Lenin as a Statistician: A Non-Soviet View

Author(s): Samuel Kotz and Eugene Seneta

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A (Statistics in Society), Vol. 153, No. 1
(1990), pp. 73-94
Published by: Blackwell Publishing for the Royal Statistical Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2983097 .
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J. R. Statist. Soc. A (1990)
153, Part 1, pp. 73-94

Lenin as a Statistician: a Non-Soviet View

By SAMUEL KOTZT and EUGENE SENETA

University of Maryland, College Park, USA University of Sydney, Australia

[Received February 1989. Revised April 1989]

SUMMARY
Many of Lenin's arguments were based on statistical analysis, and in the Soviet milieu he is
widely praised as a statistician. In this paper we first examine the background and influences
of Lenin's statistics and also consider his statistical arguments, some of which are often cited
in the Soviet literature. Our general conclusions are that (a) in his earlier work Lenin
exhibited innate craftmanship in analysing large-scale statistical data, (b) his statistics owes
much to V. E. Postnikov, P. N. Skvortsov and F. A. Shcherbina whose influence has been
downplayed, (c) Lenin was not beyond turning his analysis to political ends, (d) his
influence among established statisticians in the Russian Empire, including the zemstvo
statisticians, was quite modest and (e) he was instrumental in establishing official statistical
organs in the USSR.
Keywords: CENSUSES IN USSR; CENTRAL STATISTICAL ADMINISTRATION OF USSR; PEASANTRY
IN RUSSIAN EMPIRE; STRATIFICATION; TYPICAL SAMPLING; ZEMSTVO STATISTICS

1. INTRODUCTION
The authority of V. I. Lenin (1870-1924) has been one of the most durable
phenomena in the USSR during the 70 years of the Soviet state. It has been kept
continuously on a high level since Lenin's death in January 1924 with peaks coinciding
with the periods of decline of influence of his successors. Thus at the height of Stalin's
regime after World War 11(1946-53) Stalin's authority was at least as great as Lenin's,
but to fill the vacuum of de-Stalinization Lenin's authority intensified during the
Khrushchev era and the early years of Brezhnev's era (1954-70), slightly diminishing
during the peak period of Brezhnev's consolidation of power (the later 1970s and early
1980s). At present, in the first years of Gorbachev's era of de-Brezhnevization and
de-Stalinization Lenin's authority remains intact and his pronouncements have not as
yet been challenged even in the avant-garde, pro-reform and pro-democratic, liberal
press in the Soviet Union.
Among numerous manifestations of Lenin's personality cult were the articles on
Lenin's contributions to statistics which have made their yearly appearance in Vestnik
Statistiki-the official monthly journal of the Central Statistical Administration
(CSA) (Tsentral'noe Statisticheskoe Upravleniye: since 1987 known as the State
Committee on Statistics) usually in the April (fourth) issue to coincide with Lenin's
birthday. These articles have been especially adulatory on special anniversaries such
as the 100th in 1970 and the 110th in 1980. Many books have been written devoted to
the analysis of Lenin's philosophy of, and contributions to, statistics. The most recent
is the book by T. V. Ryabushkin (1914-87) (a long time member of the International
Statistical Institute who also served twice as Vice-President of this organization)
tAddress for correspondence: College of Business and Management, University of Maryland, College Park, MD
20742, USA.
? 1990 Royal Statistical Society 0035-9238/90/153073 $2.00
74 KOTZ AND SENETA [Part1,
Leninskoye Naslediye i Statistika (Lenin's Heritage and Statistics) (Ryabushkin,
1978). Ryabushkin also coedited several volumes dealing with the development of
statistical science in Lenin's work in 1969 and 1979 to honour Lenin's 100th and 110th
birthdays. The recent book by Ryabushkin et al. (1986) TeoreticheskiyeKontseptsii v
Otechestvennoi Statistike (Theoretical Concepts of Motherland Statistics) contains
extensive bibliographical material on Soviet publications devoted to 'the deve-
lopment and methodology of statistics in Lenin's works as well as utilization of
Lenin's scientific heritage in the theory and practice of Soviet statistics'. During
the years 1963-73 the publishing house Statistika published books by Gurevich
(1963), Malyi (1963, 1965), Ryabushkin (1964), Pisarev (1964), Suslov (1965),
Libkind (1967) (which deals with 'The analysis of American agricultural censuses
in V. I. Lenin's works') and Ovsienko and Vitalina (1967) in addition to the
trilogy, edited by Ryabushkin (1970-73), V. L Lenin i Sovremennaya Statistika
(V. L Lenin and Modern Statistics). Gurevich (1959) lists 86 publications of Lenin
which touch on the problems of statistics, while Ryabushkin (1973) extends this list
to 149 items.
Certainly, in the 1930s even competent statisticians alluded seriously to Lenin's
work on grouping (see Boiarskii et al. (1935); the authorship represents a spectrum of
statistical talent of the time-in 1938 both Brand and Khotimskii were branded as
enemies of the people (Bolshevik, 1938)). Eventually this seems to have degenerated to
lip service and it is not clear how much attention is being paid now by practising Soviet
statisticians to this flood of adulatory publications on Lenin by the hierarchy of the
Soviet statistical establishment. However, an early feeble criticism of this overkill is
mentioned even in the conservative VestnikStatistiki when one of the more outspoken
Soviet senior statistician-educators, F. D. Livshitz (1897-1975) (at a meeting in May
of 1969 devoted to a discussion of publications that had appeared in Vestnik in the
previous few years) expressed some reservations ('highly questionable' in the opinion
of the editors) as to the content of papers dealing with 'Lenin's statistical theoretical
heritage' published during the 1960s (Livshitz, 1969).
Lenin is credited in Soviet publications as a craftsman in utilizing statistical
methodology for analysis of data. (This view has also been expressed by Willetts
(1967) in a non-Soviet publication on Lenin). It is also claimed that he was very
attentive to the most recent developments in statistical methodology (Ryabushkin
(1978), p. 38), that he served as an inspiration and as a teacher of Soviet statisticians
(Vestnik Statistiki, 1965) and that he established the statistical organs in the USSR
(Vestnik Statistiki, 1955). The last claim is perhaps the least objectionable. His
contributions to statistics have been subdivided into political statistics (Suslov, 1979),
economic statistics (Ryabushkin, 1978), labour statistics (Malyi, 1963; Pisarev, 1964),
statistical analysis (Ryabushkin, 1964), industrial statistics (Suslov, 1965) and it is
even asserted (Ovsienko; 1958) that Lenin, in his works, established the foundations
of contemporary statistical science.
An article of the adulatory kind by an eminent probabilist is available in English
(Gnedenko, 1970). As one reads such monotonously repetitious Soviet assessments of
Lenin as a statistician, starting with the obituary published in Vestnik Statistiki in
1924 written by P. I. Popov (1872-1950) (reprinted in the July issue of the same
journal in 1988) and Pisarev (1949) in the first issue of Vestnik Statistiki after its non-
appearance for more than a decade, one cannot help but wonder at the degree of
accuracy in the appraisals of Lenin's talents and his role as a statistician.
1990] LENIN AS A STATISTICIAN 75
The purpose of this paper is to present a non-Soviet and hopefully more objective
view of Lenin as a statistician (though we must keep in mind that he was primarily a
politician) and to comment briefly on his involvement in running statistical agencies in
the USSR in the last 6 years of his life as head of the Soviet state. These facets of
Lenin's activity have been neglected hitherto in western publications on Lenin.

