Demographics of the Soviet Union

This map shows the 1974 demographic distribution of population within the Soviet Union.

The following demographic statistics are from the 1990 edition of the CIA World Factbook,[1] unless otherwise indicated.

Soviet Union and Former Soviet Union Population from 1950 to 2100.

Demographics of Soviet Union, Data of Andreev, E.M., et al., Naselenie Sovetskogo Soiuza, 1922-1991. Number of inhabitants in thousands.

Russia lost former territories of the Russian Empire with about 30 million inhabitants after the Russian Revolution of 1917 (Poland: 18 million; Finland: 3 million; Romania: 3 million; the Baltic states: 5 million and Kars to Turkey: 400 thousand). At least 2 million citizens of the former Russian Empire died in the course of the Russian Civil War of 1917–1923, and a further 1 to 2 million emigrated. An estimated 800,000 to 1,200,000 people died during the purges of the 1930s.

According to the Russian Academy of Sciences the Soviet Union suffered 26.6 million deaths (1941-1945) during World War II, including an increase in infant mortality of 1.3 million. Total war-loss figures include territories annexed by the Soviet Union in 1939–1945.

Although the population growth-rate decreased over time, it remained positive throughout the history of the Soviet Union in all republics, and the population grew each year by more than 2 million except during periods of wartime, and famine.

Ethnic groups

Ethnographic map of the Soviet Union

The Soviet Union was one of the world's most ethnically diverse countries, with more than 100 distinct national ethnicities living within its borders.[6]

Republic	Population 1979	% urban 1979	Population 1989	% titular nationality 1989	% Russians 1989
Soviet Union	262,436,000	67	286,717,000	-	51.4
Russian SFSR	137,551,000	74	147,386,000	81.3	81.3
Ukraine	49,755,000	68	51,704,000	72.7	22.1
Byelorussia	9,560,000	67	10,200,000	77.9	13.2
Moldavia	3,947,000	47	4,341,000	64.5	13.0
Azerbaijan	6,028,000	54	7,029,000	82.7	5.6
Georgia	5,015,000	57	5,449,000	70.1	6.3
Armenia	3,031,000	68	3,283,000	93.3	1.6
Uzbekistan	15,391,000	42	19,906,000	71.4	8.3
Kazakhstan	14,685,000	57	16,538,000	39.7	37.8
Tajikistan	3,801,000	33	5,112,000	62.3	7.6
Kyrgyzstan	3,529,000	38	4,291,000	52.4	21.5
Turkmenistan	2,759,000	45	3,534,000	72.0	9.5
Lithuania	3,398,000	68	3,690,000	79.6	9.4
Latvia	2,521,000	72	2,681,000	52.0	34.0
Estonia	1,466,000	72	1,573,000	61.5	30.3

Other ethnic groups included Abkhaz, Adyghes, Aleuts, Assyrians, Avars, Bashkirs, Bulgarians, Buryats, Chechens, Chinese, Chuvash, Cossacks, Crimean Tatars, Evenks, Finns, Gagauz, Germans, Greeks, Hungarians, Ingushes, Inuit, Jews, Kalmyks, Karakalpaks, Karelians, Kets, Koreans, Lezgins, Maris, Mongols, Mordvins, Nenetses, Ossetians, Poles, Roma, Romanians, Tats, Tatars, Tuvans, Udmurts, and Yakuts. Dozens of these other ethnic groups were the titular nations of different Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics or Autonomous Oblasts within the union-level republics (ex. Tatars in Tatar ASSR within the RSFSR, Abkhaz ASSR within Georgia) or had been previously (Volga German ASSR, Crimean ASSR).

The crude birth rate in the Soviet Union throughout its history had been decreasing - from 44.0 per thousand in 1926 to 18.0 in 1974, mostly due to urbanization and rising average age of marriages. The crude death rate had been gradually decreasing as well - from 23.7 per thousand in 1926 to 8.7 in 1974.[11] While death rates did not differ greatly across regions of the Soviet Union through much of Soviet history, birth rates in southern republics of Transcaucasia and Central Asia were much higher than those in the northern parts of the Soviet Union, and in some cases even increased in the post-World War II period. This was partly due to slower rates of urbanization and traditionally early marriages in southern republics.[11]

As a result, mainly of differential birthrates, with most of the European nationalities moving toward sub-replacement fertility and the Central Asian and other nationalities of southern republics having well-above replacement-level fertility, the percentage who were Russians was gradually being reduced. According to some Western scenarios of the 1990s, if the Soviet Union had stayed together it is likely that Russians would have lost their majority status in the 2000s (decade).[12] This differential could not be offset by assimilation of non-Russians by Russians, in part because the nationalities of southern republics maintained a distinct ethnic consciousness and were not easily assimilated.

