1 XIV International Economic History Congress, Helsinki 2006 Session 50 Paper presented to Conference on Historical Standards of Living: Eurasian

and American Countries, Keio University, Japan, May 31, 2006

Russian and Soviet living standards: Secular growth and conjunctural crises
Stephen G. Wheatcroft, University of Melbourne, Australia Em: s.wheatcroft@unimelb.edu.au

(This work is preliminary and in draft form. Please do not quote from it without the permission of the author.) This paper extends the analysis that I made of Soviet welfare levels 1880-1960 in my 1999 article in Slavic Review1. In that article I drew attention to the combination in Russian/Soviet economic development of both welfare crises on the one hand and remarkably rapid improvements in secular trends in welfare on the other. I drew attention to the complex situation in which welfare and mortality were subject to secular improvements at the same time that Russian and Soviet society experienced a series of massive conjunctural shocks resulting in crises and famines. I also argued that contrary to normal perceptions, the Russian and Soviet cases were well documented and supported by a wealth of statistical material whose reliability was significantly less impaired, than was normally assumed. In several regards Russian and Soviet statistical systems were quite remarkable for a society of such a level of under-development undergoing such a level of welfare crises. Of course there are problems with the data, but the problems were mainly a result of conscious and very deliberate attempts to falsify the conclusions that were being based on these data. The continued pursuit of these distorted pictures would indeed have produced pressures which would ultimately have led to the distortion of the base data, if left uncorrected. But repeatedly, at the last moment, there was an intervention from the authorities to stop this from happening. The serious corruption of base data was far less frequent and less important than has been assumed. The normal result was for the base data to be declared secret and for only a select and often highly distorted set of conclusions to be made public from them2. In short it was the politicians rather than the statisticians that carried out the distortions. It was the conclusions that were based upon these data, and the way that these conclusions were presented for public
Stephen G. Wheatcroft, The Great Leap Upwards: Anthropometric Data and Indicators of Crises and Secular Change in Soviet Welfare Levels, 1880-1960, Slavic Review, no. 1, Spring 1999, pp. 27-60. This will be referred to in this article as GLU. 2 And there were different levels of secrecy at which the base data were held. From 1932 a number of secret For official use only publications appeared which contained detailed statistical materials which were not to be publicized and not to be referred to in regular publications. There was a scandal in TsUNKhU in 1932 when top secret sovershenno sekretno materials on harvest evaluations were accidentally published in a restricted for official use only Bulletin.
1

2 use that were erroneous and not necessarily the data themselves. There was often a separate, internal secret set of conclusions which were based on these data, and which were not publicized at the time3. A detailed analysis of the history of the statistical services and a search of the secret operation materials in the statistical archives enable us to resurrect much of the base data and to see where and when distortions were made. In this paper I will pick up and extend some of the comments that I made earlier concerning the reliability of the statistical data. I will extend some of the discussions regarding mortality, and anthropometric indicators, and I will add additional data on disease incidence and market indicators. The paper also engages with recent work that has attempted to reconsider welfare levels4, and it attempts to present a better framework in which to conceptualise the many famines of this period.5 The main argument however is that the Russian experience was marked by both rising welfare trends and continued crises, and that this needs to be recognized, as such. 1) The reliability of Russian and Soviet data The assumption that Soviet economic data was bound to be distorted for propagandistic reasons has often misled outside critics6 Provided that we understand how the data were
This has been argued for the first five year plan by R.W. Davies, and S.G.Wheatcroft, in Further Thoughts on the First Soviet Five Year Plan, Slavic Review, no. 4, December 1974, pp.790-802 4 Especially Robert C. Allen, Farm to Factory: A Reinterpretation of the Soviet Industrial Revolution, Princeton and Oxford, 2003, and . Ellman, Vitte, Mironov I oshibochoe ispolzovanie antropometricheskikh dannykh, in Ekonomicheskaya Istoriya: Obozrenie, vypusk 11, Moscow, MGU, 2005, pp. 159-165. 5 See in particular, R.W.Davies and S.G.Wheatcroft, The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture, 1931-1933, Palgrave: 2004, especially chapter 13, The Famine in Perspective, pp. 400-442. See also. S.G.Wheatcroft, Towards explaining the Soviet Famine in 1931-33: Political and natural factors in perspective, Food and Foodways, Vol. 12, No. 2-3, 2004, pp. 137-164. Special issue on famine edited by Cormac O Grada. 6 It is demonstrably the case that at certain key times the Soviet statisticians over-represented problematic areas in their sample surveys. They did this because they were genuinely interested in what was happening in these difficult areas, rather than because they were intent on producing a certain effect on subsequent analysts. At the height of the 1921/22 famine additional food surveys were commissioned, specifically for the famine areas. Unless properly weighted, this would mean that the sample as it stands would overestimate the extent of the famine overall See Trudy TsSU, vols. Described in S.G.Wheatcroft, Famine and food consumption records in early Soviet history, 1917-25, in C. Geissler and D.J.Oddy, eds. Food, Diet and Economic Change: Past and Present, Leicester University Press,1993, pp. 151-174 It is also demonstrably the case that at the height of the 1931-33 famine Soviet statisticians in collecting their sample survey data on collective farms again targeted those in the most difficult regions where agricultural production was suffering the most. They did this because these data had operational significance and the people who were organizing the collection of these data were genuinely interested in finding out how serious the crisis was in these areas. The data were not published at the time and remained secret until well after the famine. Scholars who do not understand the nature of these operational data and who blithely assume that data that concentrated on the worse areas could be assumed to be typical of all areas, or even exhibit a tendency to over-emphasise better areas, will clearly be greatly misled in the conclusions that they make. This is precisely the error that Professor Steven Tauger made, and continues to make in his claims that the 1932 was 5 million tons lower than in 1931 (Soviet Studies and elsewhere check). If Professor Tauger had checked more carefully the coverage of his data, he would have had to agree with the scholars who had used these data before him, that they cannot be used to provide an unweighted aggregate figure on national production, and he would not have needed to make the sensational and mistaken conclusion that he did. For a fuller account of criticisms of Tauger see S.G.Wheatcroft, Tragediya Sovetskoi Derevnei, vol. 3
3