2. BACKGROUND TO LENIN'S STATISTICS

Lenin's early contact with statistics as a discipline, in the form that it existed at the
time, was through the 1887 book Teoriia Statistiki (Theory of Statistics) by the
eminent statistician and economist lulii Eduardovich lanson (or Yanson or Jahnson)
(1835-92), on whom more information is available in Seneta (1988) and Sokolov and
Kornev (1985). According to Sipovskii and Suslov (1972), Lenin, an external student,
arrived in St Petersburg in March 1891 to take examinations in several courses which
included statistics and political economy. The text-book for the oral examination on
April 5th (old style) was Teoriia Statistiki, and one of the three examiners was lanson.
Lenin is said (by the examiners) to have answered well a question from him on
Quetelet. The 1887 (second) edition of Teoriia Statistikiis in Lenin's library (Gurevich
(1962) comments on Lenin's annotations).
lanson is said to have had a strong influence on Russian statisticians of the end of
the 19th century (Seneta, 1988). However, the book itself is almost entirely qualita-
tive, and we need to search elsewhere for the origins of Lenin's quantitative
methodology. The only book of lanson's mentioned in the centre-piece of Lenin's
statistics, Razvitie Kapitalizma v Rossii (The Development of Capitalism in Russia)
which Lenin first published in 1899 under the pseudonym of Vladimir Ilin (Ilin, 1908;
Lenin, 1956), is the celebrated 1880 study Comparative Statistics of Russia and West-
European Countries.
Lenin's early writings contain the best of his statistical work. We refer in particular
to 'New economic trends in peasant life (on V. E. Postnikov's "Southern Russian
peasant economy")' written in 1893 (though not published until 1923) and 'What are
"the Friends of the People", and how do they fight with the Social Democrats?'
written and published in 1894. Both these articles occur at the beginning of volume 1
of any edition of Lenin's collected works (Sochinenia, Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii).
(In addition to Lenin (1927), there was a reprintin 1935 with some minor changes, e.g.
Kamenev was replaced as editor by V. V. Adoratsky, V. M. Molotev and M. A.
Savelev. By the third edition in 1937, under these editors Kamenev's preface to
volume 3 was also removed, although the edition is claimed to be a reprint of the
second. The fourth edition in 1941 is totally different ideologically, showing strong
Stalinist influence in the notes. (The name index to volume 3 was totally removed.)
This remains the case with the fifth edition (1958): throughout this paper Lenin (1958)
refers to the fifth edition of his collected works.) Volume 3 of any edition is The
Development of Capitalism in Russia (Lenin, 1956) (written mainly in exile, but under
far from uncomfortable conditions: Lenin, in addition to materials received from his
mother, had access to excellent libraries in Krasnoiarsk including that of Udin, at
present in the 'Slavonic section' of the Library of Congress (Hill and Mudie, 1937)).
Chapter 2 of Lenin (1956) has in common with the two earlier works the theme of
the differentiation of the peasantry, and, indeed, the first section contains the more
important material from 'New economic trends in peasant life'. We shall refer to this
76 KOTZ AND SENETA [Part1,
chapter and the two earlier works later. However, it is worth noting at this stage that
they draw heavily on the statistical data gathered by the zemstvo statisticians
(Johnson, 1982; Seneta, 1985), V. E. Postnikov (1844-1908) (Postnikov's book
,appeared in 1891) and F. A. Shcherbina (1849-1936) (zemstvos were local
government institutions established in the Russian Empire in 1864). At a different
period of time, a source of Lenin's ideas may have been the work of the zemstvo statis-
tician A. A. Rusov (1847-1915), who already in 1877 had attempted to distinguish
(Krylov, 1953) between three types of peasant households: poor, middle and wealthy,
a key Leninist notion in his analysis of peasant differentiation.
In the opinion of the distinguished emigre economist N. V. Volski (pseudonym N.
Valentinov), who was well acquainted with Lenin, and initially adhered to Soviet
economic ideology, the ideas in Postnikov's book 'entered into the consciousness of
Vladimir Ulyanov'. According to Volski (Valentinov (1969), pp. 165-169) these
influences are present from the outset in Lenin's economic statistical writings as early
as 1893, e.g. in 'What are "the Friends of the People"' in time becoming 'mixed with
Marxist formulas' until all 'conception and memory' of their origin had become
obliterated. We quote further (Valentinov (1969), p. 167) 'And, finally, when Lenin
... in 1918-1919 launched his battle against the kulaks, there was much a la
Postnikov in this battle . . .'. However, this extrapolation may be exaggerated.
Along with Postnikov and Shcherbina to whom we shall return later a dominant
influence on Lenin's statistical work appears to have been P. N. Skvortsov (?-1920,
not to be confused with A. I. Skvortsov or I. I. Skvortsov-Stepanov). In his recent
history of the Marxist direction of prerevolutionary statistics, Zav'ialov (1988) states
that P. N. Skvortsov wrote the first Marxist statistical work in 1891. In this and a
succeeding work (Skvortsov, 1895) he is credited by Zav'ialov with not only extensive
use of grouping (i.e. stratification) of peasant households by land allotments but also
use of the amount of land under cultivation as a characteristic stratifying variable-an
idea central in Lenin's statistical analysis in the beginning ('New economic trends in
peasant life') which he (rightly) attributes to Postnikov and his colleagues. In
appendix VIII of Lenin (1927), volume 1, there is mention of 'the first Marxist circle in
Nizhny-Novgorod (P. N. Skvortsov)' under the year 1891, while in the 1958 (fifth)
edition of volume 1 under 'Outstanding dates in the life and work of V. I. Lenin' we
find that in August or September on his way from Samara (where Lenin was the centre
of the first Marxist circle formed in 1893) to St Petersburg'. . . Lenin stops at Nizhny-
Novgorod and makes acquaintance of local Marxists'. Zav'ialov (1988) mentions that
Lenin and P. N. Skvortsov had met in Nizhny-Novgorod, and it was through this
contact that Skvortsov's (1895) article was included in the symposium collection
Materials for a Characterization of our Economic Development. Lenin also
participated in this symposium. In Lenin (1927), volume 1, note 42 of appendix III
says that the printing of 2000 copies of this collection was destroyed by Czarist
censorship, apart from 100 illegally surviving copies.
The notes to volume 3 (The Development of Capitalism in Russia) of the fifth
(1958) edition of Lenin's collected works comments on the first appearance of the
book as follows:
'. . . the bourgeoispresstriedto pass over in silencethis scientificworkof Lenin's, and it
was only in the autumn(1899)that the first reviewsappeared,and these wereof a hostile
character.One of these reviewsreceivedLenin'scrushingretortin his article"Uncritical
criticism".'
1990] LENIN AS A STATISTICIAN 77
The retort appeared in May-June 1900 and was Lenin's last article written and
published in the legal press before he left Russia. The review which received Lenin's
crushing retort was entitled 'Tovarnii fetishism' ('Commodity fetishism') and was