The late 1960s and the 1970s witnessed a dramatic reversal of the path of declining mortality in the Soviet Union, and was especially notable among men in working ages, and also especially in Russia and other predominantly Slavic areas of the country.[13] While not unique to the Soviet Union (Hungary in particular showed a pattern that was similar to Russia), this male mortality increase, accompanied by a noticeable increase in infant mortality rates in the early 1970s, drew the attention of Western demographers and Sovietologists at the time.[14]

An analysis of the official data from the late 1980s showed that after worsening in the late 1970s and the early 1980s, the situation for adult mortality began to improve again.[15] Referring to data for the two decades ending in 1989–1990, while noting some abatement in adult mortality rates in the Soviet republics in the 1980s, Ward Kingkade and Eduardo Arriaga characterized this situation as follows: "All of the former Soviet countries have followed the universal tendency for mortality to decline as infectious diseases are brought under control while death rates from degenerative diseases rise. What is exceptional in the former Soviet countries and some of their East European neighbors is that a subsequent increase in mortality from causes other than infectious disease has brought about overall rises in mortality from all causes combined. Another distinctive characteristic of the former Soviet case is the presence of unusually high levels of mortality from accidents and other external causes, which are typically associated with alcoholism."[16]

The rising infant mortality rates in the Soviet Union in the 1970s became the subject of much discussion and debate among Western demographers. The infant mortality rate (IMR) had increased from 24.7 in 1970 to 27.9 in 1974. Some researchers regarded the rise in infant mortality as largely real, a consequence of worsening health conditions and services.[17] Others regarded it as largely an artifact of improved reporting of infant deaths, and found the increases to be concentrated in the Central Asian republics where improvement in coverage and reporting of births and deaths might well have the greatest effect on increasing the published rates.[18]

The rising reported adult mortality and infant mortality was not explained or defended by Soviet officials at the time. Instead, they simply stopped publishing all mortality statistics for ten years. Soviet demographers and health specialists remained silent about the mortality increases until the late 1980s when the publication of mortality data resumed and researchers could delve into the real and artifactual aspects of the reported mortality increases. When these researchers began to report their findings, they accepted the increases in adult male mortality as real and focused their research on explaining its causes and finding solutions.[19] In contrast, investigations of the rise in reported infant mortality concluded that while the reported increases in the IMR were largely an artifact of improved reporting of infant deaths in the Central Asian republics, the actual levels in this region were much higher than had yet been reported officially.[20] In this sense the reported rise in infant mortality in the Soviet Union as a whole was an artifact of improved statistical reporting, but reflected the reality of a much higher actual infant mortality level than had previously been recognized in official statistics.

As the detailed data series that was ultimately published in the late 1980s showed, the reported IMR for the Soviet Union as a whole increased from 24.7 in 1970 to a peak of 31.4 in 1976. After that the IMR gradually decreased and by 1989 it had fallen to 22.7, which was lower than had been reported in any previous year (though close to the figure of 22.9 in 1971).[21] In 1989, the IMR ranged from a low of 11.1 in the Latvian SSR to a high of 54.7 in the Turkmen SSR.[22]

Research conducted subsequent to the dissolution of the Soviet Union revealed that the originally reported mortality rates very substantially underestimated the actual rates, especially for infant mortality. This has been shown for Transcaucasian and Central Asian republics.[23][24]

• Demographics of Central Asia
• Religion in the Soviet Union
• Family in the Soviet Union

1. CIA World Factbook 1991 - most figures, unless attributed to another source.
2. J. A. Newth: The 1970 Soviet Census, Soviet Studies vol. 24, issue 2 (October 1972) pp. 200–222. - Population figures from 1897 - 1970.
3. The Russian State Archive of the Economy: Soviet Censuses of 1937 and 1939 - Population figures for 1937 and 1939. https://web.archive.org/web/20020927142010/http://www.library.yale.edu/slavic/census3739.html