A Populous Nation? The Political Use of Demographic Statistics in the USSR, 1965-1991

This project will focus on Soviet demography during the period 1965-1991, seeking principally to understand the role and significance of demographic statistics, as contested knowledge, as political resource, and as public discourse.

Key themes:

- Conflicts over methodologies of measurement and classification, especially regarding ethnicity/nationality.
- Perceptions of long-term dynamics and trends regarding the demographic strength and political position of non-Russian ethnicities.
- The impact of perceptions of rising mortality and falling fertility on faith in the socialist system, and on centre-periphery relations.

My proposed methodology is a mixed method, combining statistical analysis of primary data with critical textual analysis of archival documentation and discourse analysis of mass media and specialist publications. Fertility and mortality data from various sources will be examined. Census data, available in archives for the 1970 and 1979 USSR censuses, provide a rich source of information, broken down by ethnicity and native language. Regional statistical handbooks, specialist Soviet journals and government reports supplement the census data, providing information on population trends and public health.

Soviet obfuscation of demographic data makes this research complex. Andreev et al. (1994) discuss manipulation of census control forms, while Silver's (1986) work on ethnicity in Soviet censuses and Anderson's (1986) work on family data highlight methodological disputes. A study by Tolts (2008) shows that population data disseminated at the time was only a portion of what was collected. It is vital, therefore, alongside analyzing published data, to investigate what the Russian archives reveal about the processes and production of Soviet demography. Preliminary research has identified a large volume of recently declassified quantitative and qualitative material in the Russian State Archive of the Economy (Central Statistical Administration, f. 1562), the Russian State Archive (Council of Ministers, f. 5446) and the Russian State Archive of Recent History (former Party Archive, esp. CPSU Central Committee, f. 1,3,5). I shall also investigate the archives of the USSR Academy of Science, as well as analyzing professional journals such as Vestnik Statistiki (Bulletin of Statistics) available from the Russian State Library. With the exception of two newspaper titles, all these materials are currently available in hard copy only and there are no plans to digitise them. Examining them will therefore necessitate undertaking fieldwork in Moscow, Russia. As photographs are not allowed in Russian archives a significant period of archival research will be needed, as everything must be read and recorded inside the archive building.

This methodology will offer insight into the production, presentation, and consequences of Soviet demographic statistics. It will seek not so much to reconstruct the 'truth' about late Soviet population development, but to engage critically with the factors that shaped this knowledge, the narratives that were spun around it, and the policies and interventions that it produced. The research is important and timely, not only because it offers a new way of understanding late Soviet development and the origins of systemic collapse, but because post-communist Russia continues to be preoccupied with questions of demographic growth, including the fertility of ethnic minorities, and contemporary anxieties partially stem from Soviet policy. More widely, there is substantial scope to develop better understanding of the political role of demography in multi-ethnic states, better to inform public health and population policy within these countries, and development guidance and aid provided from outside.