written by Skvortsov (1899). While P. N. Skvortsov is described as a Marxist in Lenin
(1927), volume 3, in the name index, by the fifth edition he has become a 'legal
Marxist'-a derogatory term for a group headed by P. B. Struve and M. I. Tuhan-
Baranovsky, which Lenin described as a reflection of Marxism in the legal literature,
although the symposium of 1895 still included Struve. We include some recollections
of M. Gorky about P. N. Skvortsov in Appendix A; these appear for the last time in
the 1935 edition of Lenin's collected works. Finally, Zav'ialov (1988) states that after
the revolution Lenin had Skvortsov well treated in a home for old Bolsheviks.
Although we have not been able to locate P. N. Skvortsov's statistical
writings-apart from Skvortsov (1899)-it seems very likely on this basis that Lenin
acquired ideas and methodology from him. Thus it is surprising that there is just one
superficial reference to P. N. Skvortsov in Lenin's (1956) magnum opus, The
Development of Capitalism in Russia. A non-sympathetic response by Skvortsov is
hardly unexpected.
The source of much of Lenin's data on peasant differentiation is Shcherbina, who
carried out an extensive study of peasant budgets in the uezds of Voronezh Gubernia
(a main geographical administrative unit of the Russian Empire (gubernia literally
means governorship; uezd roughly means a county, a subdivision of gubernia)), on
the basis of household census data (see Appendix A). Shcherbina already appears in
'What are "The Friends of the People"', which is largely an attack on the 'anti-
Marxist liberal narodniks', one of whom, S. N. Krivenko (1847-1907) is scathingly
accused with Shcherbina of mishandling Shcherbina's data to give an erroneous
picture of the peasant economy, by grouping peasants into 'legal categories' (rather
than 'economic categories') in which there are large and differential variabilities.
These, Lenin says, make inappropriate the use of the arithmetic mean within them.
Let us now reflect briefly on the background of the two key tools in Lenin's statistical
repertoire, namely stratification and the arithmetic mean.
From the middle 1880s, in Russia as well as elsewhere, a problem much in vogue
was how complete enumeration could be in part replaced by sampling. The notion was
that a cluster of elements 'typical' of a population in relevant aspects could be
extensively investigated. The method was to be used as a complement to complete
enumeration, which might be used to determine the 'typicality' of the elements to be
sampled. It is plausible that such an approach might be effective if the population was
first stratified into homogeneous subsets (groups, strata) in respect of the object of
investigation, from which the typical elements were to be selected.
The modern reader will be aware of the dangers inherent in approaches based on
typicality from the well-known Gini-Galvani experience (see, for example, Kruskal
and Mosteller (1980), p. 187).
Lenin recognized that effective preliminary stratification of a population would
result in control of variability present, thus giving more meaning to the representation
of measurements on some characteristic of interest for a given stratum by the arith-
metic mean for that stratum. His most striking investigations amount to attempting to
establish the typicality of a stratified sample and then using it for further deductions,
after effective stratification. This is an interesting side-light to the developments of
sample survey practice in Russia (see Seneta (1985)); but the criticisms of P. N.
78 KOTZ AND SENETA [Part1,
Skvortsov (see our Section 3) illustrate the fact that the general 'Marxist direction' of
statistics was concerned with deductions on the basis of complete enumeration rather
than samples. Nevertheless, even in this setting, the fact that representation by the
arithmetic mean in a stratum may be nonsensical if the variability within a stratum is
large was the central issue of prerevolutionary contention between the older
generation of statisticians, generally of the narodnik (liberal intelligentsia) type such
as A. I. Chuprov (1842-1908) and F. A. Shcherbina and the younger Marxist
statisticians.
The Marxist approach in general (e.g. Skvortsov) recognized the need to stratify on
socioeconomic grounds, and Lenin recognized that stratification of peasant
households should be by homogeneous economic groups for stratum means to reflect
accurately the diverse economic conditions between groups. A particularly effective
socioeconomic indicator (to which we shall return) turned out to be the number of
draught horses owned by a household. The idea here is not Lenin's in essence:
Postnikov in 1891 had used a classification by draught animals about which Lenin in
his 'New economic trends in peasant life' commented unfavourably, and Shcherbina
in 1887 had also used such a classification which Lenin reproduces and uses with
enthusiasm in 'What are "the Friends of the People"'. The well-known use of this
economic indicator is in The Development of Capitalism in Russia (see Section 3).
The territorial (geographical) stratification proposed in the 1890s by A. I. Chuprov
and extensively applied in conjunction with arithmetic means by F. A. Shcherbina
was not appropriate to socioeconomic ends and is heavily criticized in The
Development of Capitalism in Russia and subsequently by the Marxist statisticians at
the Statistical Section of the 11th Meeting of Russian Natural Scientists and
Physicians in St Petersburg in 1901, though there was a defense by narodnik-type
zemstvo statisticians (Zavialov, 1988). Yet it is clear that Lenin's successful applica-
tion of stratification and arithmetic means owes much to the study not only of
Shcherbina's data but also of Shcherbina's methods.
Effective as Lenin's use of statistics was, it was tendentious, being a means towards
political ends. His classifications were indeed 'extraordinarily flexible' (Kingston-
Mann (1981), p. 747). How then did the statistical community in Russia, in particular
the zemstvo statisticians (see Seneta (1985)), react to his criticisms when The
Development of Capitalism in Russia appeared? Questions such as this have been
posed by Kruskal and Mosteller (1980), p. 174. We agree with Zav'ialov (1988) that
Lenin's early writings appealed to the youth of Marxist inclinations, but also with
Willetts's (1967) assessment that the contemporary impact was small, possibly the
more so since the book was written under a pseudonym-yet another work by a
would-be revolutionary-and Lenin left the country soon after its publication.
Zemstvo statistics had no relevance in Russia after his return, even though emigres
such as Peshekhonov and Shcherbina continued to teach 'zemstvo statistics' (Seneta,
1985). Still, there were five reviews, and these may be found in the 1927, 1935 and 1937
editions of Lenin's collected works, volume 3, as appendix II ('Documents and
materials'). (All reviews are missing from the fourth Stalinist edition, though Lenin's
response to Skvortsov's review remains.) Johnson (1982), note 53, mentions supposed
reponses by N. A. Kablukov and P. A. Vikhlaev. In a personal communication
(Johnson, 1988) which we acknowledge with gratitude, he has informed us that his
note 53 is based on Lenin (1958), volume 3, pp. 139-140 (i.e. a remark by Lenin in the
second edition of his Development of Capitalism in Russia). In particular,
1990] LENIN AS A STATISTICIAN 79

