Estimating Soviet War Losses on the Basis of Soviet Population Censuses

The problem of calculating the Soviet losses in the Second World War has confronted scholars

with potentially insoluble difficulties. Especially in the first year of the war, during the

catastrophic defeats and disorganized retreats, individual records on Soviet military personnel

were either simply not kept, or were lost or destroyed. Even during the war, the Soviet

government criticized the failure to keep casualty lists up to date, and noted that often soldiers

were killed or went missing even before they were formally added to the unit rosters. The Red

Army had no equivalent to the dog tag. Many soldiers, out of superstition, refused to wear the

smertniki – little wooden cases that held identification information on slips of paper – believing

that a wearer was ordained to die. Official estimates to this date, however, appear plainly

understated. The author proposes a new method for estimating the Soviet personnel losses in the

Second World War, based upon the 1939 and 1956 censuses of the Soviet population.

Our estimate of the irrevocable losses of the Red Army in the Great Patriotic War at

around 26,900,000 dead or missing-in-action can be verified by several methods.1 Considering

the fact that the undercount of losses in the skirmishes and smaller battles might have been

smaller, we propose that the overall undercount of the irrecoverable losses, as given in the

official publication Grif sekretnosti sniat [The seal of secrecy has been removed], was at a

minimum three-fold. Its authors, as the head of the Historical-Memorial Center General A.V.

Kirilin acknowledges, worked on the basis of the personnel records on irrecoverable losses as
reported by the various Soviet Fronts.2 However, as the leadership of the People’s Commissariat

of Defense recognized back in April 1942, not more than one-third of the irrecoverable losses

were reflected in casualty lists.3 In Grif sekretnosti sniat, the overall number of irrecoverable

losses, which includes those prisoners and missing-in-action who eventually made their way

back home, was placed at 11,444,000 men. From this total, it is necessary to exclude the

1,658,000 men who died from wounds, diseases and in accidents, or who were executed by

military tribunals or who committed suicide (these losses don’t enter the number of killed-in-

action or missing-in-action).4 If the derived figure is multiplied by 3, and the 2,776,000 prisoners

and missing-in-action who returned are deducted, while the 1,658,000 who died due to wounds,

illness, execution or suicide are added back in, a figure of 28,234,000 Red Army military

personnel who died during the war results. From this number, approximately 250,000 Soviet

military personnel who opted to emigrate should be excluded. The total number of dead then

falls to 27,990,000, which is 1,090,000 more than the number of 26,900,000 dead, which can be

derived from the use of data on the monthly dynamics of combat injuries during the war.5

Let’s check what the size of the undercount of the population should be according to the

1939 Census of the Population, in order to assess the reliability of our estimate of 26,900,000 for

the Red Army’s irrecoverable losses. A diligent analysis of Soviet censuses leads one to the

conclusion that the accuracy of their results gradually increased in the period between 1929 and

1979.6 As the indicator of the level of undercounting of the population, we use the ratio of males

to females in various age groups.

According to the 1926 Census, in the 10-19 age cohort there were 516,155 more females

than males, which amounts to a 3.8 percent larger presence of females in the given category.

We’ll note that if purely biological factors were operational, right up until age 29 this
preponderance of females would have been preserved. Only at age 30 would this female

preponderance disappear. The 10-19 age cohort, that is, people born between 1907 and 1916,

could not have been touched by the First World War or the Russian Civil War and the

repressions connected with them, which is to say, by factors that contribute to a larger female

population relative to males. Thus it can be assumed that the female numerical advantage in the

10-19 age group arises primarily due to the undercounting of the population in the course of the

census. After all, men were marked by greater territorial and social mobility than females, and

thus are less represented in the census.

The 20-29 age cohort in the 1926 Census indicates there were 1,425,832 more females

than males, which is 11.68 percent greater than the number of males in this age category.

However, the effects of the First World War and the Russian Civil War clearly affected the ratio

of males to females in the 25-29 age cohort. Thus we settled upon the disproportion of females in

the 20-24 age group, which was practically unaffected by the First World War and the Russian

Civil War, at least from the point of view of those factors that contribute to the creation of a

disproportionate number of females. Males of these ages had taken practically no part in combat

operations and hadn’t become victims of terror. For this age group, there were 389,000 (5.8

percent) more females than males.

According to the 1939 Census, in the 10-19 age cohort there were 234,030 (1.27 percent)

more females than males. The relative size of this imbalance proves to be 2.4 times less,

according to the results of the 1926 Census. This speaks in favor of the fact that the population

count in 1939 might have been substantially more accurate than in 1926.
 In 1939, there were 455,298 (6.6 percent) more females than males in the 20-24 age

cohort. Thus, the relative size of the disproportion was even a little greater than it was in 1926.

The difference might have been created due to the victims of the 1937-1938 Great Terror, which

may have reduced the number of males in the given age group by 50,000. The presence of such a

1
See Chapter 4, “How to Calculate Human Losses during the Second World War” in Boris Sokolov, The Role of the
Soviet Union in the Second World War: A Re-examination (Solihull, England: Helion & Company, 2012).
2

?
“We … adopted the method of using the reports, which included data on irrecoverable losses, which arrived in

the General Staff every 10 days from the units and formations …. We tabulated altogether 32,800 archives, each of

which contained 2,000-5,000 cases …” Vinogradov M., “Spisok poter’ (“The List of losses”) Profil’, No. 23 (674), 21

June 2010, available on the Internet at the time of writing at

http://www.profile.ru/items/item=30406&page=2&comment=1.

3
Voenno-istoricheskii zhurnal, No. 9 (1992), pp. 28-31.

4
Rossiia I SSSR v voinakh XX veka [Russia and the USSSR in the Wars of the XX Century], p. 237.

5
A. Baierbakh’s critical review of Krivosheev’s Grif sekretnosti sniat and the problems with calculating the losses in

the Great Patriotic War, which appeared on the Internet on 8 April 2010 at http://www.solonin.org/other_a-

bayerbach-grif-sekretnosti also maintains that the number given for Soviet losses in the Great Patriotic War in G.F.

Krivosheev’s book must be increased at a minimum by a multiple of 3. This review is not free of errors, but one can

agree with its criticisms of Grif sekretnosti sniat.

6
The data from the Soviet Union’s population censuses have been taken from the site

http://demoscope.ru/weekly/pril.php#1926, which has reprinted the results from the following sources:

Vsesoiuznaia perepis’ naseleniia 1926 goda [All-Union census of the population 1926] Vol. 9, pp. 122-125; Vol. 10,

pp. 67-77; Vol. 11, pp. 40-51; Vol. 14, pp. 26-37; Vol. 15; pp. 62-73; Vol. 16, pp. 30-37; Vol. 17, pp. 46-49 (Moscow:

Izdanie TsSU Soiuza SSR, 1928-29); Vsesoiuznaia perepis’ naseleiia 1939 (RGAE RF (formerly TsGANX SSSR), F. 1562,
large female preponderance in the 20-24 age cohort points to the fact that even for the 1939

Census there was a significant undercount of the population.

For the 20-29 age cohort, according to the 1939 Census there were 836,396 (5.56

percent) more females than males. The bulk of this disproportion is probably due to an

undercounting of the male population. In the 30-39 age cohort, the female advantage in numbers

reached 817,754 (6.62 percent). Those in this age cohort were born between 1900 and 1909, thus

the First World War could not have influenced the female population, while the influence of the

Russian Civil War was minimal.

According to the 1939 Census, in the 40-49 age cohort, there were 1,216,863 (17.24

percent) more females than males. Here one can plainly see the effects of the First World War

and the Russian Civil War. The comparison of one and the same age groups according to the

1939 and 1959 censuses shows little difference, since in the first case the female preponderance

to a great degree was a consequence of the First World War and the Russian Civil War, while

that in the 1959 census was plainly a result of the Second World War. Thus we are using data

from the 1979 Census, where the consequences of the Second World War were no longer evident

in the 40-49 age cohort. In this case there were 1,411,545 (8.25 percent) more females than

males. This figure can be considered closer to the indicator of a natural female advantage in

numbers in the given age cohort in the absence of any demographic catastrophes. For the 10-19
op. 336, ed. xr. 966-1001 (Reworked Table F. 15A: National composition of the Population of the USSR, republics,

oblasts and districts); Vsesoiuznaia perepis’ naseleniia 1959 goda, Table F. 11: Age structure of the population

(RGAE), F. 1562, op. 336, D. 604, 607, 608; Vsesoiuznaia perepis’ naseleniia 1959, Table 2.5: Distribution of the

entire population by gender and age (RGAE), F. 1562, op.336, d. 1535-1548; Vsesoiuznaia perepis’ naseleniia 1979,

Table 7c: Distribution of the population by gender and age (RGAE RF) F. 1562, op. 336, d. 6126-6140.
age cohort in 1979, there were 968,277 (4.33 percent) more males than females, while for the 20-

29 age cohort, the male advantage in numbers is equal to 272,387 (1.21 percent). Likely, this

same ratio of males to females would have existed in these age cohorts back in 1939, had there

not been an underrepresentation of males in the census. In order to estimate the size of the

underrepresentation of males in the course of the 1939 Census in the 40-49 age cohort, we’ll

attempt to determine the size of the aggregate female (or male) preponderance in the cohorts

between the ages of 10 and 39 in the 1979 Census. It turns out that there were 717,563 (1.17

percent) more males than females in these cohorts. Comparing this indicator with the indicator of

the female preponderance for the 10-39 age cohorts in the 1939 Census, when it amounted to

1,888,180 (4.12%) more females than males. Thus, the greater undercounting of males in 1939

might amount for the 10-39 age cohorts to approximately 5.29 percent. One can assume that in

1939, the undercounting of males in the 40-49 age cohort was approximately equal, or 373,381

males.