3 collected and processed, and how access to the prime data were restricted, we have an independent way of checking on some of the conclusions that were made on the basis of these data, and we have a way to correct the conclusions, or come up with our own conclusions. In GLU pp. 28-31, I provided a number of examples of false conclusions that had been made from anthropometric data. Similar examples could be found for demography where selective, and clearly distorting indicators of mortality decline were claimed after the publication of the full data series was suspended in 1927. However in this case of demography we also have examples of security officials pursuing unfortunate demographers and registration officials over their collection of data. A politburo/ Central Committee decree under the signatures of Stalin and Molotov claimed that registration officials were under-reporting births and double-recording deaths in order to produce false indicators of the level of population growth. We now know that this decree was part drafted by Ezhov, and that it instructed the NKVD, at the time under Yezhov to investigate these wrecking activities and bring the guilty to justice 7. In this case we may well expect that there would be a massive tendency to respond to these pressures. We know population estimates were distorted at this time, but we also know that these distortions came to light with the census of 1937 and 1939. Initially the discrepancy between the records from the registration data and the census was interpreted as being the result of the census being wrecked, but a repeat census of 1939 eventually persuaded the authorities that the population was significantly lower than expected. This whole history is very disturbing, but in the end it demonstrates that even under the political pressures that existed in 1937-1939 the census data remained relatively uncorrupted. For levels of grain production and food consumption the restrictions on publication of unapproved figures was even more firmly enforced. Consumption data were however published in restricted internal publications (confidential in print). For grain production there was a famous incident in 1932 when the head and deputy of the statistical service were publicly censured for allowing an unofficial grain harvest figure to appear in a secret (internal confidential-print) publication. It was important at the time to know what figures could be published, and now that we can see all of the archival data it is possible for us to correct some of the distortions that were imposed on some of the sound data. It also allows us to identify what basic data was not sound and suffered from distortions. There are several major problems with Soviet statistical materials that can only briefly be referred to here, they include political interference in grain statistics, population statistics, and morbidity data, but in addition there are other general problems which arise out of a general lack of appreciation of the importance to have a good understanding of the problem or something worse. There are enormous problems associated with the frequent changes in regional boundaries which make it extremely difficult to breakdown time series into regionally comparable regions. I have been struggling for years to get some comparable regional data sets together.
7

These materials have recently appeared in the Ezhov fond of materials that have recently been declassified in RGASPI, and this indicates that Ezhov worked with Stalin and Molotov in redrafting this decree, which may originally have come from Yagoda. See RGASPI , 671/1/28

2) Different welfare indicators and their inter-relationships Below I will consider a whole range of welfare indicators, and will be particularly interested not only in what trends they show regarding increasing or declining welfare, but also the indicators that they provide regarding deviations or disturbances from the trend. In the final section I will attempt to draw these together. a) Mortality trends and disturbances Ever since Frank Lorimer carried out his landmark history of Soviet population in 1946 we have been aware of both the long-term decline in mortality and the major demographic crises that accompanied them. Even with the limited amount of demographic materials available at the time Lorimer identified the existence of the major demographic crises of 198-22, and of the early 1930s. At the time that Lorimer was writing the Soviet Union was still overcoming a third and fourth crises associated with WW2 and the post-war 1946/47 famine. There had been no regular publication of registration data on births and deaths since 1927, and only the 1926 census had been published in any detail (26 volumes). The 1930 census had been abolished, after the formal closure of the statistical office (TsSU) in late 1929 and its merger with the State Planning office (Gosplan). The resurrection of a more independent Central Statistical body with the name of Central Department for National Economic Accounting (TsUNKhU) in early 1932 would lead to more emphasis being placed on statistics including demographic statistics, and the eventual call for the resumption of censuses. Censuses of livestock were in fact carried out in mid 1931 and were a harbinger of the changed approach to statistics, but early attempts to call a demographic census in 1933 failed for a number of reasons. The state had adopted an unrealistic presumption that rapid population growth of the mid 1920s would continue. Apart from the famine of 1931-33 that reduced the population by several million, there was also a very rapid decline in natality rates (partly supported by the mass application of abortions), which the central government refused to acknowledge. The disjuncture between reality and the states perceptions of reality was not assisted by the action of the expansion of the power of the Peoples Commissariat of Internal Affairs, under Yagoda in the mid 1930s. Soon after the strengthened All Union Peoples Commissariat had taken charge of the civic registration system, Yagoda and his officials called in the support of Stalin, Molotov and their new adviser in the Secretariate Yezhov to denounce the officials in the civil registration system for double recording deaths and under-reporting births, in order to under-estimate the rate of population growth. Under these threats, some registration officials undoubtedly gave way and began providing distorted figures that produced the desired effects, and kept their critics away. But when the census was eventually carried out in 1937, despite the willingness of Kraval the Stalinist leader of TsUNKhU of the time, the population count indicated a level of growth significantly slower than the government had claimed. Kraval, who was an unsuccessful Stalinist, but also many honest statisticians were arrested and repressed as wreckers as a result of this census. A new census was carried out in 1939, which largely replicated the 1937 growth indicators, apart from the addition of the 1937-9

