How the official data on the losses of the USSR changed
Recently, the State Duma announced new figures for the Soviet Union's casualties during the Great Patriotic War - almost 42 million people. 15 million people were added to the previous official data "additionally". The head of the Museum-Memorial of the Great Patriotic War of the Kazan Kremlin, our columnist Mikhail Cherepanov, in the author's column of Realnoe Vremya talks about the declassified losses of the USSR and Tatarstan.
Irrecoverable losses of the Soviet Union as a result of the factors of the Second World War - more than 19 million servicemen.
Despite many years of well-paid sabotage and all sorts of efforts of generals and politicians to hide the true cost of our Victory over fascism, on February 14, 2017, at the parliamentary hearings in the State Duma at the parliamentary hearings “Patriotic education of Russian citizens:“ Immortal regiment ”, the figures that are closest to the truth were finally declassified :
“According to the declassified data of the State Planning Committee of the USSR, the losses of the Soviet Union in the Second World War amount to 41 million 979 thousand, and not 27 million, as previously thought. The total decline in the population of the USSR in 1941-1945 was more than 52 million 812 thousand people. Of these, more than 19 million servicemen and about 23 million civilians are irretrievable losses as a result of the action of the factors of war ”.
According to the report, this information is confirmed by a large number of authentic documents, authoritative publications and testimonies (for details, see the Immortal Regiment website and other resources).
The history of the issue is as follows
In March 1946, in an interview with the Pravda newspaper, I.V. Stalin announced: "As a result of the German invasion, the Soviet Union irrevocably lost in the battles with the Germans, as well as due to the German occupation and the deportation of Soviet people to German penal servitude, about seven million people."
In 1961 N.S. Khrushchev wrote in a letter to the Swedish Prime Minister: "The German militarists unleashed a war against the Soviet Union, which claimed two tens of millions of Soviet lives."
On May 8, 1990, at a meeting of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in honor of the 45th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War, the total number of casualties was announced: "Almost 27 million people."
In 1993, a team of military historians led by Colonel-General G.F. Krivosheeva published a statistical study “The secrecy label has been removed. Losses of the Armed Forces of the USSR in wars, hostilities and military conflicts. " It indicates the total losses - 26.6 million people, including the first published combat losses: 8,668,400 soldiers and officers.
In 2001, a reprint of the book was published under the editorship of G.F. Krivosheeva “Russia and the USSR in the wars of the XX century. Losses of the Armed Forces: A Statistical Study. One of its tables stated that the irrecoverable losses of the Soviet Army and Navy alone during the Great Patriotic War were 11,285,057 people. (see page 252.) 
In 2010, in the next edition “The Great Patriotic War without the stamp of secrecy. The Book of Loss ”, again edited by G.F. Krivosheev, the data on the losses of the armies fighting in 1941-1945 have been updated. Demographic losses reduced to 8,744,500 troops (p. 373):
A natural question arises: where were the aforementioned "data of the USSR State Planning Committee" about the combat losses of our Army kept, if even the heads of the special commissions of the Ministry of Defense could not study them for more than 70 years? How true are they?
Everything is relative. It is worth remembering that it was in the book “Russia and the USSR in the wars of the twentieth century” that we were finally allowed, in 2001, to find out how many of our compatriots were mobilized into the ranks of the Red (Soviet) Army during the Second World War: 34,476,700 people (pp. . 596.).
If we take on faith the official figure of 8,744 thousand people, then the share of our military losses will be 25 percent. That is, according to the commission of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, only every fourth Soviet soldier and officer did not return from the front.
I think a resident of any settlement of the former USSR will not agree with this. In every village or aul there are plates with the names of the fallen compatriots. At best, only half of those who went to the front 70 years ago are on them.
Tatarstan statistics
Let's see what the statistics are in our Tatarstan, on the territory of which there were no battles.
In the book of Professor Z.I. Gilmanov "Working people of Tatarstan on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War", published in Kazan in 1981, it was argued that the military registration and enlistment offices of the republic sent 560 thousand citizens to the front and 87 thousand of them did not return.
In 2001, Professor A.A. Ivanov in his doctoral dissertation "Combat losses of the peoples of Tatarstan during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945." announced that from 1939 to 1945 about 700 thousand citizens were drafted into the army from the territory of the Tatar Republic, and 350 thousand of them did not return.