However, the undercount of the male population in the 10-49 age cohorts in the 1939

Census was even larger in the majority of regions of the USSR, due to the fact in a number of

Muslim areas, as well as in certain other regions, where there was strong adherence to traditional

religions and traditional ways of life. In those areas, there was a significant overrepresentation of

males in these age cohorts due to the undercounting of females; in fact, the census in these areas

showed that there were significantly more males than females in the 10 to 29 age group. The data

show that the preponderance of females in the population in these regions, as a rule, begins at

age 50. In the given case, it is difficult to believe that the population census in Central Asia and

in the Caucasus was much more accurate than in the other regions of the USSR. The point is that

Muslim men are unwilling to reveal their women to strangers, including census takers, and the
undercounting of females is characteristic for the majority of Islamic countries. For the

Azerbaijan SSR, the numerical advantage of males in the ages from 10 to 49 amounted to

107,519, for the Armenian SSR (in the ages between 10 and 39 years), there were 11,493 more

males than females; for the Turkmen SSSR – 42,782; for the Uzbek SSR – 206,736; for the

Tadzhik SSR – 60,014; for the Kazakh SSR – 267,001; and for the Kirghiz SSR – 30,648. In

addition this numerical preponderance of males held true in the Kizliar District in present-day

Stavropol’ Region of the RSFSR, with 3,723 males than females in the younger age groups. For

the Aginsky National District of Chita Oblast (in the 10 to 39 age group) there were 945 more

males than females; for the Buriat-Mongol ASSR (in the 20 to 49 age group – 11,787 more

males; for the Dagestan ASSR (in the 10 to 39 age group) – 8,945 more males; for the Kalmyk

ASSR – 3,842 more males; for the Republic of Volga Germans (in the 10 to 39 age group) –

5,945 more males; for the Chechen-Ingush ASSR (in the 10 to 39 age group) – 7,625 more

males. Finally, for the native population of the Yakut ASSR (Yakuts and other peoples of the

north), the numerical preponderance of males over females, in our estimate, amounted to 9,159.

Altogether in the 10 to 49 age group for the Yakut ASSR, there were 30,526 more males than

females (a female advantage in this ratio in 1939 began only from the age of 97). However, for

the non-native population, this numerical imbalance in favor of males was not the result of an

undercounting of females, but instead the real presence of many more males engaged in the hunt

for gold in Yakutia. Interestingly, as a consequence of the enormous losses of the male

population in the course of the Great Patriotic War, after the war it was necessary to create prison

camps in Yakutia in order to supply the gold mines and other mines of precious gems and

minerals with a labor force. Even so, the first prisoners appeared in Yakutia back in 1940-1941

in connection with the start of road building and the mining of tin ore in the area.
 If you take data from the 1959 Census of the Population, then we’ll see that for

Azerbaijan and the other republics of Central Asia, the male advantage in numbers in the 10 to

29 age group decreased or the ratio even shifted to more females than males. For example, in

Azerbaijan in the 20 to 29 age group, there were 4.95 percent more females than males, while in

1939 there had been 12.25 percent more males than females in this age cohort. In addition, in the

10-19 age cohort the size of the numerical preponderance of males fell from 14.8 percent in 1939

to 4.26 percent in 1959. For the Turkmen SSR, there were 14.31 percent more males in the 10-19

age cohort than females in 1939, whereas in 1959 there were 12.45 percent more males than

females. But for the 20 to 29 age group the ratio between the sexes where there were 11.29

percent more males than females in 1939 was replaced by a ratio where there were 3.38 percent

more females than males. For the Uzbek SSR, in 1939 there were 10.32 percent more males than

females in the 10-19 age cohort, and 6.11 percent more males than females in the 20-29 age

cohort. In 1959, the male numerical advantage in the 10-19 age cohort dropped insignificantly, to

10.19 percent more males than females. However, in the 20-29 age cohort, the ratio reversed and

there were now 7.54 percent more females than males. In the Tadzhik SSR in 1939, there were

18.75 percent more males than females in 10-19 age cohort, and 9.24 percent more males than

females in the 20-29 age cohort. The male advantage in numbers amounted to 18.47 percent in

1959 in the 10-19 age cohort, but here too the ratio was reversed in the 20-29 age cohort, and

there were now 11.96 percent more females than males. In the Kirghiz SSR in 1939, the male

advantage in numbers in the 10-19 age cohort amounted to 7.36 percent, and 0.69 percent in the

20-29 age cohort. In 1959, this indicator remained almost unchanged in the 10-19 age cohort, as

there was still 7.64 percent more males than females, but there were now 6.5 percent more

females than males in the 20-29 age cohort. In the Kazakh SSR in 1939, the male advantage in
numbers in the 10-19 age cohort equaled 3.13 percent, and in the 20-29 age cohort – 26.92

percent. Here, the male advantage in numbers grew to 6.22 percent by 1959, although in the 20-

29 age cohort, it fell to 6.22 percent. These numbers reflect the fact that in the course of the 1959

Census, the accuracy of the population count increased substantially in comparison with the 1939

Census.

In total for the 1939 Census, in the 10-49 age cohort, there were 778,164 more males than

females in the Islamic and other traditional areas of the USSR. For us it is important that the

female advantage in numbers in the 10-49 age cohort in the other regions of the USSR, which

was created as a result of the undercount of males, be increased by this number.

According to the data of the 1959 Census, in the 10-19 age cohort, there were 323,499

(2.01 percent) more males than females. However, in the 20-29 age cohort, a female

preponderance in numbers was observed, which equaled 577,261, or 3.04% more females than

males. These age categories were not affected by the influence of the Second World War, thus

the decrease in the relative size of the female advantage in numbers by 1.83 times in the 20-29

age cohort and the replacement of the female advantage in numbers by a more natural population

preponderance of males in the 10-19 age cohort, which signified a decrease in the relative size of

the female population by 2.58 times, gives evidence of a significant increase in the accuracy of

the population count in comparison with the 1939 Census. Indeed, there is nothing surprising

about this. The 1939 Census was conducted immediately after the peak of Stalin’s repressions

had passed. In the decree of the USSR Council of People’s Commissars dated 26 June 1938 “On

the All-Union 1939 Census of the Population”, it is stated on page 15 that citizens who declined

to give responses to the census questions or who knowingly gave false information should be put

prosecuted. However, this also immediately might have become another reason to avoid
meetings with a census taker. In contrast, the 1959 Census of the Population was conducted at

the height of the “Khrushchev Thaw”, at a time when people’s fears in response to the Stalinist

era had significantly weakened. People now had much less justification to avoid contacts with

the government. Moreover, the gradual expansion of the pension system and of other social

benefits, and the initiation of large-scale housing construction prompted people more actively to

register themselves with government organs. In addition, the education level of the population

had increased, and correspondingly, so had the training of the census takers.

If we take men who were part of the main age contingents that took part in the Second

World War, then in 1939 they would have been between 10 and 49 years of age, and in 1959, 30

to 69 years of age. As a result of the war, the number of males fell sharply. In addition, a

significant portion of the war veterans in 1959 had moved into older age contingents, in which

people have much less territorial mobility and are much more willing to register themselves.

Thus it is possible to assume with no great sin that the entire undercount of the men of conscript

age, evident in the overrepresentation of females, fully explains the difference in the accuracy of

the counts of these contingents by the 1939 and 1959 censuses.