5 growth. After the heroic intervention of P.I.Popov, the first director of TsSU8 the government eventually accepted internally (and secretly) that there had been more mortality than it had initially claimed9, and that its early growth estimates had been wrong. The country was however soon overwhelmed by WW2 which caused another major demographic crisis, which was followed by another famine in 1946/7. It was only 6 years after Stalins death, when a new census was carried out, that the statistical service (renamed TsSU) began again publishing detailed mortality and natality data and the results of the 1959 census. Several attempts were made at this time to review the earlier available data and match it up with the trends of the late 1950s. Few of these later estimates provided much of an advance on the detailed work of Lorimer in 1946. At the time it was largely believed that we would never be able to get a better fix on the demographic developments of the time, because no reliable registration data had been kept, and because the census data had been lost during the war. 10 After the Soviet statistical archives became accessible to researchers, it emerged that the census data for both 1937 and 1939 were intact, that fairly reliable series of registration data were available, and that the officials in charge of registration data in TsUNKhU had been called on to explain the discrepancy between the census results, and the estimates based on their registration data. From these materials it is possible to provide a more detailed estimate of population trends for several of the years in the 1930s. The Central Statistical Office Demographers Andreev, Darskii and Kharkova, were instructed to make an estimate of this annual dynamic, which appeared in 1990 on the eve of the fall of the USSR. Its dynamic is produced below in figure 1

On the eve of the 1939 census, P.I.Popov , the elderly first Director of TsSU, who had been sacked in 1926 wrote to Molotov and Stalin invoking the name of Lenin, to argue that the results when they appeared would still be lower than expected and that this should be recognized as false expectations from Gosplan rather than as continued wrecking in the statistical offices. When the low figures did materialize Stalin and Molotov accepted them and placed Popov (who had just criticized Gosplan) together with Voznesenskii (who was currently director of Gosplan) in charge of a commission to work out future statistical processes 9 The results of the 1939 census were published in summary form over two pages in the newspaper Pravda on June 2, 1939 and April 29, 1940. (cf 26 volumes of the 1939 census). And of course no conclusions were made concerning the earlier planned population growth. 10 I was repeatedly told by colleagues, who I respect, and who I think were themselves mis-informed, that the basic data had been evacuated from Moscow during the War and had been sunk on a barge in the Volga.

6 Figure 1: The dynamic of USSR Crude Death Rates, 1890-1956 as computed by Andreev, Darskii and Kharkova

The Dynamic of USSR Crude Death Rate, 1890-1956

60 1890-1956 all years y=548.0228-0.27072x Rsquared adj=0.22415

50

40

30

20 1890-1956 less crisis years y=767.759-0.3877x Rsquared adj = 0.95716

10

These figures are now widely accepted, although I have some suspicions about parts of the dynamic, and believe that they tend to under-estimate the fall in births during this crisis and therefore the scale of mortality in the crisis of 1931-33. Nevertheless the scale of mortality was extremely high11. ADKs figures above, nevertheless provide a rough indication of the overall dynamic. We can identify three major demographic crises from 1915-22, 1929-34, 1941-49 along a generally declining trend of mortality. We can measure the overall trend of mortality decrease for the entire period, including the three crisis periods, and we can measure the overall trend for the period excluding the three crisis periods, and it is clear that the crisis mortality periods will have caused the deaths of many millions of the population, but do not seem to have disturbed the extremely rapid overall trend in mortality decline. extent of the famine

11

The grounds for my doubts are explained in S.G.Wheatcroft, O demograficheskikh svidetelstvakh Tragedii Sovetskoi Derevni v 1931-33 [On demographic evidence of the Tragedy of the Soviet Village, 1931-33, in V.P. Danilov et al, eds. Tragediya Sovetskoi Derevni: Kollektivizatsiya I raskulachivanie: Dokumenty I Materialy, 1927-1939, [The Tragedy of the Soviet Village: Collectivization and Dekulakization: Documents and Materials, 1927-39], vol. 3, Konets 1930-1933, Moscow, 2001, pp. 866886.

7 b) Anthropometric indicators: trends and disturbances (Measuring what?) Mortality as a welfare indicator is rather absolute. You are either dead or you are not. Anthropometric data can offer us a more nuanced set of indicators as the record of malnourishment is stamped on the population in the way in which the secular trend towards growth is disturbed. There have been many attempts to use anthropometric data to indicate the rising trend towards improved welfare, but there have been relatively few attempts to measure the way in which anthropometric indicators respond to temporary crises, famines and other challenges. The data that are used below are derived from a latitudinal survey of terminal heights from Russian military recruitment data, 1874-1913, and three accumulative surveys of terminal heights from surveys for the clothing industry conducted in 1927, 1957 and 1975. Latitudinal surveys were carried out every year on a certain age cohort. As explained elsewhere12 the Tsarist conscript data need some minor adjustments to account for minor changes in age of conscription and the extent to which this fell short of the age at which terminal height was achieved. Accumulative surveys were carried out over a more limited number of years and in each survey numbers of people of different ages were measured to provide indications of the average terminal heights for all of these generations. The different data sets for the different years are then linked together. The three data sets used below cover the male population in central Russia. Details of the data sets and sources are provided in GLU pp. 41-45. Table 2: Terminal Heights of Russian Male Population in Central Regions of Terminal heights of Russian Male Population in RSFSR, by year of Birth from 1857-1957

Central Regions of RFSFR

1913 births 1927 e.g.s. 1918 Births 1932 e.g.s.