Kablukov's name should be replaced by that of N. N. Chernenkov (1863-?).

Skvortsov's (1899) lengthy review (number 3) is reduced to five pages. The other
reviews are number 1 (1899) by B. V. Avilov (1874-?), number 2 (1899) a brief six-line
anonymous review, number 4 (1900) by P. Berlin and number 5 (1908) by B.
Veselovsky (the only review of the second edition). For Avilov see Appendix A.
L. Kamenev's preface written in August 1926 to volume 3 of Lenin (1927) gives a
characterization of the reviewers.
'If we exclude the response of B. V. Avilov, who at the time was in the same [political] camp
as Vladimir Ilich [Lenin] and the polemical article of P. N. Skvortsov, then in the legal press
on the occasion of Lenin's book there were responses only from the bernsteinian P. Berlin
and the menshevik B. Veselovsky. Both were forced to recognize the massive significance
of Vladimir Ilich's investigation .... The narodniks[populists] completely ignored the
book: severely wounded by Lenin's work, they did not, however, respond even with a
word....'

The only review out of numbers 1, 2, 4 and 5 to allude significantly to statistical

matters is Veselovsky's; it makes the important point that Lenin had not updated the
second edition adequately with new statistical material. Avilov's review in its last
paragraph makes the point that Lenin has 'wrongly narrowed' his task in not paying
more attention to external trade and to aspects of economic development specific to
Russia, but is generally favourable, as are Berlin's and Veselovsky's, apart from
matters of political doctrine.
P. N. Skvortsov's review deserves attention, because of the special place that he
occupies in our account. It begins by voicing the same criticism of Lenin's narrowing
of the subject to internal markets, and throughout makes reference to Marx's Das
Kapital where Lenin is repeatedly directed to seek enlightenment (in the full version of
the review). Much of the full review (Skvortsov (1899), pp. 2289-2292) is devoted to
Lenin's focus on grouping in his chapter 2 ('The differentiation of the peasantry') and
especially to its section XI (section XII in the second edition), entitled 'Zemstvo-
statistical data on peasant budgets'. In the contracted version of Skvortsov's review
printed in Lenin (1927), volume 3, portions of this section including certain statistical
tables claiming to show Lenin in error in his conclusions have been omitted. We shall
return to this material in the next section. In Lenin (1927), volume 3, appendix III,
note 1 describes Skvortsov's review as written 'in aggressive tones and very pre-
tentiously,' while note 177 says:
to reprint Skvortsov's article in full makes no sense, since it is overflowing with
matters of little relevance: citations from Marx, from statistical compendia, etc., and what
is more, substantial extracts from the book of Lenin himself'.

Veselovsky's review directs Lenin to the writings of the Menshevik economist P. P.

Maslov, presumably to the first edition (1903) of Maslov (1917). In the main body of
his text Maslov (1917) refers to The Development of Capitalism in Russia twice, once
for a table borrowed from this source and secondly in a rather superficial fashion. In a
section which appears in this fifth edition of 1917 entitled 'To my critics', Lenin is
again mentioned in footnote 1 on p. 369 but in a fleeting manner:
'Kautsky in his book Agrarnii Vopros (The Agrarian Question) proved that in land
division arises the process of capitalization and concentration of manufacture. Gerts [Herz]
80 KOTZ AND SENETA [Part1,
provedthe oppositeandgavedatain supportof his deductions.In the Russianliteraturethe
samedeductionsweremade. .. on the one sideby V. Ilin, andon the otherby P. Vikhlaev.
I shallindicatethat neitherGerts[Herz]nor Vikhlaevrefutethe deductionsof Kautskyand
other orthodox [Marxists] ...
We have also been able to examine the book of Chernenkov (1905) in which there
appeared substantial quotations from the first edition of The Development of
Capitalism in Russia and to which Lenin responded briefly in the second edition
(Lenin (1958), pp. 139-140). Chernenkov, a zemstvo statistician, gives a thorough
and professional statistical analysis of the situation of the peasantry and (Chernenkov
(1905), pp. 152-153) admits the plausibility of Lenin's hypothesis of differentiation
of the peasantry (which, Chernenkov points out (p. 123) is not new) but suggests that
another hypothesis of nearly local variation is equally plausible in explaining the data.
At other points in Chernenkov (1905) (e.g. pp. 100-102) he mildly criticizes Lenin's
statistical applications for lack of care as well as Shcherbina's interpretations. Lenin's
response that Chernenkov is 'playing with numbers' while irritable was justifiable.
(P. A. Vikhlyaev's comments appeared in the journal Khoziain (1901). The relevant
information is available on request from the authors.)
Two sections of the statistical history book of the narodnik Shcherbina (1925) at
the time teaching at the Ukrainian Free University in Prague, 'Russian statistical
investigations' (pp. 120-130) and 'Zemstvo statistics' (pp. 131-146), are of particular
interest, in as much as these are historical accounts written outside the USSR by a
person closely involved in prerevolutionary developments and already of senior
stature at that time. Neither Lenin nor his The Development of Capitalism in Russia
are explicitly mentioned, yet there is an illuminating statement (p. 6) about the history
of Russian statistics:
'. . . the history of statistics took form as a reflection of the struggle for power and not as a
reflectionof the tallyingof normalneeds of people'.
A book by Shcherbina (1921), written earlier during his emigre period, shows that
he kept close contact with developments in Russia but is polemical rather than factual
in nature. One reason given in the preface is lack of source materials. Another is
Shcherbina's bitterness towards the current Bolshevik system. Lenin does not figure
prominently (if at all) in this book.

3. EXAMPLESOF LENIN'S STATISTICALANALYSIS

3.1. Analysis of Peasant Budgets

Lenin's statistical deductions on peasant budgets in 'What are "the Friends of the
People"' are based on 24 budgets of typical peasant households, of Ostrogozhsk
Uezd in Voronezh Gubernia gathered, analysed and published by Shcherbina in 1887.
Lenin's analysis of section XII 'Zemstvo statistics on peasant budgets' of Lenin
(1927), volume 3, is similarly based on the 'extraordinarily complete' data for 66
budgets also from Shcherbina (published in 1889) and the Voronezh Gubernia, but
for four uezds which do not include Ostrogozhsk. These analyses are the centre-piece
of Lenin's statistical work.
For the 24 budgets, he first notes (Lenin (1927), volume 1, pp. 129 ff.) the defects
of the Krivenko-Shcherbina grouping into the two 'legal categories' of former state
and former landlords' peasants, in that the differences within the categories are far
1990] LENIN AS A STATISTICIAN 81
greater than between the categories, and himself divides the 24 budgets into three
groups:
(a) six prosperous peasants;
(b) 11 peasants of average prosperity;
(c) seven poor peasants
(precisely how he allocates a peasant into a category is not stated). Taking several
items for the household budget and computing the arithmetic means for the legal
categories and the economic categories, he shows how the legal classification conceals
the huge socioeconomic differences, which he interprets as
. .. a process of complete differentiationof the small producers,the upper groups of
whom are being turnedinto a bourgeoisie,the lowerinto a proletariat'.
To determine typicality of what is in effect a sample of 24 farms, in relation to the
uezd as a whole, Shcherbina had grouped the peasants according to the size of their
allotments and arrived at the conclusion that the level of prosperity (general average)
of the 24 farms is higher by about a third than the average in the uezd. This, as
Krivenko had concluded, would seem to imply that the 24 farms '. . . cannot serve as a
measure of the general state of affairs even in the uezd, let alone in the gubernia'.
Lenin points out that the grouping by land allotments is not appropriate (even with a
view to determining typicality; if the farms were not typical his own conclusions
would be invalidated) and turns to Shcherbina's classification by draught animals that
is '. . . a classification on economic, non-legal lines . . .' for the whole uezd and
compares the means for various items with his own 'differentiation' of kinds of
peasants in the peasant households as follows.
Lenin points out that while the overall averages for the 24 households are indeed
higher than for the uezd on the whole, on considering the four economic categories
(which are here presumably identified with the possession of draught animals), the 24
farms can indeed be taken as typical, on the basis of matching of corresponding
columns.
The criticisms that we might make of these arguments nowadays is that the strata
sample sizes (2, 5, 11, 6) are much too small, even if the samples can be thought of as
representative in the sense of random sampling, to draw convincing further conclu-
sions from the overall sample of 24, even though the column coincidences are impres-
sive (and we can imagine Lenin's elation on seeing the agreement) (Tables 1 and 2).