Thus, in the 10-19 age cohort, the difference in the higher undercount of males between

the 1939 and 1959 censuses in this contingent can be estimated as 3.28 percent in 1939, or

604,400 males, and 2.52 percent in the 20-29 age cohort, or 1,293,700. For the 30-39 age cohort,

the female preponderance in numbers in 1939, as we’ve already established, amounted to 6.62

percent. In 1959, however, the larger number of females in this category was formed primarily

by the effects of the Second World War. Therefore we’ll take the data of the 1979 Census for a

comparison. In that year, in the 30-39 age cohort there were 523,101 (3.52 percent) more females

than males. Assuming that the relative size of the numerical preponderance of females in the
given age category would have been the same in 1959, if the effects of the Second World War

had been avoided, the size of the female numerical advantage in 1939, caused by the difference

in the accuracy of the census count of the male population between 1939 and 1959, in this age

cohort can be estimated 382,936 (or 3.1 percent). We mustn’t forget that the undercount of the

male population for the 1939 Census in the 40-49 age cohort was previously estimated by us as

373,381 (5.29 percent). There is also the size of the overrepresentation of males in the Muslim

and other areas, which we have maintained is 778,164. Thus, the total heightened undercount of

the male population in the 1939 Census, established on the basis of the overrepresentation of

females, we estimate as 3,432,600.

However, this number is also affected by the Great Terror of 1937-1938, when

approximately 681,692 people, primarily men, were sentenced to be shot. Data on the age and

gender structure of this contingent is lacking. However, we will extrapolate on the basis of those

victims of the terror who are buried at the Butovo firing range. Altogether, 20,761 people were

shot and buried here, of which 19,903 (96 percent) were male, and 858 (4 percent) were female.

If we assume a similar gender ratio holds for all the victims of the 1937-1938 terror, then the

share of males would approximately equal 625,400. However, people 50 years of age and older

were also shot. Individuals born in 1870 or earlier comprise a total of 342 (1.69 percent) of the

20,222 people, for whom we have data on their ages. In addition, 524 people born in 1888 were

executed, or 2.6 percent of the total number, more than 1,200 people born between 1884 and

1887 were shot, or more than 5.9 percent.7 If it is assumed that on average no less than 1 percent

of the victims were born in each of the years 1871-1883, as well as in 1889, the total share of

terror victims who were born prior to 1890 can be estimated as 24.2 percent. To these, one can

add the approximately 151,300 males among all the victims of 1937-1938. In this case,
approximately 474,100 males, who in 1939 would have been in the 10-49 age cohort, were

among those who were executed.

In addition, in the years 1930 to 1936, another 40,137 people were sentenced to be shot,

including 30,852 people in the years 1930-1931.8 Among these victims there might have been a

significant number of males, who in 1939 would have been 30 to 49 years of age. Their share

might have been a third less than the share of males in the 20-49 age cohort among the victims of

the repressions of 1937-1938, which is to say a total of approximately 46 percent of all those

executed, which yields the male share of approximately 18,500 men. Then the overall

undercount of males in the cohorts between the ages of 10 and 49, determined on the basis of the

female share, can be estimated at 2,940,000.

The population of the territories that were annexed by the Soviet Union in 1939-1940,

was estimated in June 1941 to be 23,501,000 at the beginning of 1940 (including the

approximately 31,000 residents who remained on the territory of Finland that was annexed by

the USSR in March 1940).9 How this estimate was made is still unclear. It should also be kept in

mind that the Moldavia ASSR, which became part of the Moldavia SSR, prior to July 1940 had

been part of the Ukraine SSR. According to the data of the 1939 Census of the Population, the

population of the Moldavia ASSR amounted to 599,156. Considering that in 1940 the population
7
Calculations of V.N. Sachkov in his article “Kogo rasstreliali na Butovskom poligone”, available on the Internet at

time of writing at http://libelli.ru/works/but_pol.htm. The calculation was based on data for the Butovo firing

range, 1937-1938, as found in Kniga pamiati zhertv politicheskix repressii [Book of remembrance of the victims of

political repressions] Edition 1-7 (Moscow: Obshchestvo “Memorial”, 1997-2003).

8
Available on the Internet at time of writing at: http://www.rusarchives/events/exhibitions/xx_f/70.shtml.
growth rate of the USSR equaled 1.4 percent10, and assuming that it had been the same in 1939,

but the beginning of 1939, the total population of the annexed territories might be estimated at

23,176,500, but excluding the population of the Moldavia SSR – at 22,577,300.

The number of males in the 10-49 age cohorts, according to the 1939 Census, equaled

52,900,711. There are no data on the size of the male population of these ages on the territories

that were annexed in 1939-1940. If we assume that it amounted to approximately the same

proportion of the entire population on the territory of the USSR within its borders at the

beginning of 1939 (which numbered 170,557,100 people at that time), then the number of males

in the age cohorts between the ages of 10 and 49 at the beginning of 1939 on the territories that

were soon to be annexed by the USSR can be estimated as 7,002,600. If we also assume that the

underrepresentation of males on the annexed territories was approximately the same as on the

main territory of the USSR, then the number of males in the 10-49 age cohort of the population

of the annexed territories should be increased by another 389,200 males. An indication that there

was a significant undercounting of the population of the annexed territories in 1941 can be the

fact that a second variant of the calculation for the population size of the Moldavia SSR put the

republic’s population at 2,515,700, which was 108,900, or 4.52 percent more than the initial

calculation, which was included in the composite table.11

9
Calculation by V.S. Kozhurin in “O chislennosti naseleniia SSSR nakanune Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny

(Neizvestnye dokumenty)” [“On the size of the population of the USSR on the eve of the Great Patriotic War

(Unknown documents)”, Voenno-istoricheskii zhurnal, no. 2 (1991), pp. 24-26.

10
Ibid., p. 23.
 Thus, at the beginning of 1939 the total number of males in the ages between 10 and 49

on the territory of the USSR within its borders on 22 June 1941 can be estimated as 63,232,500.

According to the data of the 1959 Census of the Population, the number of males between the

ages of 30 and 69, that is to say, those cohorts that had been most subjected to call-ups during the

war, equaled 32,857,854. However, it is necessary to consider that between 1941 and 1959,

certain changes in the Soviet borders took place. In October 1944, the previously formerly

independent Tuva People’s Republic became part of the USSR. The population of Tuva in 1941

amounted to a little more than 80,000, but by the beginning of 1944, it had grown to 96,000. The

bulk of the conscripts from this republic came from the 12,000 Soviet citizens that were living in

Tuva. The overwhelming majority of these were Russian and representatives of other Soviet

nationalities. In addition, 220 Tuva men and men of other native peoples of Tuva voluntarily

went to the front. Altogether, approximately 8,000 Tuva residents served at the front.

Approximately half of these men were killed, including 69 of the Tuva volunteers.12 The

population of the Tuva Autonomous Oblast in 1959 was 171,900; the share of males in the 30-69

11
Ibid., p. 26.

12
D. Oiun, “Vera i Kyrgys: Puteshestvie v proshloe” [“Faith and the Kirgiz: A journey into the past” Tsentr Azii, No.

19 (13-20 May 2005). Available at time of writing at http://centerasia.ru/issue/2005/117-

vera_i_Kyrgys_puteshestvie_v_proshloe.html. Also I. Klinbain, “Za drugi svoia” [“For my friend”] Natsional’ny

aktsent, No. 57 (January 21, 2010): Appendix to the weekly Argumenty nedeli (available at time of writing at

http://www.nazaccent.ru/pubs/pb10131163751.htm); Iu. Aranchyn and N. Mollerov, “K 60-letiiu Velikoi

Otechestvennoi Pobedy. Vklad Tuvy” [“On the 60th Anniversary of the Great Patriotic Victory: Tula’s Contribution”]

Novye issledovaniia Tuvy (http://www.tuva.asia/project.html); Kommersant-Vlast’, 30 May 2005 (Letters to the

editor) (http://www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=581324).
age cohorts equaled 25,700. The size of the male population of the USSR in 1959 in the

corresponding age cohorts should be reduced by this amount for a proper comparison with 1939.

In addition, in November 1945 the Trans Carpathian Ukraine joined the USSR. In 1959,

the population of the Trans Carpathian Oblast of the Ukraine equaled 920,200; of this number,

161,200 were males between the ages of 30 and 69. The number of males in the USSR in 1959 in

the corresponding cohorts should also be reduced by this amount for a proper comparison with

1939. It is worth noting that during the war years, a “voluntary mobilization” of the population of

the Trans Carpathian region into the Red Army took place. In addition, some of the natives of the

Trans Carpathian region were mobilized into the Hungarian Army.

The inclusion of Kaliningrad Oblast, Southern Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands, as well as

Petsaamo (Pechengi) in the USSR in 1944-1946 had practically no influence on the demographic

balance, since almost all of the German, Japanese and Finnish populations were repatriated,

while among those few that remained, there were no individuals of draft age. In 1944-1951, there

occurred an exchange of territories and population between the USSR and Poland. As a result,

the areas of Peremyshl’, Sanok and Bialystok were transferred to Poland. Considering that the

population of Bialystok Oblast at the beginning of 1940 had been estimated at 1,348,300, that up

to 60,000 residents were living in Peremyshl’ and its surrounding area and up to 40,000 people

were living in Sanok, at the beginning of 1939 the population of these areas could be estimated at

1,400,000. In addition, in 1945-1946 518,000 people moved from Poland to the USSR, while

1,090,000 moved from the USSR to Poland. In 1946, 24,000 people moved from Czechoslovakia

to the Soviet Union, while 33,000 people moved in the opposite direction. In addition,

approximately 14,000 Jews of Bessarabia and Bukovina were repatriated to Romania. As well,

approximately 100,000 people left the Soviet Union for Poland in the years 1956-1958.13 With
regard for these exchanges of population and territory, the size of the Soviet population by the

beginning of 1959 had decreased by approximately 1,100,000 people.