As the head of the working group of the editorship of the Book of Memory of the Republic of Tatarstan from 1990 to 2007, I can clarify: taking into account the natives called up from other regions of the country, the losses of our Tatarstan during the Second World War amounted to at least 390 thousand soldiers and officers.
And these are irrecoverable losses of the republic, on whose territory not a single bomb or shell of the enemy fell!
Are the losses of other regions of the former USSR, even the national average, less?
Time will tell. And our task is to wrest from obscurity and enter into the database of losses of the Republic of Tatarstan, presented in the Victory Park of Kazan, if possible, the names of all fellow countrymen.
And this should be done not only by individual enthusiasts on their own initiative, but also by professional search engines on behalf of the state itself.
It is physically impossible to do this only in excavations at the battlefield in all Memory Watches. This requires massive and constant work in archives published on the websites of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and other thematic Internet resources.
But that's a completely different story ...
Mikhail Cherepanov, illustrations provided by the author
reference
Mikhail Valerievich Cherepanov - Head of the Museum-Memorial of the Great Patriotic War of the Kazan Kremlin; Chairman of the Association "Club of Military Glory"; Honored Worker of Culture of the Republic of Tatarstan, Corresponding Member of the Academy of Military-Historical Sciences, Laureate of the State Prize of the Republic of Tatarstan.
- Was born in 1960.
- Graduated from Kazan State University. IN AND. Ulyanov-Lenin with a degree in Journalism.
- Since 2007 he has been working at the National Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan.
- One of the creators of the 28-volume book "Memory" of the Republic of Tatarstan about those who died during the Second World War, 19 volumes of the Book of Memory of the Victims of Political Repression of the Republic of Tatarstan, etc.
- Creator of the Electronic Book of Memory of the Republic of Tatarstan (a list of natives and residents of Tatarstan who died during the Second World War).
- Author of thematic lectures from the cycle "Tatarstan during the war", thematic excursions "The feat of fellow countrymen on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War."
- Co-author of the concept of the virtual museum "Tatarstan to the Fatherland".
- Member of 60 search expeditions for the burial of the remains of soldiers who died in the Great Patriotic War (since 1980), member of the board of the Union of search units of Russia.
- Author of over 100 scientific and educational articles, books, participant of all-Russian, regional, international conferences. Columnist for Realnoe Vremya.
The other day in the Duma passed parliamentary hearings "Patriotic education of citizens of Russia:" Immortal regiment. They were attended by deputies, senators, representatives of the legislative and higher executive bodies of state power of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, the Ministries of Education and Science, Defense, Foreign Affairs, Culture, members of public associations, organizations of foreign compatriots ... There were, however, those who did not take part in the action invented - journalists from Tomsk TV-2, no one even remembered about them. And, in general, there was really no need to remember. The "Immortal Regiment", which by definition did not provide for any staffing table, no commanders and political officers, had already completely transformed into a sovereign "box" of parade crew, and its main task today is to learn how to walk in step and keep alignment in ranks.
“What is a people, a nation? This is, first of all, respect for victories, - opening the hearings, the chairman of the parliamentary committee Vyacheslav Nikonov admonished its participants. - Today, when there is a new war, which someone calls "hybrid", our Victory becomes one of the main targets for attacks on historical memory. Waves of falsification of history are going on, which should make us believe that it was not us, but someone else who won the victory, and also make us apologize ... ”For some reason, the Nikonovs are seriously convinced that it was they who, long before their own birth, won the Great A victory for which, moreover, someone is trying to make them apologize. But not such were attacked! And the nagging note of the nationwide misfortune, the phantom pain of the third generation of descendants of the Great Patriotic War soldiers, is drowned out by a vigorous, thoughtless cry: "We can repeat it!"
Indeed - can we?
It was at these hearings that a terrible figure was named in between cases, which for some reason was not noticed by anyone, which did not make us stop in horror on the run in order to understand WHAT we were all the same told. Why this was done right now, I do not know.