172 170 168 166 164 162 1857 1864 1871 1878 1885 1892 1899 1906 1913 1920 1927 1934 1941 1948 1955
1899 births 1913 e.g.s. 1909 births 1923 e.g.s 1934 births 1948 e.g.s. 1923 births 1937 e.g.s.

12

GLU, p.39-40

8 c) Disease Incidence An important but hard to quantify welfare indicator is the extent to which the population succumbs to infectious diseases. Morbidity data or data on the recorded incidence of disease are notoriously difficult to handle. In many cases changes in recorded morbidity are indicators of changes in recording habits of those attempting to register diseases. Attempts to use such data need to be checked against what we know about general trends in the incidence of these and other diseases elsewhere and need to be treated very carefully. Dramatic short-term changes in numbers of cases of infectious disease, provided that they are not the result of changed registration practices, are indicative of something. Rapid increases in numbers of cases of disease at a time when we would expect the registration system to be strained would have to be considered more seriously, and declines in morbidity from some diseases when the morbidity of others is falling would also be significant. Apart from the normal problems of under-registration of epidemic illnesses, it is clear that there was a degree of distortion and under-reporting in the morbidity data that the Soviet government handed over to the Health Organizations of the League of Nations in the late 1920s and 1930s.13 The tables given below include the official figures handed over to the Health Organization of the League of Nations and subsequently reworked by the US OSS. There is also a series of data produced by the leading Soviet medical historian of the 1970 Dr. Barayan. No other comprehensive sets of morbidity data have been found in the Soviet archives, but I have located a series of secret data produced by the sanitary department of the railway transportation Commissariat, which are listed Transanup14in the tables below. Although obviously not as comprehensive as national data, they do provide an interesting picture of relative growth. The sections below indicate the dynamic of two important epidemic illnesses, which were eradicated over this time- Cholera and Smallpox, the dynamic of some of the major epidemic diseases that are normally associated with famines- Typhus and typhoid, and finally the curious case of Malaria whose incidence appears to be contrary to that for almost all other diseases. i) Two major killing diseases whose incidence fell sharply: Cholera and Smallpox

13

Although the publication of morbidity data in the USSR ceased in the late 1920s, a special monthly epidemiological bulletin was prepared for the Health Organizations of the League of Nations and was duly transferred to these organizations until 1937. In 1937 those involved in transferring these data were accused of spying and the change of data ceased. A comparison of these data with those later used by Soviet medical historians with access to the primary data indicate that data provided to the League of Nations was incomplete and provided a somewhat sanitized view of developments in the early 1930s. See O.V. Barayan, Itogi Poluvekovoi borby s infektsiyami v SSSR [The Results of half a century of combating infectious diseases in the USSR], Moscow, 1968. See also S.G. Wheatcroft, Famine and factors affecting mortality in the USSR: The Demographic Crises of 1914-1922 and 1930-33, CREES Discussion papers , SIPS, nos 2021, Birmingham University, 1981. 14 RGAE, F. 1562, op 329, d. 114, l. 107

9 Cholera often appears to have coincided with famines and welfare crises but this is largely accidental. Cholera was not endemic in Russia and only appeared in Russia when one of the World-wide pandemics brought it to Russia from India. There were only 4 Cholera pandemics in the 19 th Century 1828-33 about 220,000 deaths mainly (200,000) in 1831 1847-59 about 1 million deaths mainly (690,000) in 1848 1865-73 about 320,000 deaths mainly (240,00) in 1871-72 1892-96 about 380,000 deaths mainly (300,000) in 1892 The fifth and final pandemic in Russia began in 1903 and lasted through to 1922 with probably less than 200,000 deaths and most (110,000) coming in 1910
Cholera in Russia
800,000 700,000 600,000 500,000 400,000 300,000 200,000 100,000 0 1829 1837 1845 1853 1861 1869 1877 1885 1893 1901 1909 1917 1925 1933 1941
1941

Barayan deaths

Cholera in Russia
2,000,000 1,500,000 1,000,000 500,000 0 1829 1837 1845 1853 1861 1869 1877 1885 1893 1901 1909

Barayan cases

1917

1925

1933

Sheldon Watts in his study of Disease Power and Imperialism draws attention to what he claims is the different trend in eradication of Cholera in Britain and in India. He notes that the British dynamic was for a significant reduction in cholera deaths for each pandemic after 1848. He compares this with the Indian dynamic which dramatically increased over the same period15. The Russian dynamic was clearly much closer to the British, than the Indian and cholera virtually disappeared after the early 1920s.

15

Sheldon Watts, Epidemics and History: Disease, Power and Imperialism,Yale1997, p. 167.

1949

1949

10

Cholera 50000 40000 30000 Barayan 20000 10000 10 99 11 93 11 97 12 91 12 95 12 99 13 93 13 97 14 91 14 95 14 99 0

Smallpox was the other major disease which was eradicated fairly early in the twentieth century. The registered incidence of smallpox was over 150,000 cases in the Russian Empire in 1910. These figures were exceeded during the early years of the postrevolutionary health crises in 1919, but there was not a massive explosion of Smallpox in the early 1920s, and levels of smallpox were greatly reduced in subsequent years.
Smallpox
200000 150000 100000 50000 10 99 11 92 11 95 11 98 12 91 12 94 12 97 13 90 13 93 13 96 13 99 14 92 14 95 14 98 0 OSS Baraun

As can be seen in the table above, there was a slight elevation in smallpox during the famine of 1931-33, but far less than had been present during the earlier period. ii) Two serious diseases often associated with famine whose incidence fell Typhus is often referred to as the famine disease. It is almost invariably associated with famine. This is largely because famines normally cause large population movements and concentrations of refugees, who live in unhealthy and dirty accommodation where they pick up the fleas that provide the vector for typhus. Typhus was the major disease of the famine of 1918-22, with well over 2 million cases registered in 1919 and 1920. It was clearly a major debilitating factor in the demographic crisis of these times.