Significant groups of Russian emigrants were forcibly or voluntarily repatriated to the

USSR from the countries of Europe and from China – up to 50,000 people. In addition, up to

250,000 Armenians voluntarily returned to the Motherland.14 On the other hand, approximately

620,000 former Soviet prisoners of war and Soviet civilians who had been forcibly put to work

in Germany, as well as those who had left together with the German Army, preferred to remain

in the West.15 For this reason, the population of the USSR in comparison with the pre-war time

should be reduced by another 320,000 people.

The overall decrease in the population of the USSR in comparison with the 1939 Census

due to the changes in the postwar borders and emigration can be placed at around 1,400,000. The

number of males in the 30 to 69 age group in 1959 for this aggregate can be estimated at around

237,000. The estimate of the size of the male population in the 30 to 69 age group in 1959 should

be adjusted by this amount.

13
P. Polian, “Optatsii: s kem i kodga v XX veke Rossiia obmenivalas’ naseleniem” [“Citizen choices: With whom and

when in the XX Century did Russia exchange population?”] in O. Glezer and P. Polian (eds.), Rossiia i ee regiony v XX

veke: territoriia – rasselenie – migratsii [Russia and its regions in the XX century: territory – resettlements –

migrations (Moscow: OGI, 2005), pp. 536-544.

14
Pochemu my vernulis’ na Rodinu [Why we returned to the Motherland] (Moscow, 1983), p. 96.

15
V.N. Zemskov, “Repatriatsiia i vtoraia volna emigratsii” [“Repatriation and the second wave of emigration”]

Rodina, No. 6-7 (1991), p. 111.

 Now it is necessary to estimate the size of the excess mortality that fell upon those

civilians during the war years, which in 1939 were between 10 and 49 years of age. The excess

mortality of prisoners in the Soviet GULAG in the war years (in comparison with the pre-war

1940 level) amounted to at least 391,000 people.16 The share of women in the GULAG in the war

years increased from 7 percent to 26 percent due to the mobilization of male prisoners into the

army.17 Incidentally, not less than 975,000 prisoners as well as 117,000 prison camp guards were

ultimately sent to the front.18 It isn’t clear whether these 1,092,000 men were included by the

authors of the book Grif sekretnosti sniat in the total number of those mobilized into the Red

Army. The average share of females among the prisoners that died in the GULAG during the war

can be estimated at 11.5 percent, or 45,000. The share of males of draft age in the excess

mortality in the jails and prison camps should be less than the share of males of this age group in

the total number of those executed in 1937-1938, since among the latter the share of women was

lower, and the share of those at the beginning of 1939 who would have been 10 to 49 years of

age was greater. After all, in the war years many prisoners were drafted into the army, which

significantly increased the share of prisoners who were not of draft age in the population of the

prison camps. Thus the total share of males of draft age in the excess mortality of the GULAG
16
V.N. Zemskov, “GULAG (Istoriko-sotsiologicheskii aspect) [“The GULAG (Historical-Sociological Aspect)”],

Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia, No. 6 (1991), p. 14.

17
V.A. Pron’ko and V.N. Zemskov, “Vklad zakliuchennykh GULAGa v pobedu v Velikoi Otechestvennoi voine”

[“Contribution of GULAG prisoners to the victory in the Great Patriotic war”] Novaia i noveishaia istoriia, No. 5

(1996), p. 134.

18
Ibid.
can be estimated at 75 percent of the total number of males that died, which is to say

approximately 260,000.

Altogether between 1941 and 1945, 476,615 people were sentenced for

counterrevolutionary crimes, of which approximately 42,139 received death sentences (this does

not include people that were sentenced to death by military tribunals in the Acting Army).19

Probably, not less than 40,000 death sentences were issued during wartime. Three-quarters of

those, possibly, were given to males of draft age, which amounts to around 30,000 men.

The direct losses due to the deportations of approximately 2,300,000 Germans, Finns,

Karachevs, Kalmyks, Chechens, Ingush, Balkarians, Crimean Tatars and Crimean Greeks,

Bulgarians, Turks and Iranians can be estimated at 500,000 people.20 Since primarily elderly

people, women and children were among those nationalities forcibly deported by Stalin, the

share of males of draft age could hardly be more than one-fifth among those who died during

deportation, which is equal to around 100,000 men.

19
“Spravka o kolichestve osuzhdennykh po delam NKVD-MGB-MVD 1939-1953, 11 dekabria 1953” [“Briefing on

the number of people convicted by the NKVD – MGB – MVD 1939-1953, 11 December 1953”] Istoriko-

dokumental’naia vystavka “XX s’ezd KPSS: Preodolenie …”, Russian Archives, available at time of writing at

http://www.rusarchives.ru/events/exhibitions/xx_f/68.shtml.

20
P.M. Polian, Ne po svoei vole … [Not at their own will …] (Moscow: Ob’edinennoe gumanitarnoe izdatel’stvo,

2000), p. 239. Polian, “Demograficheskie poteri deportirovannykh narodov SSSR” [“Demographic losses of the

deported peoples of the USSSR”] Polit.ru, 27 February 2004; available at time of writing at

http://www.polit.ru/research/2004/02.27/demoscope147.html.
 The number of civilian males of draft age who died under German occupation should also

be estimated. The most widely distributed figure for the number of civilian Soviet Jews that were

destroyed by the Nazis is 1,500,000. Considering that the overwhelming majority of the victims

of the Holocaust, just as in the case of the deportation of “punished peoples” conducted by the

NKVD, were women, children and the elderly, one can assume that the share of draft age males

could hardly have exceeded 20 percent, or 300,000. The number of Gypsy victims of the

genocide conducted by the Nazis can be estimated as 30,000 on Soviet territory. Among these,

perhaps up to 10,000 were Gypsy males of draft age.

We estimate that the total losses of the Soviet partisans in killed and missing-in-action in

the war was not less than 100,000.21 Possibly, the losses of the collaborating formations opposing

them were the same. We’ll assume that half of the killed partisans never served in the Red Army,

and the number of the collaborationists killed in battle who never served in the Red Army was

approximately the same. With these estimate, it is possible to place the victims of the combat

operations in the occupied territories among the men of draft age at around 100,000. It is possible

as well to assume that the irrecoverable losses of the troops of the Polish Armia Krajowa and of

the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, as well as those of the anti-Soviet partisan movement in the

Baltics, who were living on Soviet territory on 22 June 1941 and who never subsequently served

in the Red Army, amounted to a total of no less than 100,000 men in the years of the Second

World War and the postwar years. It is very difficult to estimate the number of victims of the

German and Soviet punitive expeditions among men of draft age, who never served in the Red

Army and never took direct part in combat operations. We’ll assume that they were, at a
21
See B.M Sokolov, Front za liniei fronta: Partizanskaia voina 1939-1945 [Front behind the front line: Partisan war

of 1939-1945] (Moscow: Veche, 2008), p. 119-120.

minimum, not less than the number of killed Soviet partisans, which is to say, around 100,000

men. Thus, the total number of victims of violent deaths among men of draft age who never

served in the Red Army, having summed the excess mortality in the GULAG, the Holocaust and

in the partisan struggle can be placed at around 1,100,000 men. The total number of the draft-age

contingents according to the 1939 Census of the Population should be reduced by this number.

Males, who at the moment of conducting the 1939 Census, comprised the 10-49 age

cohort, died not only in the Great Patriotic War, but also in the two armed conflicts that preceded

it – the clashes with the Japanese at Khalkin Gol in May – September 1939, and the Soviet war

with Finland from November 1939 to March 1940. At Khalkin Gol, Soviet losses amounted to

9,703 in killed and mortally wounded, missing-in-action, and those who died of illness or in

accidents.22 In the Winter War with Finland, the Red Army lost approximately 164,300 men

killed-in-action.23 It is necessary to reduce further the number of the male population of draft age

according to the 1939 Census of the Population by these figures, which amount to 174,000.

22
Rossiia i SSSR v voinakh XX veka: Poteri vooruzhenykh sil – Stataticheskoe issledovanie [Russia and the USSR in

the wars of the XX century: Losses of the Armed Forces – a Statistical study] (Moscow: Olma-Press, 2001), p. 179.