At the hearings, State Duma Deputy Nikolai Zemtsov, co-chairman of the Immortal Regiment of Russia movement, presented a report “Documentary basis of the People's Project“ Establishing the Fates of Missing Defenders of the Fatherland ”, within the framework of which studies were carried out on population decline, which changed the idea of \u200b\u200bthe scale of Soviet losses in the Great Patriotic War.
- The total decline in the population of the USSR in 1941-1945 - more than 52 million 812 thousand people, - said Zemtsov, referring to the declassified data of the State Planning Committee of the USSR. - Of these, irrecoverable losses as a result of the factors of war - more than 19 million servicemen and about 23 million civilians. The total natural mortality rate of servicemen and civilians during this period could have amounted to more than 10 million 833 thousand people (including 5 million 760 thousand - children who died under the age of four). Irrecoverable losses of the population of the USSR as a result of the action of the factors of war amounted to almost 42 million people.
Can we ... repeat ?!
Back in the 60s of the last century, the then young poet Vadim Kovda wrote a short poem in four lines: “ If only three elderly disabled people go to my front door / does it mean how many of them were injured? / And killed? "
Now these elderly disabled people, due to natural reasons, are less and less noticeable. But Kovda represented the scale of losses quite correctly, it was enough to simply multiply the number of ceremonies.
Stalin, proceeding from considerations inaccessible to a normal person, personally determined the losses of the USSR at 7 million people - slightly less than the losses of Germany. Khrushchev - 20 million. Under Gorbachev, a book was published, prepared by the Ministry of Defense under the editorship of General Krivosheev, "The secrecy stamp is removed", in which the authors named and in every possible way justified this very figure - 27 million. Now it turns out: she was also not true.
On February 14, the State Duma held parliamentary hearings “Patriotic education of Russian citizens:“ Immortal regiment ”. State Duma deputies, co-chairs of the All-Russian public movement "Immortal Regiment of Russia" and representatives of other public organizations discussed the importance of patriotic education for the citizens of the country!
At the hearing, the co-chairman of the "Immortal Regiment of Russia" movement presented a report "Documentary basis of the People's Project" Establishing the Fates of Missing Defenders of the Fatherland ", within the framework of which studies were carried out on the population decline of the USSR in 1941-45 He changed the idea of \u200b\u200bthe scale of the losses of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War.
According to declassified according to the State Planning Committee of the USSR, losses of the Soviet Union in World War II are 41 million 979 thousand, not 27 million, as previously thought... This is almost one third of the modern population of the Russian Federation. Our fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers are hiding behind this terrible figure. Those who gave their lives for our future. (Paphos! Applause turning into a standing ovation!)
At first, the declassified data of the Ministry of Defense appeared, then the declassified data of the long-abolished State Planning Commission appeared.
What was it?
Where does this nonsense come from?
What does it have to do with patriotic education?
This is what it is and what is generally happening with the "Immortal Regiment" - I will briefly tell you.
First, about the losses.
The main thing was that there were no “declassified data on losses”. That is, it was not at all.
It's just that someone Igor Ivanovich Ivlev, the creator and moderator of the site soldier.ru, decided to bring up the topic of “monstrous losses” again and started juggling with numbers, oh, calculations (!). He is not the first. There were many scoundrels who did the same. The most odious and ignorant is Boris Sokolov, who at one time counted 60 million.
So, the basic postulates of the calculations.
Decrease in the population of the USSR in 1941-1945 He who has eyes, let him see. Whoever takes the calculator will count.
I. By 1941, there are only 2 categories of persons included in the calculations:
1. Civilians registered in the document of the State Planning Committee of the USSR - 199.920.100 hours (scan).
2. Servicemen of the USSR Armed Forces, included in the publication of M.V. Zakharov, document of the RGVA (NKVD troops) - 5,082,305 hours (scan).
3. Total - 205.002.405 hours.
What can be said at once here? The author is either a fool or a crook. There are many reports from the State Planning Commission indicating the population in 1941. And all according to the documents, the scans of which are in the internet. All data are calculated, because there was no census, and the population was changing a lot. Figures from 192 to 199 million appear.
The author just grabbed the biggest number and rushes with it.
But there are also calculation methods. There is a population census for 1939 - 170.5 million citizens. There is a population of the territories annexed before the war - 22.5 million people.
