Russian Empire´s population without World wars or communism

As in the title, what would be the population of the Russian Empire in its 1914 borders without any world wars and no communist takeover(or any revolution as violent)? In 1990 the Soviet Union population was 287 million, what would this one be instead?
 
I can't really speak for other parts of Russia without research, but from what I have read, in the period from 1940 to 1953 - counting emigration, deportations, Holocaust, frontline deaths, guerilla warfare deaths, World War II war crimes and Polish repatriation from the Vilnius region, among others - Lithuania suffered a loss of life of upwards to 1 million people, about a third of it's population in 1939. Excluding over 300 000 Soviet era colonists which likely wouldn't arrive, in this scenario the population of Lithuania would likely be around 5 million people in 1991.

Since the Baltics were literally in the way of both world wars, and had their own problems like deportations, their casualty ratio should be higher than most other Russian regions, though.
 
Firstly should ask how Russian Empire could survive. With 1900 POD it is quiet difficult. It not enough that there not be WW1 and even avoiding of that is quiet difficult if not impossible.

Population of Russian Empire on 1916 was over 180 millions so on 2016 with 1914 borders it could be over 300 millions.
 
I have studied demographic history and did some projections, below is an earlier post, and my findings were between 355 and 455 million as of last year were the projections that I cam up with. The details are below.

I did some calculations based on a Russia without the population shocks of the wars, Stalinism or Communism. Keep in mind that before World War I, Russia had a far higher birthrate than countries in the west, its demographic trends were most comparable to those of Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania, below is a comparison of births per 1,000 in 1914.

1914
Russia 44
Italy 32.4
Austria 31.3
Germany 28.3
Australia 27.5
USA 27.2
Denmark 25.6
Norway 25.4
UK 24.3
Belgium 22.9
France 19.0

A better comparison is the 1906-1910 average

Russia 45.4
Bulgaria 42.1
Romania 40.3
Hungary 36.7
Austria 33.6
Spain 33.6
Italy 32.4
Germany 31.7
Finland 31.0
Netherlands 29.6
Denmark 28.2
Netherlands 29.6
Scotland 27.6
Australia 26.7
New Zealand 26.6
Norway 26.3
England & Wales 26.2
Switzerland 26.0
Belgium 24.7
Ireland 23.4
France 19.9

Russia did have a higher mortality rate, however its rate of annual average increase was still higher than countries with net immigration (New Zealand, Australia, Germany).

NATURAL INCREASE PER YEAR RATE 1906-1910
Bulgaria 1.8%
New Zealand 1.7%
Russia 1.7%
Australia 1.6%
Denmark 1.5%
Netherlands 1.5%
Finland 1.4%
Germany 1.4%
Romania 1.4%
Serbia 1.4%
Norway 1.3%
England & Wales 1.2%
Hungary 1.2%
Scotland 1.2%
Austria 1.1%
Italy 1.1%
Sweden 1.1%
Switzerland 1.0%
Belgium 0.9%
Spain 0.9%
Ireland 0.6%
France 0.1%

According to the 1897 census the Russian Empire had 125.6 million people, by 1916 that figure had risen to 181.5 million.

If Russia's population had continued growing at a normal pace, following the trajectory of the Balkans, the population would have reached 255 million by 1950 and 300 million by 1975. That is based on the natural growth rates found in Poland and the Balkans at the time. If the country undergoes a rapid decline in birthrates just as most of Europe beginning in the the late 1960s, growth would slow down and eventually be negative by 2015, however this would only begin within the last few years. The population would still be 355 million in 2015, making it larger than the USA.

On the other hand, we have to consider that before the war, Russia had a very high total fertility rate, that was among the highest in Europe. It also had high levels of illiteracy and infant mortality (The Grand Duchy of Finland was the exception to this). However, its rates were not dissimilar to those of Serbia, Bulgaria or Romania at the time. The Soviet Union caused a great social upheaval with and if Russia without the wars remains religious and more socially conservative for longer it is possible to have a population of 455 million by 2014.

Before 1914, overseas emigration from was increasing, but nearly half of this emigration was Jewish. Due to the pogroms, Jews increasingly opted to quit the country, overwhelmingly choosing New York City as their destination. However, smaller numbers moved to other US Cities, Argentina, Canada, the UK, France, Germany. Very small numbers to Palestine in Ottoman Turkey too. Despite this large migratory movement, the birthrate of the Jews in the Russian Empire was so high that their population rose from 5.2 million in 1897 to around 6.9 million in 1913. Not surprising in the majority were Orthodox Jews, living in insular communities of the Pale Settlement. The Soviet Union secularized and assimilated the Jewish community to a large extent causing them to adopt Russian as their language rather than Yiddish and causing birthrates to decline.

