STEPHEN G.WHEATCROFT

SOVIET STATISTICS OF NUTRITION AND MORTALITY

DURING TIMES OF FAMINE

19 17- 1922 and 1931-1933

The Soviet state statistical system was unique. It was created in order to provide the state with a firm statistical basis to undertake ambitious social and economic planning.1 Although the planning process was to be wrecked by the excessive ambitions of the politicians, this was not a reflection of the competence or inventiveness of the planners or statisticians.2 The statisticians repeatedly attempted to impose realism on both the plans of the politicians, and of their views of "reality." The eventual failure of many of the efforts of the statisticians, and their own tragic history should not blind us to the real efforts and achievements of these statisticians in presenting a quite remarkable picture of Soviet reality in the very complicated periods of crisis in the early years of the Revolution and in the early 1930's. Present day historians, demographers and social scientists working on these crises have available a considerable wealth of data that can provide far more detailed pictures of social dynamics in these periods of crisis than are available for any other comparable social crises.

Working under extremely difficult social and political circumstances the Soviet statisticians of the 1920's and early 1930's carried out new and innovative work on a scale previously not attempted. Of course there are difficulties in handling the data that they produced; we have to be aware of the changing political constraints within which these statisticians were working and which finally destroyed them. And we have to be aware of the imperfections and unreliability of any statistical recording system, especially one attempting to record a society undergoing deep crisis. But, given all these shortcomings, the Soviet data of these periods are remarkable for their scope and for the fact that, despite everything, the system did continue to record and present useful indications of the crisis that was unfolding. Of course these indicators are not perfect (no indicators ever are) but they are extremely revealing and they deserve far more serious attention than they have yet received.

We now have two remarkable data sets covering food consumption for two periods of demographic crises; those of the immediate post-revolutionary period with famines and pandemics associated with the Civil War, the northern urban famines of 1 9 1 8- 1 920 and the southern rural famine of 1 92 1 - 1 922. And we now have some quite remarkable data covering the complex of famines of the 1930-1933 period.

Cahiers du Monde russe, 38 (4), octobre-décembre 1997. pp. 525-558.