TABLE 1
Ostrogozhsk Uezd, Voronezh Gubernia

Strata, Households Per householdt Average

draught animals Cattle Allotment Rented land family
land (persons)

0 8728 0.7 6.2 0.2 4.6

1 10510 3.0 9.4 1.3 5.7
2 or 3 11191 6.8 13.8 3.6 7.7
>,4 3152 14.3 21.3 12.3 11.2
Total 33581 4.4 11.2 2.5 6.7

tThe unit of land area used is the dessiatina (about 2.7 acres).
82 KOTZ AND SENETA [Part1,
TABLE 2
Distribution of 24 households

Strata class Households Per household A verage

Cattle Allotment Rented land family
land (persons)

Farm labourerst 2 0.5 7.2 0.0 4.5

Poor peasantst 5 2.8 8.7 3.9 5.6
Middle peasants 11 8.1 9.2 7.7 8.3
Prosperous 6 13.5 22.1 8.8 7.8
Total 24 7.2 12.2 6.6 7.3

tAccording to Lenin's footnote the seven former 'poor peasants' have been subdivided in this way.

TABLE 3
Distribution of 66 households

Strata, Households Per household A verage

draught horses Cattle Allotment Rented land family
land (persons)

(a) 0 12 0.8 5.9 0 4.08

(b) 1 18 2.6 7.4 1.5 4.94
(c) 2 17 4.9 12.7 3.0 8.23
(d) 3 9 9.1 18.5 5.6 13.00
(e) 4 5 12.8 22.9 14.2 14.20
(f) > 5 5 19.3 23 23.2 16.00
Total 66 5.8 12.4 5.1 8.27

For the 66 budgets, the effectiveness of the classification according to number of

draught horses (the classes are now six: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 or more horses) is taken for
granted. The data corresponding to those in Tables 1 and 2, when reconstructed from
Lenin's presentation, are given in Table 3 and roughly agree with the pattern for
Voronezh Gubernia as a whole. Here Lenin truly exploits the effectiveness of the
stratification and the greater sample size to draw more convincingly the various socio-
economic conclusions he desires, for example (Lenin (1927), volume 3, p. 107):
'It is sufficient to glance at farm expenditure as compared to the total expenditure for
each group to see that here we have both proletarians and proprietors: in group (a) the farm
expenditure is 14070of all expenditures, while in (f)-61 07'.
Skvortsov (1899), p. 2290 (Lenin (1927), volume 3, pp. 551-552), says of the 66
budgets that their typicality has not been proved at all, nor can it be. Only large data
sets on budgets provide valid material, and the conclusions which Lenin makes from
the budgets are of no value. He points out further than the data from the statistical
compendia of Nizhny-Novgorod permit detailed accounting of production of peasant
farms; Lenin had these available and could have answered fundamental questions,
such as where do peasants get the money to pay their taxes?, but chose to restrict
1990] LENIN AS A STATISTICIAN 83
himself to the 66 budgets. Indeed, Skvortsov gives a reason why Voronezh Gubernia is
not typicalfor all ofRussia: the selling in autumn of surplus grain and its reacquisition
in spring is rare in Voronezh Gubernia whereas in Russia as a whole it is
commonplace.
Skvortsov's particular argument with Lenin, however, is on the issue of groupings.
Skvortsov points out that grouping according to size of land allotments is useful in
revealing the historical transition of peasant society from a condition of serfdom to a
condition of capitalism, whereas Lenin's grouping will tend to obscure this. Further,
he says, Lenin is too hasty in claiming that his grouping is more effective in revealing
socioeconomic differences (Skvortsov (1899), p. 2291). At least in his first edition
Lenin claimed that if one were to calculate the amount of tax paid per unit (dessiatina)
of land, then this would be about the same irrespective of land allotment. Skvortsov
quotes zemstvo figures (including figures for eight uezds of Voronezh Gubernia!)
which show that tax per unit land declines with the size of the allotment.
Lenin's 'crushing retort' (Lenin (1927), volume 3, pp. 496-498), on these issues at
least, is not convincing.
Eventually (see Lenin (1933)) he did stress that government statistics should be
presented in a way to reveal processes of change over time.

3.2. Grouping Examples

3.2.1. Analysis of US Farm Data
(See Lenin (1958) volume 27, pp. 184-203: 'New data on the laws of development
of capitalism in agriculture' (1917).)
The effectiveness of proper stratification (grouping) as an aid to understanding an
economic situation is particularly well illustrated by Lenin's reanalysis of farm data
from the US census of 1900. When the primary grouping is according to size offarm,
somewhat inconsistent results obtain when one considers, say, the cost of hired labour
and value of tools and machinery, depending on whether this is done per farm or per
acre of land (Table 4).

TABLE 4
Costs of labour and tools and machinery in the USA

Size of Average per farm (US $) A verage per acre (US $)

farm (acres) Hired labour Tools! Hired labour Tools!
cost machinery cost machinery

<3 77 53 40.30 27.57

3-10 18 42 2.95 6.71
10-20 16 41 1.12 2.95
20-50 18 54 0.55 1.65

260-500 166 263 0.48 0.77

500-1000 312 377 0.47 0.57
> 1000 1059 1222 0.25 0.29
84 KOTZ AND SENETA [Part1,
In the middle columns the cost of hired labour and the value of tools and machinery
both increase beyond the 'less than 3 acres' class, whereas in the right-hand columns
the value of tools and machinery column decreases, and the hired labour column stays
more or less constant between the '20-50 acres' and the '500-1000 acres' classes. A
column which we have omitted from the middle shows that the value of the product
increases with size of farm, apart from the first class again, where it is much higher
than for the next four classes. Thus it appears that, although small farms are relatively
expensive to run, they are more productive than somewhat larger farms, but in general
productivity increases with size of farms.
Lenin (1958), volume 27, pp. 184-203, reanalyses the data by using value of
product as his primary classification. This gives Table 5. Thus the tables are now
consistent in that in all the columns (except the very last entry of the last column) the
numbers increase. The conclusion that might then naively be drawn is that high pro-
ductivity is associated with a large amount of hired help and large investment in tools
and machinery (and is relatively independent of the size of the farm). We see here the
seeds of the collectivization to come.

3.2.2. Means
Lenin clearly understood that to calculate a grand mean from stratum means they
must be weighted by the relative number in each stratum. See for example his
correction to a calculation by M. K. Gorbunova (1840-193 1), a leading female statis-
tician (Lenin (1958), volume 3, p. 443). Yet, it is ironical that in another article in this
edition (volume 23, pp. 242-245: 'Capitalism and taxes' (1913)) there is an incorrect
and misleading use of means in an example involving stratification. Using the fact that
at the time there were 16 million families (income earners) in the USA, and indirect
taxes amounted to $600 million, the grand mean indirect tax per family is $37.5. From
the facts that there were 8.8 million 'workers" families with a total income of $4800
million and 0.5 million 'capitalist' families with a total income of $5500 million, he
deduces that the total indirect tax on 'workers' is 8.8 million x $37.5 = $330 million,
which as a percentage of income amounts to (330/4800) x 100 = 7Gb, while the total
indirect tax on capitalists is 0.5 million x $37.5 = $19 million, giving a percentage of
income (19/5500) x 100 = 0.35/o. Of course the stratum means for indirect tax for
each of the workers and capitalists may be quite different from those obtained by
Lenin.

