An overpopulated Soviet Union

I've been doing some work on an alternate Soviet Union with higher populations, particularly, on how the country would be affected if it avoided the Russian Civil War, collectivization, the purges, and the Second World War... basically everything that could be counted as a form of democide (the murder of any person or people by a government, including genocide, politicide, and mass murder.) The results are quite astounding.

Heh, Rummel seems to count everything as death by goverment, even tripping on the pavement and breaking you neck would count since the evil gubbermint built it.:rolleyes:


According to Colin McEvedy's 1978 Atlas of World Population History, the Russian Civil War cost the Soviet Union 2 million soldier deaths and 14 million excess deaths suffered by the civilian population by starvation and disease. He also estimated that there was a birth deficit of 10 million during these years, which is still lower than Richard Pipe's estimate of a birth deficit of 14 million. Let's say that for whatever reason in this alternate USSR, there are no emigrants, earning us another 2 million. This total is 28 million. Obviously, this must be an alternate timeline where the Soviet Union is a stable, probably democratic capitalist country.

Eh? 10 million is the more conventional figure you also need to account for territorial loss too. (Which the USSR later regained)

The birth deficit would also extend to WW1 too, and counting people never born isnt reliable there’s just too many real life variables.

''Baby-booms'' after wars and other disasters can make up for short-fall to a degree.

According to Richard Pipes, the Communist Party's 'war against the family' decreased birth rates between 1926 and 1937, leading to a total birth deficit of 13 million. For those who are not aware of this policy, let me explain: policies made it very easy for people to get married and divorced, and abortion became very easy, thus decreasing the fertility rate of women in the USSR. There was also a propaganda campaign for people to abandon traditional family structures and let children be raised by the collective. I wish I could go more into the topic, but I don't have the book on me, but I did scribble down that number.

Pipes is *ahem* an ideologically driven historian so his estimates on that aren’t to be trusted, Urbaniztion tends to lead to lower birth-rates, and 'war against the family' was grossly exaggerated by propaganda on all sides, besides the Soviets went 360 degrees on that policy in later years.

Also should the USSR have forced people to stay in an unhappy marriage rather than letting people divorced and re-marry someone they more happy with?

Abortion became very easy for a few years then got banned by Stalin.:D

When you get into the entire death toll in the Soviet Union due to the Stalinist regime, you must enter a political debate. Leftist and rightist historians each argue for lower and higher numbers, respectively, in order to prove that communism is 'either the worst thing to ever happen to the human race' or 'horrible, but not that bad when put into perspective'. If we're trying to make the Soviet Union a more populous country, then we should go with the conservative historians, who aren't so conservative with their numbers. There's a lot that goes into determining how Stalinist policies killed off people: famines run amok due to collectivization and ensuing starvation, Red Terror and the purges, and diseases. However, the conservatives all generally point to a number that is around 51 million (the median of several estimates). I don't agree with this number... its probably closer to 20-30 mil in my book all things being counted, but I'll run with it for purposes of this excersize. This is throughout the period from 1924 to 1953

Anything above 10-20 million is ludicrous if you look at the USSR population during the 30’s (Stalin took a census then suppressed it). Between that and later
demographic data, the numbers are open to debate, but not anywhere near those higher numbers.

As for losses to World War Two, many historians point to a number of about 20 million Soviet deaths. There was also a loss of about 1.5 million in just birth deficits, but lets round this up to 2 mil. However, now we get into the sticky point about territory. What of the Baltic countries, or Kaliningrad, or Moldovia, or Polish territory to the Kaliningrad? If you want to go about different conquests, why not try to finagle Finland to the USSR, or even Poland or something else? I will, however, try to stick to just the population figures for the pre-WW2 USSR. Which means I have to stop here because I don't have any more time tonight, and because its getting a little hard to compute.

What I can do is crunch birth rate figures to 1941, in pre-1939 USSR's territories. It comes out to a whopping 262 million. I wish I could explain my entire methodology for arriving at this number, but it's quite extensive, so you'll have to trust me. But, no, I didn't do anything crazy of which validity is questionable... the calculations were very easy and I believe they are 99% accurate... as long as you don't believe in the estimation of 51 million dead by Stalin made by conservative historians.

Well with 262 mill you've added 100 mil to the USSR RL post-war 162 mill.
 
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