Total: 193 million + natural growth. It was in this way that the most reliable figure was obtained - 196 million.
Now - what is the stupidity of the author. The author, as befits an idiot, decided that the army is not part of the population, but above it. And he just added to the highest calculated figure, having received 205 million.
And at the same time he "received" a fourfold (!) Increase in natural growth in the pre-war years. Like, they began to give birth more often, and only triplets !!!
Let's go further:
II. Until 1945, there are 3 categories of persons included in the calculations:
3. The number of civilians as of 01.07.45 - 151.165.200 hours together with the surviving children under the age of 4 years 11.859.776 hours (see paragraph 9 below and documents of the USSR State Planning Committee). Without the children of the civilian population born in the war, there were by 01.07.45 - 139.305.424 hours.
4. The strength of the USSR Armed Forces on the same date - 12.839.800 hours (documents of the TsAMO RF).
5. The number of displaced persons - people who were not part of the civilian population at the time of submission of calculations by the territorial departments of the State Planning Committee and who were not part of the USSR Armed Forces - 5,804,524 hours (GARF documents published by V.N. Zemskov).
6. Total - 169.809.524 hours (151.165.200 + 12.839.800 + 5.804.524).
And here the author considers the army separately !!! So what can after all not an idiot, but a crook?
The population of the USSR at the end of the war was 170 million. If we add, according to the author's method, the army, then, lo and behold, we will have 183 million and the losses will be much less than the official ones !!!
Profit! What miracles can be done by juggling the initially correct numbers.
III. Born in 1941-1945 children and general mortality:
7. Children were born in 4 years - 17.619.776 hours (scans 1 and 2).
8. Died - 5,760,000 hours (scans 1, 2, 3).
9. Children under 4 years old remained alive by 01.07.45 - 11.859.776 hours (17.619.776 - 5.760.000).
10. In total, USSR citizens died in 4 years (the level of "natural" mortality in 1941, multiplied by 4 years) - 10,833,240 hours, incl. children 5,760,000 hours (scans 1, 2, 3).
IV. The number of those who survived the war who lived by 22.06.41:
11. Remaining by 01.07.45 of those who were alive on 22.06.41 - 157.949.748 hours (169.809.524 - 17.619.776 + 5.760.000).
Whoever goes to the site and looks at the scans will suddenly discover that these are not documents, but Ivlev's calculations! This is understandable, since it was hard to keep track of the birth rate during the war, especially considering that up to a third of the population was under occupation.
But the author boldly calculates the birth rate by pre-war standards! And thus, with a stroke of the pen, he “killed” from 3 to 4 million innocent children.
About natural mortality. We look at his "scans" and see that this is again the author's calculations. The author boldly extrapolates the pre-war mortality rate to the war years and unoccupied territories to the occupied ones! Moreover, applying all this to an overestimated population. It's so convenient - right away the natural growth grows, and with it the losses the author needs so much. Here the author again wins back several million.
And, of course, the author does not take into account such nuances as the transfer of the Bialystok region with the population after the war to Poland.
Attention!We have already found 14-16 million casualties.
That is, there are no 42 million. There are real losses of 27 million and juggling with numbers in order to overestimate these losses.
Now let's move on to the "Immortal Regiment". I have already informed the leadership of this organization that they are throwing in fraudulent, anti-Soviet figures, covering them with the authority of their organization. But they prefer to believe the jugglers.
Then they are surprised:
But what was our surprise when we learned that now a number of opposition publications are beginning to use this information for their own purposes, as well as manipulate it, generalize it and thus try to harm our state, ”Nikolai Zemtsov said at a press conference.
What happens to this promotion?
It seems that everything was fine two years ago.
But now the prosecutor (now a deputy) Poklonskaya is arranging a nasty trick, going out to the action with the icon of the tsar-rag, while telling some kind of fairy tale for the mentally mournful. And the leadership of the "Immortal Regiment" is silent.
An emblem is proposed, where Soviet symbols are replaced by George the Victorious with a cross on a spear. How so? The victory in the Great Patriotic War was won not by the Orthodox army over the filthy Germans, but by the Soviet multinational and multi-confessional (and in the mass and atheistic) people. But the leadership of the "Immortal Regiment" - accepts the emblem.