TABLE 5
Reanalysis of US farm data

Productivity Averageperfarm (US $) Averageper acre(US $)

offarm (US $) Hiredlabour Tools! Hiredlabour Toolsl
costs machinery costs machinery

1-50 4 24 0.06 0.38

50-100 4 28 0.08 0.48
100-250 7 42 0.11 0.62
250-500 18 78 0.19 0.82
500-1000 52 154 0.36 1.07
1000-2500 158 283 0.67 1.21
>2500 786 781 0.72 0.72
1990] LENIN AS A STATISTICIAN 85
Another example of the kind of misuse of means by Lenin to achieve political ends
occurs in Lenin (1958) (volume 23, pp. 163-165: 'Is the condition of the peasants
improving or worsening?' (1913)) where he takes to task the author of an analysis of
the data set in Table 6, which for each year shows the percentage of peasantry who
were reported by zemstvo statisticians as assessing their conditions to have improved,
worsened or to be unchanged. It is not mentioned in Lenin's article that apparently by
grouping the first three years (i.e. stratum 1) and the last three years (i.e. stratum 2)
and averaging over each group the unknown author had obtained Table 7 (Gurevich
(1959), p. 154) from which the unknown author inferred that the peasants' lot was
improving. Lenin, in contrast, finds grand means for all six years, i.e. improved,
20%; worsened, 38%, and thus concludes that, since the number of unfavourable
answers is almost twice as great, the peasants are being 'ruined'. Since the first three
years apparently coincided with bad harvests, the stratification may be misleading;
but there is no doubt that the grand mean obscures the process of change over time.

3.3. Cross-classification Example

(See Lenin (1958), volume 19, pp. 377-406: 'Strike statistics in Russia' (1910).)
In discussing (p. 398) economic and political strikes in 1905, Lenin produces a
three-way classification whose entries are numbers of strikers (Table 8) (Lenin's
dichotomization into economic and political follows from a detailed official classi-
fication of the time (p. 393) not available to us) from which he concludes that the
(politically) 'advanced section' (i.e. the metal workers) were in the minority from the
first quarter in the purely economic strikes, while as political consciousness was raised
among the textile workers this became true of them also. He notes in supplementary
information that in the fourth quarter the number of metal workers in purely
economic strikes was 120%of all metal workers, while the number of textile strikers in

TABLE 6t
Condition of Russian peasants (ungrouped data; individual years)

Percentage reporting change for the following years:

1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912

Improved 15 8 8 21 32 38
Worsened 44 53 64 34 16 15

tThe 'unchanged' group size is obtained by subtraction.

TABLE 7
Condition of Russian peasants (grouped data)

Percentage reporting change for the following periods:

1907-1909 1910-1912

Improved 10 30
Worsened 54 22
86 KOTZ AND SENETA [Part1,
purely economic strikes was 25 /o of the total number of textile workers. We note that,
since the politically conscious elements would tend to participate in both kinds of
strikes (which are not mutually exclusive), Lenin's conclusions here are not
surprising, and it would seem invalid to total (as Lenin does) over the two kinds of
strikes in each group.
Even a simple device such as a x2 test for the homogeneity of the proportion of
political strikers who are metal workers (as distinct from those who are textile
workers) over the four quarters indeed yields a highly significant result.
In a follow-up analysis (p. 403) Lenin attempts to prove that results of strikes
depend 'on the force of their onslaught' (i.e. number of strikers involved). This kind
of reasoning for 1905 is based on the data set in Table 9.
If we compare in the manner of Lenin Table 9 with the total workers involved in
strikes (from Table 8) (Table 10), Lenin's hypothesis is not supported by the data, and
Lenin, recognizing this, nevertheless engages in statistical and political apologetics.
However, Lenin realized quite clearly (see Lenin (1933)) that the advantage of
cross-classification over summary measures is that detail is not lost and considered
that such tables introduced a revolution in the science of agricultural economics. We
mention also his considerable proficiency with graphical methods (see Gurevich
(1959), p. 214-228, and Berezin (1988a) for examples). His unfinished paper
'Statistics and sociology' written in January of 1917 (Lenin (1958), volume 30,
pp. 349-356) contains some useful observations on 'dangers of isolating facts and
playing with examples' in the social sciences.

4. LENIN AND USSR STATE STATISTICS

(For a recent Soviet account of the topic of this section see Mashikhin (1988).)

TABLE 8
Number of strikers in Russia in 1905

Group No. of strikers in the following quarters:

1 2 3 4

A (metal workers) Economic 120 000 42 000 37 000 63 000

Political 159 000 76 000 63 000 283 000
B (textile workers) Economic 196 000 109 000 72 000 182 000
Political 111 000 154 000 53 000 418 000

TABLE 9
Results of strikes in Russia

Result of strike No. in the following quarters:

1 2 3 4

Favours workers 158 71 45 95

Compromise 267 109 61 235
Favours employers 179 59 59 100
1990] LENIN AS A STATISTICIAN 87
TABLE 10
Number of economic strikers in Russia in 1905

