has 143 million people. - gives a little more than 2% of the world's population, Russia is the 9th most populous country in the world. At the same time, if we imagine a country within the borders of that Russian Empire - that is, the USSR plus Finland and most of Poland - then its population would be 316 million people, approximately 4.5% of the world's population, tied for 3rd-4th place by number of residents from the USA.

Despite all the conventionality of such “calculations,” the question invariably arises: is this good or bad?

Public consciousness in our - and, I think, not only in our - country still lives according to the principle “more is better than less!” Hence all the gasps for the lost Big Country, imperial nostalgia, “the catastrophe of the collapse of the USSR.”

Meanwhile, for any pleasure you have to pay.

For example, in the Russian Empire in 1914, over 70% of the population were Orthodox (Russians - about 45%, Ukrainians, Belarusians), 11% were Muslims, about 15% were Catholics and Lutherans, 4% were Jews.

Today, almost 80% of the population of the Russian Federation are Russians (about 114 million out of 143 million) and a little more than 10% are Muslims. But within the Great Empire, Russians (there are about 130 million of them in the former USSR) would make up a little more than 40% of the population. But the share of Muslims, compared to the 1914 Empire, would have increased from 11 to 30% - about 90 million people. (the population of Central Asia has tripled in 100 years). Would such a Russian-Muslim Eurasia become a stable state or would it be fraught with collapse?

Perhaps the collapse of the USSR itself objectively became the payment for the SALVATION of Russia as a state of Russian culture (not to be confused with the racist slogan “Russia for Russians”). It would be difficult to maintain the dominance of Russian culture in the country for a long time, given that Russians make up no more than 40% of the country's population. (By the way, references to the USA are not very convincing - firstly, there are generally different traditions there, and secondly, “English culture” and the “Anglo-Saxon elite” do not dominate in the modern USA.)

What can be said about the “demographic hole” that, as is often said, became the 20th century for Russia with its wars and terror?

100 years ago the population of England was 45 million, France - 39 million, Germany - 65 million.

Now, respectively, England - 61 million, France - 64 million, Germany - 82 million. Growth from 60% (France) to 30% (Germany). The population of Russia within the unchanged borders of the Russian Federation has grown by 60%. Can this be considered a demographic catastrophe compared to other European countries?

These numbers, it seems to me, destroy our inflated (positively or negatively) self-esteem.

It turns out that any WILLED effort is insignificant in comparison with the inaudible demographic “ELEMENT”: the government is noisy, crackling, puffing up, heroically exterminating the people, and women are just giving birth. And the ship of the state floats with the flow, and it is not the current that obeys the ship’s engine.

Until the 1960-1970s, Russia maintained high, peasant-patriarchal birth rates. Only in 1960 more than half of the Russian population became city dwellers (in Europe this happened decades earlier, and in England even in the 19th century). Now only 25% of the Russian population lives in villages. Peasant civilization ended - birth rates gradually changed (by the way, in the villages too) - now they are 11.1 births per 1000 population. For comparison, in France - 12.4 per 1000 (partly due to Arabs), in England - 10.6, in Germany - 8.2. Accordingly, population growth began to decrease, and after 1991, thanks to a sharp increase in mortality in the conditions of social unrest, negative growth began. In terms of mortality rate - 16 deaths per 1000 people, Russia is between Nigeria and Chad. Mortality in old Europe: in France 8.6 per 1000 people, in England 10, and in Germany 11 people. by 1000.

As a result, Russia's population is declining, although not as dramatically as they say: from 1991 to 2010 - by 7 million, or less than 5%.

Of course, Russia's population growth of 60% in the 20th century was far from uniform. It wasn't just people who moved from village to city. Population densities have changed dramatically in different regions.

Thus, the number of residents of Siberia and the Far East tripled: from 10 million at the beginning of the twentieth century to approximately 30 million in beginning of XXI. You can say - “there was no happiness - misfortune helped.” This growth is an obvious “involuntary” result of forced relocation: exile during collectivization, evacuation during the war, terror with millions of prisoners, many of whom settled in a new place. Nevertheless, these lands remained sparsely populated: “vastness, vain without inhabitants” (Lomonosov). This especially applies to the Far East: the population density is about 1 person. per kilometer! If this were the case throughout the country, the population of Russia would be 17 million, and if in the Far East the density was the same as in the Central District (about 56 people per kilometer), then more than 350 million people would live there!

The greatest growth over this century, of course, occurred in Moscow. In 1914 - 1,763,000 people, in 2010 - about 11 million permanent residents alone, an increase of more than 6 times (and with temporary and unregistered Muscovites - almost 8 times). All this made Moscow the largest and most unbearable metropolis in Europe to live in... (By the way, the population of St. Petersburg has only slightly doubled over the years.)

But the staid, “Central Russian” Russia was downright depopulated. For example, in the Smolensk region, 2,166,000 people lived within its modern borders in 1926, now - 966,000. In the Kostroma province in 1914, the population was 1,800,000, now - 692,000. These are typical examples. One-story Russia, where the roots of Russian culture grow, has almost disappeared. And a largely different country arose in the same place...

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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 rural population in 1905, there were 39 heads of cattle, 57 sheep and goats, and 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 - important point, because if a family had at least five people (parents and three children), then on average there were 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 the diet of a resident of the Russian Empire, fishing and hunting should not be discounted, 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, in the non-black soil 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; secondary school teachers 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. From the bosses railways 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 figures.