11
Baraun OSS Transanup

Typhus
3000000 2500000 2000000 1500000 1000000 500000 10 99 11 92 11 95 11 98 12 91 12 94 12 97 13 90 13 93 13 96 13 99 14 92 0

14 95

This is the disease concerning which the Soviet officials were most anxious. There is evidence of systematic distortion in the reports of typhus that were sent to Geneva. The official series of data that was sent to the League of Nations registered a four-fold increase in growth of typhus from 1931 to 1932, but then a reduction in 1933. This is highly unlikely and appears to be a distortion. The estimates made by the Soviet medical historians showed a further 4 fold increase and those of TranSanUp a 4.6 fold increase. The table below shows the dynamic in these years as seen from these sources. Dynamic of increase in Typhus during 1929-33 famine HO-LN 33,254 38,588 19,302 77,832 35,218 58,194 66.812 Baraun 40,000 60,000 80,000 220,000 800,000 410,000 120,000 Transanup 387 823 3,374 15,338 70,866 20,449 3,870 HO-LN Cf prev 116 50 403 45 Baraun Cf prev 150 133 275 364 Transanup Cf prev 213 410 455 462

1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1933 cf29

106%

2000%

18,312%

Despite the much greater figures that emerge from Barauns estimates or the indicators from TranSanUp, it is still clear that we are dealing with a much lower level of typhus during this period than during the earlier famine of 1921/22. This had initially led me to suppose that overall mortality rates would have been lower at this time, but that is not the case. Here we are dealing with a relatively modern pattern of famine epidemiology where traditional famine diseases like typhus have less importance. The other major famine-related diseases were the water and food borne diseases (other than cholera, which we have already discussed). There was a large range of these water and food borne diseases which included the fairly exotic disease of Typhoid but also a number of very common diseases like dysentery and gastro-enteritis. Data are only available for the more exotic diseases, which is unfortunate because it is likely that in the conditions of relatively low mobility, most deaths would probably have come from relatively normal diseases of gastro-enteritis and dysentery, which would not have been registered. The dynamic for typhoid showing a general reduction is given below:

14 98

12

Typhoid
600000 500000 400000 300000 200000 100000 10 99 11 92 11 95 11 98 12 91 12 94 12 97 13 90 13 93 13 96 13 99 14 92 0

OSS Baraun Transanup

14 95

There was a distinct downward trend in typhoid. The 400,000 cases registered in 1920 were lower than the 500,000 cases registered in 1909 and 1910. According to Baraun there was a small rise in typhoid in 1931-33, but that was concealed in the data sent to Geneva.See below. Dynamic of increase in Typhoid during 1929-33 famine HO-LN 171,988 195,017 109,145 161,117 82,163 175,147 105,855 Baraun 110,000 170,000 190,000 260,000 300,000 210,000 200,000 Transanup 5,583 10,539 16,228 17,301 10,130 10,895 6.817 HO-LN Cf prev 113 56 148 51 Baraun Cf prev 112 137 115 70 Transanup Cf prev 189 154 107 59

1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1933 cf29

48%

124%

181%

iii) Malaria: a contrary dynamic The malaria data, at first look extremely odd. Epidemics of malaria are seen to be peaking several years after the famines, when the other epidemics peaked. But if we study the specifics of this disease we can see that the dynamic as represented in these data is correct. Malaria is spread by the anopholese mosquito biting infected humans and completing a complex chain. Most anopholese are fairly choosy as to whether they are anthrophylic or zoophylic, ie. whether they eat human or animal blood. But many of the anaopholese types in Russia are hetero and will bite either. In circumstances in which there is a great reduction in livestock numbers, and they fell by almost 50% after the two droughts of 1921/22 and 1931/32, we could expect a great increase in human-biting by some of the anopholese who otherwise would have consumed livestock blood. This will set up new processes, which will take time to build up infections so that the full cycle can be achieved. It is therefore perfectly logical that malaria epidemics in Russia build up two to three years after the famine, after livestock levels have fallen, and that they decline as livestock numbers grow.

14 98

13
OSS Baraun

Malaria
10000000 8000000 6000000 4000000 2000000 10 99 11 92 11 95 11 98 12 91 12 94 12 97 13 90 13 93 13 96 13 99

14 92

d. Nutritional indicators Two different types of nutrition data are often used as indicators of welfare crises. One of these refers to food availability indicators based upon gross food production indicators and the construction of rudimentary food consumption balances. These balances are fairly easy to construct, and could provide some overall indicators of the situation. But far more revealing would be the results of sample nutritional surveys carried out over this period. The USSR has an unparalleled history of nutritional surveys, which were pioneered by zemstva statisticians, working in their separate provinces before the revolution on Russian peasant budgets. During the first World War Chayanov and Litoshenko carried out much work on producing a synthetic regional network of peasant food consumption surveys. These were developed within the early TsSU where a vast network of consumption surveys were carried out in the years of civil war, famine and the 1920s and which covered peasant households but also worker households16 .
First critica l mass studies Ru ssia 1918 -22 du ring fam ines CDR Household s KCals CDR Hou se ho ld s KCals urban rural u rban rural u rban Petrograd Saratov March 1919 3 ,090 1 ,598 88 .5 622 2 ,773 63.5 July 1919 99 2 ,415 73 .1 112 2 ,776 73.1 Dec 1919 399 2 ,242 80 .5 105 3 ,156 88.8 May 1920 323 2 ,690 45 .7 109 192 2 ,275 4 ,474 51.8 Oc t 1920 379 3 ,375 21 .8 131 297 2 ,425 3 ,626 43.2 Ap ril 192 1 532 2 ,615 23 152 274 2 ,723 3 ,196 42.2 Sept 1 921 480 2 ,846 26 .3 155 357 2 ,025 2 ,615 40.8 Feb 1922 479 3 ,003 40 .1 160 522 1 ,901 1 ,762 147.1 Oc t 1922 468 3 ,379 19 .7 160 589 2 ,827 4 ,242 31.4 Feb 1923 490 3 ,627 19 .1 160 538 2 ,739 3 ,892 19.4 See also Mo scow, Saratov and Kie v in Cah ie rs du Monde russe , 38 (4) , 1 997 , pp . 525-558

