indicators. In 1897, across the entire Russian Empire a population census with 100,000 enumerators collected information from 127 million present (nalichnoye) and permanent (postoyannoye) residents on residence, social class, language (but not ethnicity), occupation, literacy, and religion. A second census was planned but not executed due to the outbreak of World War I.
Enumeration and registration of the population was a serious concern in the Soviet period, and censuses of the population supplied important verification of residence, linguistic identity, and ethnic composition. The first comprehensive census in 1926 enumerated 147 million residents of the Soviet Union, 92.7 million of whom resided in the RSFSR. The next full census of 1939 was not published, due to political concerns. Subsequent postwar censuses in the Soviet Union (1959, 1970, 1979, 1989) improved significantly upon previous censuses in terms of quality of coverage. These data provided information that could be evaluated with increasingly comprehensive records on fertility, mortality, migration, and public health indicators collected through various state ministries at the all-union and republic levels.
During the post-Soviet period, scholars agree the quality of population information declined during the early 1990s, as state ministries reorganized, funding for statistical offices became erratic, and decentralization increased burdens for record keeping for individual oblasts. A micro census was carried out in 1994 of a 5 percent population sample. After false starts in 1999 and 2001 and heated debates over questionnaire content, the first post-Soviet census was conducted in October of 2002.
DEMOGRAPHIC TRENDS IN THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
During the Time of Troubles (1598-1613), Russia experienced a sharp population decline due to declines in mortality and fertility. During the 1600s Russia’s population increased, but the rate and stability of the trend over the century is subject to debate. During the following century substantial efforts to address public health needs were made in Russia’s urban areas. Catherine II (the Great) established the first medical administration during the later 1700s, leading to some of the earliest epi-demiological records for Russia. During the nineteenth century, mortality rates across age groups were higher than those found in Europe. Infant mortality was problematically high, declining only during the late 1800s due to increased public health campaigns.
Social changes such as the reforms of the 1860s served as catalysts for improved living standards, particularly in rural areas. These in turn improved the population’s health. At the same time increases in literacy also improved health practices. Education and improvements in literacy across the empire led to linguistic Russification with members of various ethnic groups identifying primarily with Russian language. The positive influence of improved social conditions on demographic trends was checked by persistently unreliable food production and distribution, leading to widespread famines throughout the imperial period, but most notably in 1890. At the century’s close, increased population density, particularly in urban areas, and extremely poor public works infrastructural provided an excellent breeding ground for deadly outbreaks of infectious diseases such as influenza, cholera, tuberculosis, and typhoid. Deaths from infectious diseases were higher in Russia than Europe during the early 1890s. Voluntary Public Health Commissions operated in the last decades of imperial rule. Lacking official state financial support, the commissions were unable to improve the health of the lower classes living in conditions conducive to disease transmission.
The state monitored the collection and dissemination of demographic information throughout the Imperial period. Records indicate that urban population counts, estimated deaths due to infectious disease, and population declines related to famines were, in some cases, corrected in three specific ways in order to minimize negative interpretations of living conditions within Russia and to avoid possible public unrest. First, information was simply not collected or published. In the case of fertility and mortality statistics this avenue was easily followed as most births and deaths took place at home and were not always registered. Secondly, selected information was published for small scale populations who tended to exhibit better health and
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survival profiles than the population at large. Focusing upon epidemiological records from large urban hospitals, imperial estimates tend to under-count the health profiles among rural residents and the very poor, which tend to be far worse than those with access to formal urban care. Lastly, records may have been generated, but not published. This appears to be the case in several analyses of the 1890 famine and cholera outbreaks in southern Russian during the 1800s. Rather than utilizing demographic information to assist the development of informed social policy, scholars conclude that national demographic information was often manipulated in order to achieve specific ideological goals.
The early years of Soviet rule were marked by widespread popular unrest, food shortages, civil war, and massive migration movements. The catastrophic effects of World War I, a global influenza epidemic, political and economic upheavals, and a civil war led to steep increases in mortality, declines in fertility, and deteriorations in overall population health. Between 1920 and 1922, famine combined with cholera and typhus outbreaks evoked a severe population crisis. As Soviet power solidified, several policies were enacted in the public health area, specifically in the realm of maternal and child health. Though underfunded, in combination with the expansion of primary medical care through feldshers (basic medical personnel), these programs were associated with declines in infant mortality, increased medical access, and improved population health into the 1930s.
During the late 1920s food instability reappeared in the Soviet Union, followed by a brutal collectivization of agriculture during the early 1930s. Millions of citizens of the Soviet Union perished in the collectivization drive and the famine that followed. Additional population losses occurred as a result of the Stalinist repression campaigns, as mortality was extremely high among the nearly fifteen million individuals sent to forced labor camps during the 1930s, and among the numerous ethnic groups subject to forced deportation and resettlement. These population losses were accelerated by massive civilian and military casualties during World War II. While each of these events is significant in its own right, in combination they produced a catastrophic loss of population that significantly influenced the age structure of the Russian Federation for decades to come. The population loss consisted of not only those who perished, but also the precipitous declines in fertility in the period, in spite of intense pro-natalist efforts. The precise population loss associated with this series of events is a subject of intense and emotional debate, with estimates of population loss ranging from 12 to nearly 40 million. Even individuals surviving this tumultuous period were affected. Those in their infancy or early childhood during the period exhibited compromised health throughout their lives as a result of the severe deprivation of the period. Even after the end of the war, economic instability and intense shortages exacted a significant toll on living standards, fertility, and health during the 1950s.
The 1959 census documented increasing population growth, improvements in life expectancy, and increases in fertility across Russia. Life expectancy increased to sixty-eight years by 1959, twenty-six years longer than the life expectancy reported in 1926 (forty-two). The total fertility rate in 1956 stood at 2.63, a marked increase from the 1940s. Urbanization increased the proportion of the population with access to modern water and sewer systems, and formal medical care. The following decades were periods of economic stability, improving living standards, expanded social services, improved health and decreased infectious disease prevalence. While overall fertility rates declined, population growth was positive and noticeable improvements were reported for infant and maternal mortality in Russia.
During the late socialist period, improvements in population health stalled, as Russia entered a period of economic and social stagnation. Increased educational and employment opportunities for women, combined with housing shortages and the need for dual income earners in each family, drove fertility below replacement levels by 1970. Life expectancy, which peaked in 1961 at 63.78 for men and 72.35 for women, declined during the 1970s for both sexes. Negative health behaviors such as smoking and drinking appeared to rise throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, and some reports of outbreaks of cholera and typhus were reported, especially in the southern and eastern regions of the country. Official statistics indicate an improvement in all demographic indicators in the mid- 1980s, and links to pro-family policies and a strict anti-alcohol campaign could be drawn, but improved mortality and increased fertility were short-lived. By
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the late 1980s increased mortality among males of working age was observed.
The Soviet state also manipulated demographic data to serve ideological ends. At best, official publications