The Russian Orthodox Church suggested that the organizers of the Immortal Regiment movement allow the participants in the march to honor the memory of heroes not only of the Great Patriotic War (WWII), but also of other wars. For example, the First World War and the Patriotic War of 1812. The head of the department for work with public organizations of the Synodal department for relations between the church, society and the media Dmitry Roshchin told about this to the Moscow city news agency. And the leadership of the "Immortal Regiment" - agrees.
Initially, the "Immortal Regiment" was created by the liberals as an act of oblivion. It was forbidden to use Soviet symbols, and they tried to make it not a holiday, but a day of mourning. I already wrote about this.
Thanks to the position of our fellow citizens, the action was pulled out from under the liberals and made a day of triumph for the victorious people.
But the government immediately began to crush the action. State officials diligently guide him in the "right" direction. Anti-Soviet. Our large government officials have such a property as King Midas. But with that, everything that he did not touch turned into gold, and for state officials - into shit.
And so they reached out to the "Immortal Regiment" and are diligently disfiguring this action, again turning it into an action of oblivion.
I am not urging you not to go to this action. Comrades, just by going to it, remember - it depends on you what this action will be. It will be a march of the descendants of Soviet victorious soldiers. Winners in the Greatest War, who broke the back of fascism and Nazism. And will the descendants remember who fought, for what and under whose command.
Or it will be a hurray-patriotic procession with icons in honor of all victories under the auspices of the king-rag.
All in your hands. And it is your power to snatch the action from the clutches of officials and leave it to the people.
Suddenly the number of casualties in the Great Patriotic War rose to 41,978,000 people. As you know, the "Brezhnev figure" - 20 million, the current 26-27.
At the hearing, the co-chairman of the "Immortal Regiment of Russia" movement presented a report "Documentary basis of the People's Project" Establishing the Fates of Missing Defenders of the Fatherland ", within the framework of which studies were carried out on the population decline of the USSR in 1941-45 He changed the idea of \u200b\u200bthe scale of the losses of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War.
According to declassified data of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, the State Planning Committee of the USSR , the losses of the Soviet Union in the Second World War are 41 million 979 thousand, not 27 million, as previously thought. This is almost one third of the modern population of the Russian Federation. Our fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers are hiding behind this terrible figure. Those who gave their lives for our future. And, perhaps, the biggest betrayal is to forget their names, their feat, their heroism, which took shape in our common great Victory.
- The general decline in the population of the USSR in 1941-45. - more than 52 million 812 thousand people. Of these, irrecoverable losses as a result of the factors of war - more than 19 million servicemen and about 23 million civilians. The total natural mortality rate of servicemen and civilians during this period could have amounted to more than 10 million 833 thousand people (including 5 million 760 thousand - died children under the age of four). Irrecoverable losses of the population of the USSR as a result of the action of the factors of war amounted to almost 42 million people, says the presentation report.
The information provided is confirmed by a huge number of authentic documents, authoritative publications and testimonies. All of them are the harsh embodiment of the deep pain of our people, who have suffered incredible losses and have achieved victory over a cruel enemy.
The presentation itself could not be found, but some assumptions can be made.
19 million troops. Most likely, we are talking about the number of records in the Memorial WBS or other similar databases. It is known that information about the same person can be found 2-3 or even 5 times. According to some estimates, in reality, we can talk about 8-9 million registered military personnel. At the same time, of course, there are those who are not taken into account, there are those who are listed as missing but returned to duty.
23 million civilians. The origin of this figure cannot be established. Previously, the losses were estimated at 18-19 million, but in this case they coincided with the front-line losses. It is possible that the figure was adjusted by assuming the population losses were 20% higher than the military losses.
Why is this necessary? It seems to me that the title of the report “Establishing the fate of the missing defenders of the Fatherland” contains a clue - the site “Narodnyproekt.rf” has been launched, which obviously requires significant funding. The larger the numbers, the larger the requests and the less achievable the goals. It turns out that out of 19 million, the fate of 9 million is more or less known, but 10 million will have to be worked on ...
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1. In the original version, it was referred to the Ministry of Defense, but later the now defunct USSR State Planning Committee appeared.