16

S.G.Wheatcroft, Famine and food consumption records in early Soviet history, 1917-25, in C. Geissler & D.J. Oddy, eds., Food, Diet and Economic Change: Past and Present, Leicester University Press, 1993, pp. 151-74, Stephen G. Wheatcroft, Soviet statistics of nutrition and mortality during times of famine, 1917-1922 and 1931-1933, Cahiers du Monde russe, 38(4), octobre-decembre 1997, pp.525-558

14 95

14

The abolition of TsSU in 1929 had appeared to put an end to these surveys, and especially in the countryside where many of the rural correspondents were soon to be attacked and repressed as kulaks. However, by 1932 and the resurrection of TsUNKhU, it became clear that the system had simply undergone transformation and was continuing to produce secret detailed reports on food consumption both in the towns and amongst the kolkhoz peasants. The tables below provide an indication of the results of these surveys for the 1930s.

KCals per person per day

3,200 3,000 2,800 2,600 2,400 2,200 2,000 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940

Workers kolkhoz peasants

15

Kolkhoz peasant food consumption

3400 3200 3000 2800 2600 2400 2200 2000 1800 Jan May Sep Jan May Sep Jan May Sep Jan May Sep Jan Apr Aug Dec Apr Aug Dec Apr Aug Dec 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937

peasant cons pcavyr

These data do indicate a quite sharp improvement in peasant and worker nutrition from 1933 to 1936. In the first half of 1937 there clearly was some strain on rural nutrition, which passed with the favourable harvest of 1937. Urban nutrition levels will fall in 1938 and 1940. Additional nutritional data are available for the non-German-occupied parts of the USSR, and they show signs of dramatic declines and famines. But I have not yet assembled these data. Nutritional levels were also strained in the famine of 1946/7 and began improving after that. e) Bringing the indicators together If we were simply to chart the incidence of mortality crises and severe anthropometric challenges (according to year of birth) we would see the following patterns. i) Crises of War, Revolution and Famine Mortality crisis Anthropometric challenge Lag ii) Duration 1915-1922 8 years 1899-1909 10 years 16 to 13 years Severity 30 deaths/th 28 mm 110% 1.6%

Crises of Collectivization and famine Mortality crisis Anthropometric challenge Lag 1930-34 1913-18 17 to 16 years Duration 4 years 6 years Severity 18deaths/th 12 mm 90% 0.7%

16 iii) Crises of War and Famine Mortality crisis Anthropometric challenge Lag Duration 1941-49 8 years 1923-34 11 years 18 to 15 years Severity 38deaths/th 18 mm 300% 1.1%

These results appear to indicate that the anthropometric strain that was associated with high mortality lasted on average for two to three years longer than the high mortality levels. This is the kind of result that we would expect. High mortality is likely to be a more severe consequence than anthropometric challenge and consequently we would expect it to have an effect for a shorter period. The 18-13 year lag with birth date, at first may seem a little strange. Our first intuitive response would be to argue that the famine would be most severe for the very young and consequently we would expect a far lower lag. But we need to remember that those who were most severely affected would die, and therefore leave no trace of the strain behind them. Furthermore, it is now understood that those who experienced a strain in their early years before the growth spurt, have a good chance of catching up for their earlier challenge, whilst those who experienced a severe challenge after the passing of their growth spurt (normally 12 to 14), would find it difficult to catch up on the years of deprived growth. See GLU for references on this. These terminal height data appear to be indicators of the extent of these welfare crises as experienced by growing children, who had already passed through the growth spurt, but had not yet reached terminal height. Other anthropometric data are available for pre-terminal height measurements of school children and of birth weights (normally taken to be an indication of the health of the mother at time of birth). The available data are summarized in GLU, but are only available for selective years and consequently need to be taken with some care. Epidemiological data and mortality. The normally strong relationship between typhus and famine mortality appears not to have been much weaker for the 1931-33 famine, than it had been for earlier famines. This appears to fit in with the argument of Cormac OGrada that the epidemiology of modern famines is distinctly different for the classic 19th century famines. There was also a major decline in morbidity for Cholera and smallpox which had earlier been major killers. There was also a major decline in typhoid, although it is likely that other more common diseases that were spread by water and food, would have increased during the later famine. A study of the Soviet famines enables us to specify more precisely where that divide came in the USSR to within ten years, ie between 1922 and 1931. Nutritional data and mortality. The available food consumption survey data tends to confirm the very low levels of nutrition amongst certain groups in key years. This is despite the fact that the most vulnerable groups would not have been captured by these surveys.