23
P.A. Aptekar’, “Opravdany li zhertvy?” [“Were the sacrifices justified?”] Voenno-istoricheskii zhurnal, No. 3

(1992), pp. 43-45. In the books that recorded the Red Army’s irrecoverable losses in the Soviet-Finnish War, one

can find the names of 131,476 Red Army soldiers and officers that were killed in the war. However, according to

P.A. Aptekar’, the names of approximately 20 percent of the killed, which were identified as such in the rosters of

the units and in the initial casualty reports, cannot be found in these books. With this adjustment, we estimate the

total number of killed as 164, 300.

 It should be considered that a large number of women served in the Red Army in the

years of the Great Patriotic War. Not less than 800,000 women were called up as volunteers for

the Red Army, and many subsequently served in combat units as pilots, anti-aircraft gunners,

snipers, machine gunners, submachine gunners or on mortar crews.24 In addition, in the final

stage of the war, women from liberated territories and from among the “Ostarbeiters” [East

workers] were mobilized into the Red Army. Likely, a total number of no less than 1,000,000

women served in the Red Army, of which up to 100,000 might have been killed in action or died

of illnesses or in German captivity. V.S. Mumantsev also assumes that more than 1,000,000

women served in the Red Army.25 In Memorial’s Ob’edinennnaia banka dannykh [OBD –

Consolidated Data Base of irrecoverable losses, queries regarding the feminine forms of the most

widely distributed Russian surnames like “Ivanova”, “Smirnova”, “Kuznetsova” and others will

generate 50 or even 100 entries (the latter is the maximum number of entries that the computer

program can generate in response to a single query).26 Of course, the data base does contain

double entries. In addition, in the data base one sometimes comes across “East workers” that

were buried in Germany, and who never served in the Red Army. There is no doubt that the

number of female service personnel who gave their lives in the war numbers in the tens of

thousands. Taking into account the losses among women, the total number of Red Army men

who were killed in the war should be reduced to 26,800,000.

24
A. Shneer, Plen [Imprisonment], Vol. 1 (Jerusalem, 2003), p. 297.

25
V.S. Murmantseva, Sovetskie zhenshchiny v Velikoi Otechestvennoi voine 1941-1945 [Soviet women in the Great

Patriotic War 1941-1945] (Moscow: Mysl’, 1979), pp. 269-270.

26
Available at time of writing at http://www.obd-memorial.ru.
 Now it is necessary to estimate the portion of men in the 10-49 age cohort in 1939 that

might have died of natural causes before the beginning of 1959. We will use the naturally

expected death rate for the given age cohorts over the selected period, using the age coefficients

of mortality for 1938-1939 and for 1958-1959 in order to obtain an approximate number.27 For

this number of the male population, we will multiply each of the age cohorts by the average

mortality rate for the given age cohort in the period between 1938 and 1959, and this multiply it

by the number of years in the period (20). For males in the 10-19 age cohort, which numbered

approximately 21,714,000, the expected natural mortality over the period is approximately

equivalent to 1,194,300. For the 20-29 age cohort, which numbered approximately 18,598,900

males, this indicator amounts to approximately 1,441,000 natural deaths. For the approximately

14,620,000 males in the 30-39 age cohort, the expected mortality over the period equals

approximately 1,535,100. Finally, for the 40-49 age cohort, in which males numbered

approximately 8,763,100, the natural mortality rate produces a figure of approximately 1,384,600

natural deaths. In the aggregate, the natural mortality for men in the 10-49 age group in the

period between 1939 and 1959 can be estimated at 5,555,400. However, the given number is a

substantial overstatement of the real number of natural deaths, since men of draft age because of

the start of the Second World War had a much smaller chance to die due to natural causes, than

could be estimated on the basis of pre-war theoretical calculations. As we’ve already established,

among males between the ages of 10 and 49, approximately 28,100,000 had already died by the

middle of 1945 not due to natural causes, but violently in the war. These men amount to

approximately 44.4 percent of the total number of males in the 10-49 age cohort. Thus the

27
B. Ts. Urlanis (ed.), Narodonaselenie stran mira: Spravochnik [Population of the world’s countries: A Handbook]

(Moscow: Statistika, 1974), p. 134.

amount of natural mortality between 1939 and 1959 must be decreased, according to the given

proportion, down to 3,088,800 males.

Now we’ll attempt to sum up the balance. Due to the difference between the number of

males of 10 to 49 years of age in 1939 and of this same contingent in 1959, one must exclude

those males that died in the 1939 – 1959 period not as part of the Soviet Armed Forces during

the Great Patriotic War, as well as those who were killed in the fighting at Khalkin Gol and

during the Winter War with Finland. In addition, it is necessary to take into account the males of

that age group who emigrated or were transferred to other nations with changes in the national

borders. Thus the total number of Red Army military personnel in the 10-49 age cohort of the

1939 Census who died during the war can be estimated at 26,062,100.

For the completeness of the calculations, the estimate of approximate 26 million Soviet

soldiers and officers who were killed during the Second World War must be reduced by the

losses of the Tuva and Trans Carpathian populations, as well as by the deaths of those of the 10-

49 age cohort too young or too old to have served in the Red Army.

One can determine the real ages of those males that were called up into the Red Army,

using Memorial’s Consolidated Database. Thus, to the query “Ivanov, born 1930”, the

Consolidated Database produced 12 entries, of which 2 actually proved to be Red Army men,

who were killed or went missing-in-action between 1942 and 1944. To the query “Ivanov, born

1889”, Memorial’s Consolidated Database returns 53 cases, including 36 military servicemen,

including 2 senior officers and 1 junior officer, while “Ivanov, born 1888” yields 39 entries, of

which not less than 23 were men who served in the Red Army and who were killed or went

missing-in-action, including 2 officers. Ivanovs with the 1887 year of birth are represented in the
database by 32 cases, 20 of which proved to be Red Army privates who were killed or went

missing-in-action, and one – a senior officer who was killed. The 1886 year of birth is

represented by 10 cases with the Ivanov surname, of which 7 were Red Army men. The year

1885 has 17 Ivanovs, of which 8 were Red Army men who were killed or went missing-in-action

during the war, and 2 were officers. The query “Ivanov, born 1884” produces 14 entries, which

includes 4 Red Army men who were killed or went missing-in-action. Of the Ivanovs with the

1883 year of birth, one proved to be a Red Army man who went missing-in-action, while

Ivanovs with the 1882 year of birth has two such cases. The eldest of the Ivanovs proved to be

Red Army man Fedor Ivanovich Ivanov, who was born in 1876 in the village of Bolshoe

Kolotivo, Porkhovsky District, Leningrad Oblast, who was called up by Leningrad’s Kirov

Regional Enlistment Committee, and who died of disease in a hospital on 13 March 1942.

Incidentally, at the end of October 2010, there were 313 individual entries in the

Consolidated Database who were born in 1876, of which at least 37 were privates or sergeants in

the Red Army who were killed or went missing in the war, and 3 were officers, including one

major. It must be stated about many of the individuals that were born in 1876, just as about

others of older ages, which are buried in Austria or Germany, it is impossible to say with

confidence whether they were prisoners of war or “Ostarbeiters”. Therefore it can’t be excluded

that even in the Consolidated Database, there are substantially more cases of those Red Army

men, who were born prior to 1890, who died in German captivity. There are even more

individual cases in the Consolidate Database of men born in 1875 – 328, among which, however,

are many who were killed in the First World War or the Russian Civil War. Of those born in

1875 in the database, at a minimum there were 29 men, including 3 officers, who were killed or

missing-in-action as part of the Red Army. There are 261 individual cases with 1874 birth years,
but among the killed are primarily senior officers. For those with earlier years of birth, there are

251 for 1873, 196 for 1872, 159 for 1871, and 145 for 1870. The Consolidated Database contains

97 entries with the 1869 year of birth, 100 with the 1868 year of birth, and 82 with an 1867 year

of birth. Of these latter, 3 of those killed in action proved to be Red Army privates, and one – an

officer who died. For the 94 entries that were born in 1866, 5 belonged to men who went missing

or were killed in action during the war, and one case was a female Red Army member who was

killed during the war. For the 61 cases with a birth year of 1865, only one was a Red Army man.

However, for 1864 there were 84 entries, 4 were Red Army rank and file who were killed in the

war, and 1 was an officer. For 1863, only 8 cases could be found, though the 1863 year of birth

for all of them was under question (the year 1864 was the alternative). Not a single one of them

served in the Red Army. Yet for the year 1862, of the 35 cases, one was a junior officer who died

in German captivity, and one was an unknown serviceman who went missing in action. Of the 41

cases born in 1861, one was Senior Sergeant Sergei Fedorovich Sarychev, who was killed on 11

December 1941 and who is buried in the village of Sokol in Vologda Oblast. Since I was unable

to find a single member of the Red Army among any of the 63 cases born in 1860, S.F. Sarychev

is likely the oldest Red Army serviceman killed in the Great Patriotic War.