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; they also supplied raw materials to the mother country, and when the First World War began, 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, comparison of per capita indicators of countries with different age structure 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 too important indicator, but it should be discussed separately, which we will do in subsequent articles.

At the time under review, only one general population census was carried out in Russia (January 28, 1897), which most adequately reflected the number and composition of the inhabitants of the empire. Usually, the Central Statistical Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs carried out population records, mainly by mechanically calculating data on fertility and mortality, presented by provincial statistical committees. These data, published in the Statistical Yearbook of Russia, fairly accurately reflected the natural growth of the population, but did not fully take into account migration processes - both internal (between different provinces, between city and countryside) and external (emigration and immigration). If the latter, given their relatively small scale, did not have any noticeable impact on the total population, then the costs 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 CSK data somewhat overestimated the population, and this circumstance should be kept in mind when using these materials (See: Kabuzan V.M. On the reliability of population records in Russia (1858 - 1917) // Source Study of Russian History. 1981 M ., 1982. P.112, 113, 116; Sifman R.I. Population dynamics in Russia for 1897 -1914 // Marriage, birth rate, mortality in Russia and the USSR. M., 1977. P.62-82) .

This reference book contains data from the Central Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, given that it was on them that official materials and calculations used in a number of tables were based. At the same time, other calculation materials and attempts to correct the statistical data of the CSK are also indicated.

Table 2. The permanent population of the Russian Empire according to the Central Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in 1897 and 1909-1914. (as of January, thousand people).

Regions
European Russia
Poland
Caucasus
Siberia
middle Asia
Finland
Total for the empire
Without Finland

* Data without the Kholm province, which was included in Russia in 1911.

Sources: General summary of the empire's development of data from the first general population census, carried out on January 28, 1897. St. Petersburg, 1905. T.1. P.6-7; Statistical Yearbook of Russia. 1909 St. Petersburg, 1910. Dept. I P.58-59; Same. 1910 St. Petersburg, 1911. Dept. I. P.35-59; Same. 1911 St. Petersburg, 1912. Dept. I. S.ZZ-57; Same. 1912 St. Petersburg, 1913. Ooa. I. S.ZZ-57; Same. 1913 St. Petersburg, 1914 Ooa. I. S.ZZ-57; Same. 1914 Pg., 1915. Dept. I. S.ZZ-57.

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. (Ni: Sifman R.I. Decree Z. Soch. P. 66).

Table 2a. Calculation of the population of Russia (without Finland) for 1897-1914.

	Natural increase (adjusted thousand people)	External migration thousand people	Population at the beginning of the year, million.	Average annual population, million.	Natural increase per 100 people. average annual population, million

Source: Sifman R.I. Dynamics of the population of Russia for 1897-1914 aa. //Marriage rate, birth rate, mortality in Russia and the USSR. M., 1977. P.80.

Table 3. Number, composition and density of the population of the Russian Empire on January 4, 4914 by province and region (thousand people)

Population in counties

Population in cities

Total population

Density per sq. a mile away

Provinces and regions

Villagers

European Russia

1. Arkhangelskaya

2. Astrakhan

3. Bessarabian

4. Vilenskaya

5. Vitebsk

6. Vladimirskaya

7. Vologda

8. Volynskaya

9. Voronezh

10. Vyatskaya

11. Grodno

12. Donskaya

13.Ekaterinoslavskaya

14. Kazanskaya

15. Kaluzhskaya

16. Kyiv

17. Kovenskaya

18. Kostromskaya

19. Kurlyandskaya

20. Kursk

21. Livlyandskaya

22. Minsk

23. Mogilevskaya

24. Moscow

25. Nizhny Novgorod

26. Novgorodskaya

27. Olonetskaya

28. Orenburgskaya

29. Orlovskaya

30. Penza

31. Perm

32. Petrogradskaya

33. Podolskaya

34. Poltavskaya

35. Pskovskaya

36. Ryazan

37. Samara

38. Saratovskaya

39. Simbirskaya

40. Smolenskaya

41. Tauride

42. Tambovskaya

43. Tverskaya

44. Tula

45. Ufa

46. ​​Kharkovskaya

47. Kherson

48. Kholmskaya

49. Chernigovskaya

50. Estonian

51. Yaroslavl

Total for 51 provinces

Vistula provinces

1. Varshavskaya

2. Kaliszka

3. Keletskaya

4. Lomzhinskaya

5. Lyublinskaya

6. Petrokovskaya

7. Plocka

8. Radomskaya

9. Suwalki

Total for the Vistula provinces

Caucasus

1. Baku

2. Batumi

3. Dagestan

4. Elisavetpolskaya.

5. Kars

6. Kubanskaya.

7. Kutaisi

8. Sukhumi district

9. Stavropol

10. Terskaya.

11. Tiflis

12. Zagatala district

13. Black Sea

14. Erivan.

Total for the Caucasus

Siberia

1. Amurskaya

2. Yeniseiskaya

3. Transbaikal

4. Irkutsk

5. Kamchatskaya.

6. Primorskaya

7. Sakhalinskaya

8. Tobolskaya

9. Tomsk

10. Yakutskaya

Total for Siberia

Middle Asia

1. Akmola

2. Transcaspian

3. Samarkand

4. Semipalatinsk

5. Semirechenskaya

6. Syr-Darya

7. Turgai

8. Ural

9. Fergana

Total for Central Asia

Finland (8 provinces)

Total for the Empire

Total for the Empire excluding Finland