The second largest group emigrating from the Russian Empire were the Poles. Poles accounted for just over 1/4th of all emigration from Russian Empire during the pre-war period. They emigrated primarily to the USA, and in smaller numbers to Canada, South America and Eastern Germany (mostly as seasonal farm workers to the latter). Lithuanians were around 10% of all emigrants, Finns constituted another 10%, and ethnic Germans 5% of all emigrants from the Empire. The ethnic Germans like Jews were overwhelmingly permanent emigrants who left the country in family groups, whereas around the majority Poles, Lithuanians and Finns were single males, and nearly 1/3rd of these returned after a sojourn in the US, Canada or Argentina. Ethnic Russians, Ukrainians and Belarussians accounted for less than 5% of all overseas emigrants from the empire. The vast majority of Ukrainian emigrants from Europe during this period were from Austria rather than Russia.

Rather than move overseas, ethnic Russians, Ukrainians and Belarussians moved eastwards, to Siberia and even Manchuria. These groups were migrating in droves to Siberia after the 1880s with the population there growing from 4.3 million in 1885 to 12.8 million in 1915. The Trans-Siberian Railway especially spurring emigration to the Russian Far East. Migration to the East increased after the completion of the railway and between 1906-1913 some 3.44 million settlers moved to Siberia, cities like Vladivostok doubled in population between 1910 and 1915. American contemporaries compared Siberia to the American and Canadian West.
 
According to Robert C. Allen's 'Reassessment of the Soviet Industrial Revolution':

"The main reason that the USSR did not have a population explosion was the rapid decline in fertility, which was the second and more important check on the population [1]. The rapid fertility transition was due to the education of women, rapid economic development, and increased food availability after agriculture recovered from collectivization. This result is established by simulating Soviet population with fertility equations estimated from developing country data as well as from the Russian and Soviet censuses of 1897, 1939, and 1959. If Russian women had not been educated or industrialization had been slower, then the USSR would have had a late fertility transition (as in India) or no fertility transition (as in Pakistan). Simulation of these possibilities shows that the population would have reached one billion in 1989."

[1] the first being the mortality rate due to wars and collectivisation.

sov_demographics.jpg
 
You need to factor in the arrival of reliable condoms in the late Edwardian period and the Pill post 1960. And, even under the Tsars, Russian literacy rates and industrialisation were steadily improving. Also, would the Russian Republic/Empire have held on in its Central Asian colonies as their population started to massively expand and potentially outstrip the Russian elements within their Empire? And, while I appreciate that the Balkan countries and Poland were sociologically closest to Russia in 1914, we also need to appreciate that there would have been significant divergence. Russia is just too geostrategically important and too well endowed with mineral resources not to industrialise significantly and to remain a backwater.
 
You need to factor in the arrival of reliable condoms in the late Edwardian period and the Pill post 1960. And, even under the Tsars, Russian literacy rates and industrialisation were steadily improving. Also, would the Russian Republic/Empire have held on in its Central Asian colonies as their population started to massively expand and potentially outstrip the Russian elements within their Empire? And, while I appreciate that the Balkan countries and Poland were sociologically closest to Russia in 1914, we also need to appreciate that there would have been significant divergence. Russia is just too geostrategically important and too well endowed with mineral resources not to industrialise significantly and to remain a backwater.

Keeping of Central Asia is probably quiet easy despite that there might be some resistance. Even in OTL Central Asian soviet republics would have wanted remain with USSR.

More difficult thing are Poland, Baltia and Finland. Altough Finland is easiest thing to keep. Finns were quiet loyal until Nicholas II's russification politics. But you can't even save Russian monarchy with NII.
 
Keeping of Central Asia is probably quiet easy despite that there might be some resistance. Even in OTL Central Asian soviet republics would have wanted remain with USSR.

More difficult thing are Poland, Baltia and Finland. Altough Finland is easiest thing to keep. Finns were quiet loyal until Nicholas II's russification politics. But you can't even save Russian monarchy with NII.

The question is though would the Russians have wanted to hold on to Central Asia when the Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Tajiks, Turkomen et al were outbreeding them? Prior to the fall of the USSR, in 1979, a science fiction writer (Norman Spinrad I think, but it is a long time since I read it) wrote a non-fiction article based on the official USSR demographic figures and concluded that Russians would become an ethnic minority within the USSR within another fifty years. Majority of population would be Asian and Muslim.
As George Bernard Shaw said, it was in the best interests of the Indians to remain in the British Empire because, as its most populous region, it would end up ruling the Empire. Nevertheless, it got its independence in 1949.
 
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