Of course, the irrecoverable losses in these elderly age groups were incomparable to

those suffered by those age groups most subject to the draft. For example, Memorial’s

Consolidated Database produces an excessive number of queries for the surname “Ivanov” with

years of birth between 1920 and 1924 – up to 1,000, but only 83 entries for the same family

name with a birth year of 1928, and just 24 entries for “Ivanov, born 1929”. However, it is

interesting that in the latter case, of the 24 entries, 12 are Red Army soldiers who were killed or

went missing in action, and one is for an officer – Junior Lieutenant Vladimir Illarionovixh
Ivanov, the commander of a machine gun platoon of the 226th Guards Rifle Division’s 985th

Rifle Regiment who was killed on 29 January 1944. At the moment of his death, he was just 14

years old, and possibly he is the youngest officer in the Red Army who was killed in battle.

Thus, the number of victims among those born in 1929 is by an order of magnitude greater than

among those born in 1930, which makes the inclusion of the cohorts of those born between 1925

and 1929 into the draft-age contingents justified.

Incidentally, for Ivanovs born in 1927, Memorial’s Consolidated Database contains 275

entries. It contains 115 entries for Petrovs born in that same year, and 105 for Kuznetsovs.

Something that is even more interesting is the fact that more than 1,000 individuals born

in 1889 show up in the Consolidated Database, which means that their total number cannot be

established with the help of the computerized version of the program. The same is also true for

the years 1886-1888. Only for the birth year of 1885 does the number of entries in the database

(980) fall below 1,000. For the birth years 1883 and 1884, this indicator again exceeds 1,000. For

the birth year 1882, it amounts to 997, and only for the birth year 1881 does this indicator

sharply fall to 685.

At the other end of the age spectrum, the number of cases in the Consolidated Database

also reaches 1,000 for those born in 1930. For the birth year 1931, this indicator drops to 726,

and the overwhelming majority of these cases were either individuals among the Ostarbeiters

who died, or military servicemen who were killed already after the Second World War.

However, there are among those with a birth year of 1931 a certain number of boys who’d

become adopted by combat regiments – orphans, which the Red Army soldiers looked after, or

the sons of senior officers and generals, who fought alongside their fathers.
 That such a significant number, relative to other armies, of elderly men or, in contrast,

adolescents and boys in the Red Army is likely explained by the fact that many were ready to

volunteer to join the army for the sake of obtaining rations. In addition, during mobilizations,

anyone capable of holding a weapon were taken directly into the units, including individuals not

of draft age, and as the Red Army advanced into Eastern Europe and Germany, many of the

Ostarbeiters were swept into the ranks as well.

The cited data permit one to assume that the irrecoverable losses of draftees of ages

outside the birth years of 1890 to 1929 can in aggregation reach several tens of thousands,

considering that the losses among those born in 1930, as well as those born between 1882 and

1889 are statistically significant. Naturally, draftees of these contingents relatively rarely wound

up at the front. They typically served in the rear services. Thus, the share of irrecoverable losses

among them was significantly smaller that among those of the main draft-eligible ages. The total

number of individuals outside of the draft age cohorts might reach the several hundreds of

thousands, including those taken directly into combat units during mobilization drives, those

liberated Ostarbeiters that were mobilized for the Red Army, as well as those in the people’s

militia divisions, where there were quite a few individuals of senior ages. This factor

substantially increased the USSR’s capability to find recruits for the Red Army.

The number of military servicemen of the Trans Carpathian region that were killed can be

estimated, based on the fact that at the moment of the start of the “voluntary” mobilization of

Trans Carpathian residents into the Red Army, the area’s population might have amounted to

850,000 to 900,000.28 A certain number of local residents were called up into the Hungarian

28
In 1939, I.V. Stalin estimated that 800,000 people were living in the Trans Carpathian region. See I.V. Stalin,
Voprosy leninizma [Questions of Leninism], 11th Ed. (Moscow, 1939), p. 511.
Army, but among these, the number of those killed or missing-in-action could hardly exceed

several thousand. The population of the Trans Carpathian region comprised less than one-

fifteenth of Hungary’s total population. At the same time, the Ukrainians that made up most of

the Trans Carpathian population were almost never called up into the Hungarian Army due to

their suspect loyalty. Meanwhile, Hungarians comprised no more than one-fourth of the Trans

Carpathian population, and they could have suffered no more than one-sixtieth of Hungary’s

irrecoverable losses, which amounted to around 160,000. Of this number, up to 3,000 could have

been residents of the Trans Carpathian region. The population of this area amounted to

approximately one two-hundredth of the Soviet population. If it had been subject to mobilization

into the Red Army from the very outbreak of the war, its losses might be estimated at 100,000 to

120,000 killed. However, considering that the Trans Carpathians served in the Red Army only in

the last 8 months of the war, and that the losses among the untrained conscripts were particularly

high, the real losses could hardly have exceeded 40,000.

The population of the Trans Carpathian region was approximately 10 times larger than

the population of Tuva, while the intensity of the participation in the war of these two territories

was approximately the same, thus the estimate of 40,000 Trans Carpathians killed in the war

seems close to the actual number.

In the aggregate, the losses of the population of the Trans Carpathian region and of Tuva,

as well as among Soviet individuals born between 1868 and 1889 or in 1930, can be estimated to

be around 100,000. Then the total irrecoverable losses in the Second World War of those Soviet

military personnel, who in 1939 were between the ages of 10 and 49 and within the borders of

the Soviet Union as of mid-1941, can be estimate at 26,700,000 killed or missing-in-action. This

is approximately 0.6 million more than the estimate of the Red Army’s losses obtained by the
method of census balances. The difference, most likely, arises due to the undercount of males in

the 10-49 age cohorts in both the 1939 Census and in the official estimates of the population of

the annexed territories in 1941, offset by the undercount of females. Thus the overall reconciled

count can be estimated as not less than 1,200,000 males and females, of which 140,000 are the

result of the undercount on the annexed territories. Thus the reconciled undercount in the 1939

Census in the 10-49 age cohorts may be estimated at 4,800,000 people.

The undercount in other age cohorts should be far less, and can be estimated at 10 percent

of the undercount in the 10-49 age cohorts, that is to say, approximately 500,000 people. Thus

the total undercount of the 1939 Census can be estimated at 5,300,000 people, i.e. 3.1 percent of

the total population. This result fully correlates with the data of the previous 1937 Census of the

Population, the results of which were officially recognized as faulty. The commission headed by

Ia.A. Iakovlev, which checked the results of the 1937 Census, estimated the size of the

undercount as ranging between 4,800,000 and 8,100,000, i.e. 3 to 5 percent of the population.29

One can assume that the actual undercount of the 1937 Census was closer to 5 percent, since the

indicator of the undercount for the 1939 Census likely ranges between 3 percent and 3.5 percent.

The additional undercount is due most likely to the compensated undercount of those males in

the 10-49 age cohorts, who as civilians, died from hunger and diseases both during the war and

during the 1946-1947 famine. This undercount can amount to 700,000 people, including 350,000

males. Therefore we assume that the undercount for the 1939 Census, as well as the

corresponding underestimate of the population of the territories that were annexed in 1939-1940

ranges between 3.1 percent and 3.5 percent. Thus, our estimate of the irrevocable losses of the

29
N.A. Aralovets, “Poteri naseleniia sovetskogo obshchestva v 30-e gody: Problemy, istochniki, metody izucheniia v
otechestvennoi istorigrafii” [“Losses of population of the Soviet society in the 1930s: Problems, sources and
methods of study in the domestic historiography”] Otechestvennaia istoriia, No. 1 (1995), p. 136.
Red Army in the Great Patriotic War in principle does not contradict the results of the 1939 and

1959 Censuses.

The size of the population undercount in the census was due not so much to the good or

evil intentions of the census organizers, as to the social-political and social-economic situation in

the country at the moment of conducting the census. Thus the degree of the undercount of the

population cannot markedly differ between the results of the 1937 Census and the results of the

1939 Census, considering that only two years separated the two population surveys. Also, it was

precisely in those two years that the Great Terror within the country reached its peak, and this

event could not at all contribute to the accuracy of the population count. Stalin’s repressions

against the organizers of the 1937 Census, who were accused of significantly undercounting the

population, should be unconditionally condemned. Even if there was an actual undercount, it was

not their fault.