17 3) Welfare and famines in perspective a) Recent work on Russian and Soviet welfare trends i) Pre-revolutionary In 1970 Professor Simms argued that conventional views on peasant imisseration in the late Tsarist Empire were misleading because Russian peasants were paying an increasing amount of voluntary indirect taxation on alcohol and luxury goods. He argued that this meant that they were not facing imisseration and that the much vaunted increase in indebtedness was probably only the result of peasant tax avoidance17. He also argued that there was something wrong is seeing growing and record grain exports (over 10 million tons per year in 1909-13) for a country facing agricultural disaster. At the time I pointed out that if you took a regional approach the situation was very clear18. There was a very sharp difference between the Old World parts of the country the Northern Consumer Region and the Central Producer Region which were struggling with over population and land shortages, and the New World parts of the country in the South and East. The Northern Consumer Region (NCR) with Moscow and St.Petersburg were the traditional food deficit regions where the population was growing and where local production, without new land, was being outstripped. Traditionally the NCR had been supplied by the Central Producer Region (CPR) of the Central Black Earth Regions and the Volga. But these regions now had relatively high populations, and no spare land, and were not in a position to cope with the increasing demands of the north. These were areas that were highly indebted, and in these areas there was no great increase in indirect taxation payments. These were areas of real immiserization and occasional famine. By contrast there were the New World areas of the South and East. The South (Ukraine and North Caucasus) were areas of relatively new settlement and development. It was only following the collapse of the last remnants of the Mongol invasion, with the fall of the Crimean Khanate in the late 18th century, that the fertile virgin lands of South Ukraine and North Caucasus were open for settlement. Settlement and grain production from the relatively large estates of the South developed rapidly in the 19th century. These were the areas of large grain exports, and rising per capita production, even net of grain exports. These were the areas where indebtedness was low and where indirect taxation payments were high. So there was no real contradiction in the country whose New World regions had the largest grain exports, also being the country whose old world areas were facing shortage and famine. The problem was simply that Russia is a big and variated country. Recently Boris Mironov appears to have returned to this old question of welfare levels from 1890-1905 when Witte was attempting to force industrialization. Mironov claims that anthropometric indicators show that Wittes industrialization drive was not at the

James Y.. Simms, The Crisis in Russian Agriculture at the End of the Nineteenth Century: A Different View, Slavic Review, no. 3, September 1977, pp. 370-396. 18 S.G.Wheatcroft, Crises and the Condition of the Peasantry in Late Imperial Russia, in E. KingstonMann and T. Mixter, eds., Peasant Economy, Culture, and Politics of European Russia, 1800-1921, Princeton, 1991, pp. 128-174

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18 expense of reducing peasant and worker living standards19. Professor Michael Ellman, has with good reason, objected to the way in which Professor Mironov has caste his arguments.20 Ellman correctly points out that when you unpack the anthropometric data and look at the separate periods, it is arguable that there were reversal in the previous upward trend precisely during the Witte period. Of course we would expect this given the presence of the famine of 1891/92. Ellman appears to be arguing in support of my general arguments made in GLU, and naturally I agree with him. ii) Post-revolutionary Robert Allens reinterpretation of Russian and Soviet Economic History Robert Allen has recently written a very interesting reinterpretation of Soviet Economic development. While I agree with most of what Allen writes, concerning the unacknowledged rapidity of Soviet economic growth rates, especially when compared with similar under-developed countries, I do disagree with a few points, especially his claim that by the late 1930s, living standards and per capita consumption in the USSR were significantly higher than they had been in the 1920s. Allen explains that : Most accounts maintained that the standard of living of the working population declined, or was static at best, during the first Five-Year Plans. The bedrock support for this interpretation is the national income accounting of Bergson and the related calculations of real wages by Chapman. Allen notes that both Bergson and Chapman had claimed a decline in standard of living over this period. Bergson had claimed a 3% decline in per capita consumption in 1937 cf 1928 for the whole economy. While Chapman had claimed for the same period a 6% decline in urban per capita household purchases; and a significant (unspecified) decline also in rural per capita household purchases of goods. Allen argues that the standard pessimism is misplaced. There was a decline during the famine But by the late 1930s, per capita consumption was significantly higher than it had been in the 1920s.The rural population did not share in this advance its standard of living only returned to the 1928 level from the trough of 1932-33- but the urban population and those millions who moved from the country to city realized a significant increase in consumption. p. 133 To support this claim Allen constructed his own food balances and provides the results given in figure 7.1 in Calorie Availability, Russia/USSR, 1885-1989. We are referred to the text and to appendix C for sources, but they are not well explained. Allen appears to be using Gregorys data for the pre-war period and mine for the 1920s and the 1930s, but his results are very different to mine. I carried out the same exercise in a SIPS Discussion paper Nos 1-2 back in 1976, and had very different results see below.

B.N.Mironov, Kto platil za industrializatsiyu: ekonomicheskaya politika S.Yu.Vitte I blagosostoyaniye naseleniya v 1890-1905gg. po antropometricheskim dannym [Who payed for industrialization: the economic policy of S.Yu. Witte and the welfare of the population in 1890-1905, according to anthropometric data], Ekonomicheskaya istoriya: Ezhegodnik. 2001, Moscow 2002, pp. 422-434 20 M.Ellman, Vitte, Mironov i oshibochnoe ispolzovanie antropometricheskikh dannykh, [Witte, Mironov and the erroneous use of anthropometric data], Ekonomicheskaya istoriya: Obozrenie, vyp. 11. Moscow, 2005, pp. 159-165