Quarter 1 2 3 4
No. of economic strikers 316 000 151 000 109 000 245 000

On July 25th, 1918, V. I. Lenin signed the first Statute of State Statistics which
established the CSA as a semi-independent statistical institution. However, the CSA
was in competition with the statistical offices of the Supreme Council of the National
Economy ( Vysshyi Sovet Norognogo Khozyaistva (VSNKH)), which was established
earlier in December 1917 (see the revealing article by Zav'ialov (1989) on the activities
of the VSNKH and his first chairman, A. I. Rykov, during the early years of the
Soviet state), and the powerful State Planning Commission (Gosplan) almost from its
inception as the main agency for the collection and analysis of data. The first director
of the CSA was an experienced zemstvo statistician, P. I. Popov (1872-1950) (who
had known Lenin since 1905), who, before his appointment, served as the head of the
Branch of Statistics and Census at the VSNKH. It was P. I. Popov who presented
Lenin with his plan of organizing the Soviet state statistics and received his approval
on July 25th, 1918. The head of Gosplan in the early years of the Soviet state
(1921-30) was a close associate and Lenin's friend, the influential Gleb M.
Krzhizhanovskii (1872-1959), who apparently was privy to the dealings between
Popov and Lenin. Lenin was quite suspicious about the ideological loyalty of the
scientific workers at the newly established CSA. At the meeting of the Petrograd
Soviet (March 12th, 1919) speaking of the statistical experts who work at the CSA,
Lenin (1958) (volume 38, p. 16) says, '. . . a majority of these specialists are right-
wing SR, mensheviks and even kadets ...'. In 1920, reporting to the 9th Convention
of the (Communist- Bolshevik) Party, Lenin (volume 40, p. 255) refers with irony to
the materials obtained from the CSA: 'Their summaries were carried out by statis-
ticians who cannot be under suspicion of being bolsheviks'. His last general remark
about the CSA, written in 1922, was: 'The CSA should not be "academic" or
"independent", which is what it 9/10 is now due to the old bourgeois habit, but an
organ of socialist construction'. It would seem that Lenin was not happy with the way
that P. I. Popov was running the CSA. As indicated in the article by Oksenoit (1988),
p. 56 (the public director of the newly established Muzei Statistiki (Museum of
Statistics) at the Goskomstat-the State Committee on Statistics), Popov devoted
much attention to the development of problems of statistical methodology, organiza-
tion of publications, especially of VestnikStatistiki and the bulletin of the CSA. Lenin
did not approve the academically oriented activities of the CSA. In a letter to G. M.
Krzhizhanovskii, the Head of Gosplan, he states that 'the CSA should be
reprimanded for academism .... They sit and write volumes but do not think about
essential problems . . ' (Ryabushkin, 1978).
According to Lenin (1958) (volume 52, p. 215), the CSA should deal with solving
practical problems: 'One should mold the CSA into an organ of analysis of the current
rather than "scientific" issues'; 'Statisticians should be our practical assistants and
not academics'. In an angry letter to Popov (August 16th, 1921) Lenin (1958) (volume
53, pp. 121-122) severely reprimands him, stating that 'my instructions [in a letter of
88 KOTZ AND SENETA [Part1,
June 4th, 1921] are being totally ignored and the whole activity, the whole organiza-
tion of the CSA is incorrect'. Insulted Popov wrote to Lenin on August 19th, 1921,
disputing the allegations and asking to be relieved of his duties. On August 20th,
Lenin writes to Popov (volume 53, pp. 131-132), refusing Popov's resignation and
insisting that his earlier instructions be fulfilled. Shortly thereafter (August 22nd,
1921; volume 53, p. 333) Lenin wrote a personal letter to G. M. Krzhizhanovskii,
saying, 'Possibly, I am partly to blame for this. I may have caused this hysteria by
being overly strict. But, in essence, I am right and I shall persist. I do not accept his
resignation.'
The instructions seem to pertain to some curtailment of inessential activities of the
CSA and to postponing their implementation 'to a better time'. However, the
underlying cause of the friction and demands seems to be the serious difficulties and
contradictions between the CSA and Gosplan. It emerges from Lenin's cor-
respondence that the bone of contention was Lenin's demand (volume 53, p. 122) that
'The Chairman or Director of the CSA should operate with greater contact with
Gosplan according to direct instructions and assignments from the Chairman of
Gosplan and its presidium'. The Director of the CSA was originally a non-voting
member of the Soviet of Peoples' Commissars (equivalent to the Council of Ministers)
and eventually became a member of the presidium of Gosplan in 1921. These contra-
dictions were also discussed at the last meeting between Lenin and Popov on
December 5th, 1922 (a week before Lenin's last working day in the Kremlin)-he
suffered two attacks of illness, thrombosis of the brain on December 13th, 1922 (see
Weber and Weber (1980), p. 193). It seems that Lenin attempted to smooth out the
contradictions between the CSA and Gosplan before transferring power to his
deputies, A. I. Rykov, L. B. Kamenev and A. D. Tsiupuna. However, it follows from
the memoirs of L. A. Fotieva (1881-1975) (Lenin's personal secretary in 1920-24) and
I. K. Voronov (1925) that as late as February 1923 Lenin was in touch with Popov
concerning the status of the CSA census conducted in Petrograd, Moscow and
Kharkov and requested his own staff to press Popov so that the materials of the census
would be ready for publication before the next party conference. Meanwhile in 1923,
the VSNKH consolidated its activities related to industrial statistics and the operation
of the CSA was restricted to conducting population censuses and yearly surveys.
An anecdote described by N. A. Milyutin (1889-1942), who was at that time a
member of the Collegium of the Peoples' Commissariat for Labour and the Council
of Labour and Defense is very characteristic of Lenin's attention to minute details
involving statistical data, in particular statistical tables (Milyutin, 1965).
Unfortunately, Milyutin does not specify the date but it follows from the previously
mentioned memoirs of L. A. Fotieva that the incident may have taken place at the last
meeting with Popov on December 5th, 1922, when inter alia the materials of the
survey on the (overall) number of Soviet government workers were discussed. At that
meeting Popov stated that the number of pilots in the Agricultural Peoples
Commissariat was reduced by 100%. Lenin inquired what pilots were doing in the
Agricultural Commissariat. Popov replied that they were needed to combat vermin.
'They could then be in the fields possibly, but should not be attached to the
Commissariat; and how many pilots were there before the total reduction?'
commented Lenin. Popov examined his folders containing the detailed data and
replied that, as indicated in the appropriate columns, there had been one and now
there were zero which constitutes a 100%/reduction!
1990] LENIN AS A STATISTICIAN 89
In December 1919, Lenin sent Popov a 'skeleton' of a table dealing with food
consumption before and after the revolution and asked Popov whether such a table
could be constructed by 'the specialists' in the CSA (volume 40, p. 340). He later used
this table in his report to the 9th Party Convention mentioned earlier.
Although Lenin often invited and carefully examined statistical data sent to him
from various statistical offices and on occasion discovered inconsistencies stemming
from inappropriate classification, we have no evidence that it would not have
occurred to him to encourage gross falsification of data to serve his political
purposes-a practice which was not above the scruples of some of his successors,
notably Stalin (see our Section 5). Lenin's (1958) assertion (volume 54, p. 446): 'We
need full and accurate information' is well known and is widely publicized. (For a
succinct discussion of government statistics in totalitarian regimes see Keyfitz (1978),
pp. 420-421.)
Lenin's involvement with statistics in the 1920s was in part via the statistical
sections of the VSNKH. On September 1st, 1921, he wrote a letter to the newspaper
Ekonomicheskaya Zhyzn' which was then the organ of the VSNKH and considered to
be the central economic mouthpiece. For reasons which are perhaps partially due to
the controversial nature of the proposals in this letter, it was not published until over 2
years later on November 6th, 1923, just two months before his death (Lenin, (1958),
volume 44, p. 112-113). Lenin criticizes the newspaper for the absence of analysis of
the current data and proposes a route for reconstruction of its operation. He writes
(volume 44, p. 12): 'The newspaper provides a multitude of most valuable, in
particular statistical material pertaining to our economy. However, there are two
faults with this material: firstly, it is random, incomplete, unsystematic and secondly
it is unprocessed and unanalyzed.'
Lenin suggests that the activities related to the summary and analysis of the current
statistical material in Ekonomicheskaya Zhyzn' be carried out jointly with the
newspaper staff and the workers at Gosplan and the CSA. He also points out that
systematization and analysis is required to pinpoint which enterprises are successful
and which are not. There are also suggestions that monthly summaries be published in
the newspaper which preclude (at least temporarily) similar data from being
duplicated by other statistical agencies.
Even Lenin was apparently unable to fight the statistical bureaucracy of the newly
established state, which may explain the unprecedented delay in publication of the
letter.
Lenin also tried unsuccessfully in 1921 to persuade the CSA and Gosplan to
develop a system of index numbers to evaluate the state of the total economy-'such
an index should be compiled at least once a month by the CSA with Gosplan and be
necessarily compared with "the prewar number" as well as with the 1920 number (and
if possible with 1917, 1918 and 1919)'. He visualized at least 10-15 indices to cover all
aspects of the economy which include data on territory, population, production,
agriculture, transportation and such details as the percentage of underfulfilment of
the sowing plan, the number of out-of-service trains, etc. Letters to G. M.
Krzhizhanovskii and P. I. Popov written between May and September 1921 in this
connection testify to his desperate and perhaps somewhat naive desire and belief that
proper statistical accounting and analysis can greatly assist the economic recon-
struction of a huge country only very recently emerged from an unprecedented
revolution and a 7-year war including a civil war that was still raging. His conviction
90 KOTZ AND SENETA [Part1,
that statisticians must be practical assistants of the Communist party and the Soviet
government was unshaken, as expressed, for example, in his famous slogan
'Socialism is first of all accounting' (Lenin (1958), volume 22, pp. 45, 50). 'Statistics',
lectured Lenin to P. I. Popov in the summer of 1918, discussing the problem of
organizing Soviet statistics, 'as any other scientific discipline, possesses problems and
solves them in the interests of specific classes . . .' (Popov, 1956).
Lenin's direct involvement in the first Soviet population and agricultural censuses
conducted under extremely difficult conditions in August 1920 should be noted. In
May 1920, Lenin dispatched telegrams to all the provincial party committees, to
Moscow, Petrograd and the Siberian committees emphasizing the outstanding
significance of the census and threatening that those who were lax in performing their
duties related to the census would be prosecuted by the Revolutionary Tribunal.
Similar telegrams were sent in July and September 1920 in which he orders the
provincial statistical bureaus to be provided with adequate facilities for the census
implementation and warns of severe punishment to those who impede the execution
of the census. 'Remember that you will be responsible before the Worker-Peasant
Government for the lack of enthusiasm in conducting the census and its poor
production' (Pisarev, (1949), p. 12).
Popov (1924) asserts that Lenin ordered factories which produced paper for
newspapers to switch to production of paper for the census and these factories
received priority for supplies for the workers' provisions, wood for heating and other
necessities. He also assisted Popov to obtain permission from the Peoples'
Commissar on Education (A. V. Lunacharskii (1875-1933)) who was unlikely to be a
great believer in or admirer of statistical censuses to employ teachers as enumerators
and data processors.