The Estimate of both the Total Size of the Soviet Army’s Losses and the

Civilian Losses in the Great Patriotic War

The made calculations also allow us to approximate the total wartime losses of the Soviet

population, both military and civilian. The total number of the Soviet population at the start of

the Great Patriotic War can be estimated, taking as a basis V.S. Kozhurin’s estimate of the

number of the Soviet population at the beginning of 1941 at 198,700,000. According to the data
of the Soviet Union’s population estimate conducted in June 1941, the difference between the

preliminary and the repeat estimation of the population of the Khabarovsk District at the

beginning of 1940 amounted to 72,600 (1,538,000 versus 1,610,600), or 4.7 percent. This

indicator is even larger than the indicator of the probable undercount in the 1939 Census.30

However, if we can trust the data of the 1959 Census, in 1941 there was a sharp decline in the

birth rate, likely because of the significant growth in the Red Army’s size in 1940 and the

beginning of 1941. At the beginning of 1959, the number of people aged 20 years old, which is

to say those born in 1940, amounted to 48,390, while the number of people aged 19, i.e. born in

1941, was only 43,165. If we suppose that the birth rate fell by the same proportion,

corresponding to the numbers at these two ages, then the birth rate in 1941 may be estimated at

2.78 percent. If we also assume that the mortality rate was practically the same in 1940 and in the

first half of 1941, the rate of natural growth for 1941 without the war may be estimated at 1

percent, and the real natural growth in the population in the first half of 1941 may be estimated at

about 1,000,000. Then the population of the USSR on 22 June 1941 without the adjustment for

the undercount of the 1939 Census would be around 199,700,000, and with the adjustment for

the census undercount, around 205,000,000 to 206,700,000. If we subtract the losses in the

Winter War and at Khalkin Gol, which were probably not included in the statistics of 1939-1941,

then the Soviet population at the start of the Great Patriotic War could be estimated at

205,700,000 to 206,500,000.

The size of the Soviet population at the start of 1946, based on an estimate of the

population in 1950, taking into account the natural growth rate of this year, could be estimated at

167,000,000.31 Due to the annexation of Tuva and the Trans Carpathian Ukraine, the population

30
V.S. Kozhurin, op. cit., p. 26.
of the USSR at the beginning of 1946 should have increased by 900,000 people. In 1940, the

birth rate was 3.12 percent, the mortality rate was 1.80 percent, and the natural growth rate was

1.32 percent.32 The average annual natural death rate in 1941-1945, excluding the combat losses,

may be estimated 3,400,000, if we take the average number of the population as 187,000,000

over the war years. Of the 6,100,000 people, who were born in 194033, 4,800,000 were still alive

at the beginning of 1959. The average index of the possibility of living until 1959, for persons

born in 1940, may be estimated at 78.7 percent. Then the total number of those born in the period

1942-1945 can be estimated at 15,400,000, taking into account that in 1959, people of these ages

numbered 12,155,000, while the approximate number of those who died of natural causes over

these years was 13,600,000. Then the conditional natural growth rate over these years, which

were overlapped by the war losses, may be estimated at 1,800,000 during the period 1942-1945.

To this number, the approximately 500,000 of the conditional growth rate in the second half of

1941 should be added. Thus the total loss of population in the Great Patriotic War can be

estimated, by subtracting 167,900,000 from 205,700,000 – 206,500,000 and adding 2,300,000.

The total human losses of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War thus amount to 40,100,000 to

40,900,000 people. The losses of the civilian population, including the excess mortality can be

estimated, having subtracted the total losses of Red Army personnel, at 13,200,000 to

13,900,000. These losses, unquestionably, are the largest of any nation that participated in the

Second World War and comprise no less than half of all the human losses in this war.
Checking the Estimate of the Red Army’s Irrecoverable Losses in the Great

Patriotic War against Memorial’s Consolidated Database

Our estimate of the Red Army’s losses, which equals 26,900,000 killed and mortally wounded,

can be checked against the records in Memorial’s Consolidated Database. For this purpose, we

need a representative sample from this database in order to estimate the percentage of individuals

in the database who died from wounds. This category of irrevocable losses is fixed most

accurately and completely. Those who died of wounds in the Great Patriotic War numbered

1,104,000.34 In order to verify our estimate of the Red Army’s losses, it is necessary to determine

the share of the mortally wounded among all the killed and missing-in-action, including those

who were fortunate enough to survive German imprisonment, as well as those who wound up

encircled, but were never taken prisoner by the Germans. According to our estimate, 2,300,000

Soviet officers and soldiers survived captivity. In addition, approximately 940,000 were

considered to be in encirclement. In our opinion, up to 450,000 of those treated as encircled in

reality were taken prisoner by the Germans, but managed to keep this fact concealed. In that

case, the total number of those who survived among the missing-in-action can be estimated at

2,800,000. We’ll note in passing that far from all of those who came back after being recorded as
31
L.E. Poliakov, Tsena voiny [The Cost of the war] (Moscow, 1985), p. 87; S.I. Bruk, Naselenie mira:
Etnodemograficheskii spravochnik [Population of the world: An Ethnodemographic handbook] (Moscow, 1981), p.
198.

32
S.I. Bruk, op. cit., p. 198.

33
Narodonaselenie stran mira, Table 17, p. 63. There is also a different estimate of the number born in 1940 –
5,709,000, which possibly doesn’t include the birth rate in the annexed territories (V.Zima, Golod v SSSR 1946-
1947: Proiskhozhdenie i posledstviia [Famine in the USSR 1946-1947: Origins and Consequences] (Moscow: Institut
Rossiskoi istorii RAN, 1996), p. 155.

34
Rossiia i SSSR v voinakh XX veka, Table 120, p. 237.
missing-in-action managed to survive the rest of the war. Many of those liberated from prison or

encirclement were called back into the army and were killed or died before the end of the war.

We found enough such examples in the Consolidated Database. If we start from the fact that the

total number of killed and missing-in-action Soviet officers and soldiers can be estimated at

29,700,000, the share of mortally wounded among them is around 3.7 percent. There can be little

doubt that this share is substantially higher in Memorial’s Consolidated Database, because the

mortally wounded were counted much more accurately in the Red Army than the killed or

missing-in-action. However, this indicator will help us determine which estimate of the

irrevocable losses is closer to the truth – ours or the official estimate.

However, Memorial’s electronic database is only able to generate no more than 1,000

cases to a single query. It is impossible to draw a representative sample from these 1,000 cases,

because it includes only those people who were documented and became part of the database.

For example, if we take 1,000 individuals by year of birth, then the proportion of those who died

from wounds will be very low, because the reports of the first months of the war contained an

overwhelming number of killed and missing-in-action. Thus we have opted to take a different

path. We found family names that are not so popular, but also not unique, which are represented

in Memorial’s Consolidated Database by a number of records that don’t quite reach 1,000, but

are in the neighborhood of 700-900 cases. In this case, in response to a query the electronic

database gives us all the cases of individuals with the given surname, and this depends neither on

the order of entry into the database, nor on the software used by the electronic archive.

For the analysis, four surnames were chosen: one Russian, one Belorussian, one

Ukrainian and one Muslim. These surnames are respectively Petrishchev, Ivanchuk (or

Ivanchukov or Ivan’chuk), Iushkevich and Nuraliev (Nuraleev). In the process of analysis, we as

far as possible excluded duplicate entries, i.e., cases when one and the same individual shows up

in the database more than once. But in those cases when a man was taken prisoner, escaped or

was liberated, was called back into the army, and then was killed or went missing a second time,

we have treated him as two different separate cases. However, there will always be a certain

amount of subjectivity in determining the number of duplicate entries, since there are absolutely

no objective criteria for eliminating them. For example, there can be persons who share all three

names, such as Petr Alexeevich Ivanov, and even the same birth year, but in reality they are

different men. In addition, there can be cases where a different version of a name is given (for

example, Petr Iakovlevich Ivanov and Petr Iakimovich Ivanov), and perhaps even a different

year of birth, but in reality they can be one and the same man. In addition, we purged the sample

of cases that concerned wounded men, deserters and men sentenced to prison camps.

There turned out to be 906 entries with the surname Petrishchev, and among them there

were 83 men who died of wounds. After removing duplicate entries, the number of men who

were mortally wounded dropped to 28, while the total number of killed and missing-in-action

equaled 593. The share of mortally wounded for this surname amounted to 4.7 percent.

There were 898 entries with the surname Ivanchuk (or one of its variants, including 16

Ivan’chuks). The number who died from wounds among them amounted to 93. After removing

duplicate records, the number of mortally wounded fell to 36, and total number decreased to 625.

The share of those who died from wounds for this surname was 5.8 percent.

There were 749 records in the Consolidated Database under the name Iushkevich,

including 75 who died from wounds. After cleansing it of duplicates, there remained 31 who
died from wounds, while the total number of those killed or missing-in-action decreased to 520.

Thus, 6.0 percent of those with this surname were mortally wounded.

The name Nuraliev (or Nuraleev) appeared 947 times in the Consolidated Database. Of

these men, 70 died of wounds, but after removing the duplicates, this number decreased to 37.

The total number of killed and missing-in-action after excluding duplicate records was 776.

Thus, the share of those who died from wounds for this surname was 4.8 percent.

