Russian WWII Losses May Have Been Even Higher

[Capt. Harlock]

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles ... llion-dead

[Jim D Burns]

I question their 205 mil population number that they base their math on. I think there was a census done in 1939 that listed Russia's population at about 168 mil, so by 1941 they'd be lucky to get it to perhaps 175-180 mil maybe assuming the had a baby boom going on, but no way they grew their population by 37 mil people in less than 2 years.

Jim

[Saint Ruth]

According to Wiki, "The Soviet Census held on January 6, 1937 was the most controversial of the censuses taken within the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The census results were not published because the census showed much lower population figures than anticipated, although it still showed a population growth from the last census in 1926, from 147 million to 162 million people in 1937"
Also, of course, there are other ways to increase a countries population. Annexing Eastern Poland increased the USSR population by 13 million. And then there were the Baltics, Bessarabia, and Northern Bukovina.

[jwolf]

Well, they grabbed some more territory between 1939-1941, so presumably they got a few million more. I don't think that would explain the whole discrepancy, though.

[Jim D Burns]

If you're going to do an accurate study of the casualties, you can't include people from territories that went back to their parent nations after 1945 (or if you do you need to tally those people in the final results too). So counting the people in Poland and the Baltics for example would skew your results when counting Russia's casualties. I'm not sure if the other areas went back or not after the war, would need to check it.

Jim

[Saint Ruth]

In 1945, the Soviets kept the territories they took in 1939/1940
To the winners, the spoils.
The Poles were compensated for their loss of territory in the East by being granted terrority to the West (Germany).

[Poopyhead]

Since Russian children are not taught the truth about Stalin's Purge, perhaps the 20 million that died at his hands are now lumped into the casualties of WW II.

[300writers]

There is no source which would provide honest and clear data about death statistics during WW.

[Zorch]

On a related topic, the German Holocaust archives have never been put on the internet.

[nicwb]

The article notes the original figure given by Stalin was 7m. Obviously questionable but it means he was not placing his own victim's in the count. His figure may have been motivated by a desire that the Soviet Union not look too weakened by WW2 given that they were then squaring off to the West in the Cold War.

I should note the Soviets were not above manipulating the count to cover up their own iniquity - they tried to blame the Nazis for the Katyn Massacre - the execution of about 22,000 Polish military n the Nazis. They even went so far as trying to get this as a charge at the Nuremberg trials. Even the current Russian govt now accepts Stalin ordered the killing.

The figure gets upped by Khrushchev to 20m - more realistic but as the article notes the reason appears not to have been the pursuit of historical accuracy but rather to make Stalin look bad.

My guess is given the lack of accurate records, and the unreliability of the record keepers, we'll never truly know.