19

19 SIPS 1 2964 2783 2449 2578 2708 Allen 2,000 2,500 2,000 2,400 2,600 SIPS 1
100.0% 93.9% 82.6% 87.0% 91.4%

Allen
100.0% 125.0% 100.0% 120.0% 130.0%

1900-13 1927/28 1933 1937 1938

The main difference is that Allen is providing an extremely low consumption norm for 1900-1913, and all of his figures are lower than mine. In a footnote Allen explains that he would have used Gregorys data back to 1885, but when he did the calorie consumption that resulted is too low to be plausible. The implication is that the Imperial agricultural statistics understate production before 1895.If Russian yields were, in fact, higher, then much of the dynamism of tsarist agriculture becomes an illusion. Allen p.263, fn 2. These results are strange and it looks to me as though Allen is using uncorrected prerevolutionary grain production figures. Over thirty years ago I wrote an article demonstrating the need to apply a large (19%) correction to pre-revolutionary grain production data21. The figures above appear not to include that correction. Of course if the correction were included for all years from 1885 to 1913 it would not reduce the indicator of rapid growth of grain yield in these years. And perhaps I should add that those who have analysed this problem in some detail do not think that the growth that appears to have supported the 10 million tons of grain exports per year were an illusion. Since Gregory claims to be accepting my arguments as regards to the corrections needed to the pre-revolutionary data (Gregory, 1982, p. 224) and Allen appears to be using Gregorys pre-revolutionary data and my post-revolutionary data, we clearly need to look further into the detail of Allens figures to see why his calculations differ so greatly from those that I made 30 years ago. I plan to do that some time, but not here and now.

3b) Famines in perspective The normal image that we still have of famines and their relationship with economic development is very similar to Tawneys old image of the Asian peasant, who was stationary (not going anywhere) and up to his neck in water, suffering as the tide was gradually rising. By contrast the Russian population can be seen as being highly mobile and as rushing towards some promised land. The population are not rushing voluntarily, but are being driven forward. Progress through the water is hard, even though the water is only waist high and not up to the neck. The tide isnt really a problem, but there are a number of large surf waves which will knock them down. If several of these large waves come together they are bound to loose their footing. And even when they reach the shore there will still be the threat of a freak Tsunami.

S.G.Wheatcroft, The Reliability of Russian prewar grain output statistics, Soviet Studies, 1974, vol. xxvi.

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20 The Russian and Soviet population were exposed to seven cases of famine in their 80 year run to the shore, 1880-1960. These came in 1891/92, 1918-20, 1921/22, 1928-30, 1931-33, 1942-45, 1946/47, and these 7 famines can be placed into four groups. i) Famine following a number of poor harvest years and a severe drought in 1891. The mortality consequences of the famine were probably fairly low, because of the great size of the famine relief operations.22 Much of the mortality that is normally ascribed to this famine is probably the result of the cholera epidemic of 1892, I have argued that if you excluded the cholera mortality from the famine, mortality in 1891/92 may even have been lower than normal23. (2 years) ii) A series of famines following major civil disturbances and enemy occupation of surplus producing areas, which first manifested itself as an urban famine in 1918-20. Following a serious drought in 1921, the northern urban famine suddenly became a much larger southern rural famine. Both these famines were accompanied by massive pandemics, high mortality and loss of height amongst certain particularly vulnerable parts of the population, which were still growing but had no chance to catch up for height loss before they reached the age at which growth stopped. (5 years) iii) A similar scenario to ii) in as much as there was a series of famines resulting from severe grain shortages to the urban areas for 1928-30. However due to the application of rationing and harsh procurement from the peasantry the urban population remained in tact. A single good harvest year of 1930 was not used to advantage to restore grain reserves, and was used to impose Collectivization on the population. A serious drought in 1931 again shifted the centre of the famine to the rural areas. Unlike the drought of 1921/22, the drought of 1931/32 was followed by yet another harvest failure, and it is this additional year 1932/33 that accounts for the extremely high mortality of this famine. Epidemic illness was not particularly high. The anthropometric shadow in Central Ruussia was also not as prominent as it had been in 1918-22, but mortality overall especially in Ukraine and North Caucasus was very high. (6 years) iv) A series of famines resulting from German occupation of food surplus areas, the besieging of Leningrad and the accumulation of large numbers of refugees in distant hard to supply areas of Urals and Siberia. After a slight break in 1945 and before agriculture could recover and stocks be built up there was another serious drought in 1946 extending the famine through to 1947. Epidemic illnesses were largely contained but mortality was high and the anthropometric shadow fairly clear on those groups affected. (6 years). Nevertheless when these conjunctural welfare crises were passed in the late 1950s and 1960s the USSR emerged as one of the most rapid growing under-developed economies in the world. Comparisons with America greatly confused the situation in which a poor country had managed to achieve great secular growth despite a quite remarkable series of conjunctural crises. They had indeed brought some of this onto themselves, but it is a
See R.G.Robbins, Famine in Russia, 1891-92: The Imperial Government responds to famine, NY, 1975 S.G.Wheatcroft, The 1891-92 Famine in Russia: Towards a more detailed analysis of its scale and demographic significance, in L. Edmondson & P. Waldron, eds., Economy and Society in Russia and the Soviet Union, 1860-1930, Macmillan, 1992, pp. 58-9.
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21 traversty to claim that they had brought it all on themselves, and to ignore the real welfare achievements of the time. 4) Conclusions This paper has probably attempted to do too many things. a) It has attempted to make you take seriously Soviet statistical data sets b) It has argued that we should try to disengage secular trends from conjunctural crises and to recognize that welfare levels were affected by both, and that they could operate in different directions c) It has suggested that we should try to assess the relationship between different conjunctural indicators24. d) It has responded to some recent writings in this area and has attempted to see them in some historical perspective.

24

I would be very interested to know whether the kinds of relationship that I am finding between anthropometric data and mortality data in Russia were characteristic of those found in other countries.