The aggregate total number of records for those who died from wounds for the four

family names equaled 321, while the total number of killed and missing-in-action was 3,500

individuals. These same indicators after the removal of duplicate records were 132 and 2,514

respectively. In the aggregate, therefore, the share of those who died from wounds was 5.25

percent. Such a low percentage of those who died from wounds in the irrecoverable losses of the

Red Army shows that among its total losses, the share of wounded was several times smaller

than in the summary losses of Germany’s armies, as well as in the summary losses of the other

armies that participated in the Second World War.

The correlation of the irrevocable losses of the Red Army to those of the Wehrmacht on

the Soviet-German front is 26,900,000 against 2,600,000 killed and died, i.e. 10.3:1.35 If we take

into account the losses of the Soviet and German allies on the Eastern Front, then the ratio

becomes 27,100,000 to 2,600,000, i.e. 9.3:1. The ratio of all the casualties is more favorable for

the Red Army due to both the more favorable ratio of prisoners of war and the aforementioned

35
The estimate of the German losses are based on B. Mueller-Hillebrand, Sukhoputnaia armiia Germanii, 1933-
1945 [Germany’s Ground Forces, 1933-1945] (translated from the German) Vol. 3 (Moscow: Voenizdat, 1976), pp.
323-344; Itogi Vtoroi mirovoi voiny [Results of the Second World War] (Moscow: Izdatinlit, 1957), p. 598; Rossiia i
SSSR v voinakh XX veka, p. 515. For personal accounts regarding the Wehrmacht’s irreversible losses, see also V.I.
Dashichev, Bankrotstvo strategii germanskogo fashizma: v 2-kh tt [Bankruptcy of the strategy of German fascism:
in two volumes], Vol. 2 (Moscow: Nauka, 1973), pp. 637-638.
fact that the share of the wounded in the total casualties of the Red Army was several times

smaller than the share of the wounded in the total casualties of the German Army. Thus the

German commanders and intelligence estimated the ratio between the Soviet and German

casualties, including the wounded, in the latter half of 1943 to be close to 5:1.36

The share of those who died from wounds, once the duplicate records are removed, is

equal to 41.1 percent of the original number prior to purging the list of duplicate entries. In order

to get a correct comparison with the total number of killed, the records for those individuals who

wound up in the database by mistake must be removed. This includes the wounded, deserters,

those sentenced to prison, as well as those who died or were killed prior to 22 June 1941 of after

September 1945. There are 62 such persons among the four family names. Then the share of the

remaining killed and missing-in-action relative to the number of corresponding persons,

excluding deserters, those sentenced to prison, etc. amounts to 76.4 percent. The share of

duplicate records among those who died from wounds is 58.9 percent, while the share of

duplicate records among the remaining killed, died and missing is only 23.6 percent. This fact is

indirect evidence of the more accurate calculation of the mortally wounded in Memorial’s

Consolidated Database than the calculation of the other irrevocable losses. If one and the same

man entered the database not in one, but in two or more documents, then that significantly

increases the likelihood that he will be registered in any database.

Taking into account the share of died from wounds (5.2 percent), we may then estimate

the total number of killed and missing-in-action in the Memorial Consolidated Database, once

36
Earl F. Ziemke, Stalingrad to Berlin: The German Defeat in the East (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History
US Army, 2002), pp. 141, 213-214; Military diary of the German Fourth Army for 3-11 August 1943 and the Report
of the Eastern Intelligence Branch, OKH on the period from 1 September 1943 to 1 January 1944. A corps
commander of the Fourth Army estimated that the Russians at the start of the fighting had a numerical superiority
of 10:1.
duplicate entries are removed, at 21,100,000, of which not less than 19,100,000 were killed, and

around 2,000,000 registered as missing, but who actually survived German imprisonment or

encirclement. Approximately 8,600,000 of the killed and missing, including approximately

7,800,000 killed and approximately 800,000 of those who remain as missing-in-action, remain

outside Memorial’s Consolidated Database. In reality, the number of those who survived German

imprisonment or encirclement is somewhat smaller than what we’ve given, since a certain

number of them were killed after being called back up into the army a second time. If our

calculations are accurate, then having excluded the 1,100,000 who were mortally wounded, we

find that to date, of the 28,600,000 killed and missing-in-action, only 20,000,000 (69.9 percent)

have been registered.

If the official figure for the Red Army’s irrecoverable losses in 1941-1945, which is

equivalent to 8,668,000 killed or died and 2,776,000 of the missing, who actually survived the

war, was correct, then the share of died from wounds in Memorial’s Consolidated Database

should be much higher than 5.2 percent. If we even suppose an ideal situation that all of the

irrevocable losses of the Red Army are currently registered in the Consolidated Database, then

the share of the mortally wounded should be 9.6 percent. In reality, this indicator should be

higher by several percentage points. If we suppose that the estimate made by S.A. Il’enkov of

13,850,000 Red Army officers and soldiers killed or died in the war is close to reality, then

taking into account the 2,800,000 of the missing who actually survived the war, the share of

those who died from wounds should be 6.6 percent only given the unlikely condition that the

Consolidated Database includes practically all of the killed and missing-in-action.37 In reality,

37
S.A. Il’enkov, “Pamiat’ o millionakh pavshikh zashchitnikov Otechestva nel’zia peredavat’ zabveniiu
[“Remembrance of the millions of the fallen defenders of the Fatherland must never be consigned to oblivion”]
Voenno-istoricheskii arkhiv, No. 7 (2000), pp. 77-78.
this share should also be several percentage points higher. Here it should be said that S.A.

Il’enkov worked with the Consolidated Database back in 2000; over the time since, millions of

new records have been added to Memorial’s database.

The Russian military archaeologist Igor I. Ivlev, using the file of the irrevocable losses of

officers and soldiers, believes that the losses of the Soviet Armed Forces were not less than

15,500,000 in killed and missing. But these losses may be equal to 16,500,000 or even to 20-

21,000,000 in killed and missing.38 The last figure was generated in the following way. The total

number of the death notifications passed on to the families of the Arkhangel’sk region by the

local military commissariats, excluding those listed as missing in action, but who later emerged

alive, was more than 150,000. Under Ivlev’s estimation, about 25 percent of such notifications

were never received by the military commissariats. There are 12,400,900 death notifications

from the People’s Commissariat of Defense and from the Navy’s People’s Commissariat in all

the military commissariats of the Russian Federation, including 61,400 notifications regarding

the killed and missing among the officers and troops of the Border Guards, and 97,700 regarding

the killed and missing among the officers and men of the NKVD’s Interior troops. Subtracting

these, that leaves 12,241,800 notifications applicable to officers and men of the Red Army. I.I.

Ivlev suggests that approximately 200,000 of these notifications are duplicates or regard persons

who were not actually dead. So without these notifications, there are 12,041,800 unique

notifications in the Russian Federation. If the share of notifications that were not delivered to the

military commissariats was practically the same as their share in the Arkhangel’sk region, then

38
Igor. I. Ivlev, “A v otvet tishina – on vchera ne vernulsia iz boiia!” [“But only silence in response – yesterday he
didn’t return from the fighting!”] Voennaia arkeologiii, No. 1-4 (2011). This series of articles were available at the
time of writing on Ivlev’s website at http://www.soldat.ru/news/865.html; http://www.soldat.ru/news/866.html;
http://www.soldat.ru/news/878.html; and http://www.soldat.ru/news/880.html.
the total number of notifications, excluding those of the Border troops and Interior troops may be

estimated at 15,042,000 unique death notifications. In order to estimate the number of unique

death notifications for the former territory of the Soviet Union outside the Russian Federation,

I.I. Ivlev treats the share of conscripts from the Russian Federation as equal to the share of

Russians in the Red Army, which he estimates from G.F. Krivosheev’s book to be 72 percent.

Thus the other Soviet republics had only about 28 percent of all the conscripts and 5,854,000

unique death notifications. Then the total number of unique death notifications regarding officers

and troops of the Red Army equals 20,905,900, and with the addition of the death notifications

from the Border troops and Interior troops, this number rises to more than 21,000,000.

However, it is incorrect to use the share of 72 percent for the number of unique death

notifications in the Russian Federation. As we think, it is more correct to use the information

about the share of the Russian Federation’s population relative to the total Soviet population as

of 1 January 1941. This share was 56.2 percent. However, we should exclude the population of

the Crimean Autonomous Region, which was given to the Ukraine in 1954, but should include

the population of the Karelian Soviet Republic, which became part of the Russian Federation in

1956. Then the share of the Russian Federation falls to around 55.8 percent.39 The total number

of unique death notifications should be estimated at 26,960,000. If we then add the notifications

regarding Border troops or Interior troops, and exclude the number of emigrants from the list of

the missing-in-action, the final number will be 26,990,000 in killed, died or missing-in-action.

This figure practically coincides with our estimate of the human losses in the Soviet Armed

Forces at 26,900,000.

39
V.S. Kozhurin, O chislennosti naseleniia SSSR v nakanune Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny [On the population of the
USSR on the eve of the Great Patriotic war], p. 26.