5. CENSUSSTATISTICSUNDER STALIN
The decline of Soviet statistics with Lenin's death and Stalin's ascendancy has
already been sketched in Anderson (1959), Kotz (1965), Seneta (1985) and Zarkovic
(1956). More detailed information on the fate of individual economic statisticians
such as V. G. Groman (1873-?) and P. A. Vikhlaev (1869-1928) may be found in
Jasny (1972), although some of his information (on Shcherbina, for example, whom
he describes as a woman on pp. 200-201) is wrong.
Recently, detailed information has also come to light from Soviet sources about
population census statistics under Stalin. In particular, see Conquest (1986) and
Berezin (1988b). Berezin writes that, during the preparations for the 1937 census,
Stalin called in I. A. Kraval, then in charge of the project, and expressed the opinion
that the population of the Soviet Union was 170 million. The census of January 1937
did not confirm this opinion, and in spite of the conscientiousness with which it was
carried out its results were declared invalid. (Only in 1966 was the population size
given by the census-164 million-revealed.) Kraval was arrested and shot (as were
many of his co-workers) in May 1937. He was rehabilitated in 1956. It is now widely
recognized (Conquest, 1986) that the artificial famine of 1932-33 in Ukraine was
responsible for the deaths of at least 6 million-7 million people which explains some of
the discrepancy; Berezin refers to this only indirectly. The overall picture is more
complex (Conquest, 1986); the projected total for 1937 was at least 177 million.
1990] LENIN AS A STATISTICIAN 91
A new census was ordered, which took place in January 1939 and produced a
sought-after figure of 170.6 million. Berezin argues that natural growth over 2 years
would have added 4 million-5 million people to the 1937 figure, and the removal of
the religious question would have increased the number of respondents in 1939.
It is a hopeful sign that Soviet information such as this is beginning to appear, to
correct views available in the West hitherto such as Jasny's (1957) assertion (doubtless
in good faith):
'The new official data on the net growth of population (Statistical Handbook, 1956,
page 243) implies a population of 193 to 196 million in July 1, 1941, when the Soviet Union
entered World War II. The Soviet population was, however, closer to 200 million in 1941.'

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We thank Professor W. H. Kruskal for motivating us throughout this project and
his valuable comments on the first version of this paper. Our gratitude goes also to
June Pachuta Farris (Slavic Librarian, Regenstein Library, University of Chicago)
and to Ada Boddy (Librarian of the Russian Section of the Glasgow University
Library). Finally, ES thanks SOB and Professor S. M. Stigler for materials, and SK
thanks RK for typing.
Samuel Kotz's research was supported by a US National Science Foundation grant,
Division of Social and Economic Sciences, grant DIR-8811895.

APPENDIX A
B. V. Avilov (1874-?)
In appendix IV, 'Dictionary-index of names', of Lenin (1927), volume 3, B. V. Avilov is
described as a social democrat (i.e. of the same party as Lenin), lawyer by education, by
profession a journalist and statistician. In April 1917 he deviated from the Bolshevik line and
in 1918 divorced himself from active participation in political life. In 1927 he was working in
the Central Statistical Office of the USSR.
In the 'Index of names' of the fifth edition (1958) of volume 3 he is accused of initially
adopting a conciliatory attitude towards the Mensheviks at the 3rd Conference of the Social
Democrats and then deviating by working for the Menshevik newspaper. Neither his
employment with the Central Statistical Office nor his year of death are given.

Fedor Andreevich Shcherbina (1849-1936)

Information about F. A. Shcherbina is available in several sources, from the Czarist period
Encyclopedia Dictionary of Brokgauz (Brockhaus) and Efron (1904), through the name index
of the various editions of volume 3 of Lenin's collected works, to the English language
Wilczynski (1983). A Kuban Cossack by birth and tradition, he became director of the
Statistical Department of the Voronezh Zemstvo, from 1884 to 1903. Exceptionally
productive, he partly compiled and partly edited 66 volumes of Voronezh statistical data (the
usual modern citation is Shcherbina (1897)) and was from 1904 a Corresponding Member of
the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences. A norodnik, he was elected to the Second Duma
from the Populist Socialists. After the Bolshevik revolution his emigre national identification
became Ukrainian. The fifth edition of Lenin's collected works is aware of the year of his
death, but unlike the second edition concludes with the statement: 'V. I. Lenin severely
criticized the author's incorrect methods of analysis, which distorted reality of statistical
92 KOTZ AND SENETA [Part 1,
data'. However, the fifth edition notwithstanding, even Soviet statisticians acknowledge
Shcherbina's special contribution to the development of budget statistics (e.g. Gozulov
(1957)). Shcherbina was already sufficiently eminent to be listed among the editorial staff of
the multivolume BolshaiaEntsiklopedia (The Great Encyclopedia) published in St Petersburg
around 1900. There is a substantial entry under the title 'Statistics' in volume 17 which he may
have authored.

Pavel N. Skvortsov (?-1920)

In Lenin (1927), volume 3, appendix IV, P. N. Skvortsov is described as 'statistician,
Marxist, published his works in the 80's and 90's in the Iuridicheskii Vestnik, and later in
Marxist publications. Participated in the Marxist collection Materials . .. (1895) destroyed by
the censorship . . . .' In the same volume of the fifth edition's name index, more attention is
focused on his hostile criticism of Lenin's book which was 'shattered and refuted' by Lenin's
response.
In Lenin (1927), volume 3, note 177, p. 580, we have the following recollection of M.
Gorky:
'P. N. Skvortsov was at that time one of the most knowledgeable about the theory of Marx. He
read no books other than Das Kapital and was proud of it. A year or two prior to the publication of
P. B. Struve's Kriticheskie Zametki he read in the drawing room of the advocate Shcheglov a paper,
fundamental portions of which were the same as those in Struve, but-I remember it well-more
piercing in form. This paper put Skvortsov into the position of a heretic, which did nothing to
preclude him from forming around himself a circle of young people. Later many of its members
played a leading role in the promotion of the social-democratic party. He was, in truth, a man "not of
this world". An ascetic, he went about winter and summer in a light coat and in thin shoes, lived on the
brink of starvation and, on top of it all, was anxious about "reducing needs": he nourished himself
for several weeks only with sugar, eating 1.4 of a pound per day, no more, no less. This attempt at
"cheap, rational nourishment" evoked in him a general debilitation and a serious disorder of the
kidneys . . . .'
Zav'ialov (1988) clearly has access to further information some of which we have already
noted. He mentions also that, after his review of Lenin's book, P. N. Skvortsov degenerated
into a simple reviewer of statistical collections of various gubernia, as these collections
appeared.
The above passage (in different translation), together with a little more information may
also be found in various renderings of Gorky's autobiographical My Universities.

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