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The 1939 Soviet Census (russian: Всесоюзная перепись населения 1939, lit=1939 All-Union Census, translit=Vsesoyuznaya perepis naseleniya 1939), conducted from January 17 to January 26, succeeded the
Soviet Census of 1937 that was declared invalid. It happened only two years after the previous census, due to the failure of the last one.
Preparation
The census took place after the postponement of the 1930 census to first 1945 and then 1937, followed by the failure of that census.
In preparation for the 1939 census, a number of decisions were made to avoid ending with the same fate as the census of 1937. Due to the previous census showing believers in religion to form a majority among the population, the question on religion was dropped from the census entirely, and the occupation of priest was changed to "servitor of a cult" in the census forms.
Additionally, as many of the people in charge of organizing the previous census had been removed from their positions, and
Vyacheslav Molotov
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were put in charge of managing it.
Census
The census-taking started on January 17, ending on January 23 in urban areas and January 26 in rural areas.
It form contained sixteen questions and was printed in twenty-two languages, as well as providing, for the first and only time, a way to count both convicted criminals and political detainees. While follow-up checks and several other new tabulation methods were instituted, forms were not issued to keep track of double counting.
A total of 400,000 census takers were sent to facilitate census-taking over the country.
There were some reports of various religious communities resisting the census, which were dealt with by use of legal means.
Aftermath
Within four months of it being taken, the preliminary census results were released. For unknown reasons, the full results were never made public.
While initially the census was viewed inside the USSR as a "model census", it later became clear that large-scale manipulation of the census results took place, leading to intensive study and criticism. Accidental over-counting and under-counting were rampant issues, along with deliberate falsification with the goal of obscuring population loss and meeting
Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
's stated goal of the population reaching 170 million. That claim of 170 million is estimated to have been inflated by around 3,000,000 people, or 1.8%.
Analysis of the results from the
Kazakh SSR
; kk, Қазақ Советтік Социалистік Республикасы)
*1991: Republic of Kazakhstan (russian: Республика Казахстан; kk, Қазақстан Республикасы)
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especially shows this, in which serious distortions of the ethnic
Kazakh population took place in an attempt to conceal population losses from the Kazakh famines of the
1920s
File:1920s decade montage.png, From left, clockwise: Third Tipperary Brigade Flying Column No. 2 under Seán Hogan during the Irish War of Independence; Prohibition agents destroying barrels of alcohol in accordance to the 18th amendment, whic ...
and
30s
The prokaryotic small ribosomal subunit, or 30 S subunit, is the smaller subunit of the 70S ribosome found in prokaryotes. It is a complex of the 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) and 19 proteins. This complex is implicated in the binding of transfer ...
. Historians have claimed that all the issues with fudged numbers and mistakes discredit the census as a reliable source.
The Soviet leadership eventually learned from the mistakes made, and Vladimir Starovsky, head of the
Central Statistical Directorate
The Central Statistical Administration (or Board or Directorate) (russian: Центральное Статистическое Управление), abbreviated TsSU (russian: ЦСУ), was the main statistical organization of the former Soviet U ...
, corrected the points that led to accidental miscounts in the 1939 and 1937 censuses for the
census of 1959, leading to a reliable count being taken.
Results
According to the official results, the total population of the USSR was found to be at 170,467,186. The urban population more than doubled, from 26.3 million in 1926, to 55.9 million in 1939, while the literacy rate rose from 51.1% to 81.2% in the same time frame. Such a rapid rate of urbanization was historically unprecedented at the time.
The 5 largest nationalities in the USSR were found to be
Russians
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, image =
, caption =
, population =
, popplace =
118 million Russians in the Russian Federation (2002 ''Winkler Prins'' estimate)
, region1 =
, pop1 ...
,
Ukrainians
Ukrainians ( uk, Українці, Ukraintsi, ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine. They are the seventh-largest nation in Europe. The native language of the Ukrainians is Ukrainian language, Ukrainian. The majority ...
,
Belarusians
, native_name_lang = be
, pop = 9.5–10 million
, image =
, caption =
, popplace = 7.99 million
, region1 =
, pop1 = 600,000–768,000
, region2 =
, pop2 ...
,
Uzbeks
The Uzbeks ( uz, , , , ) are a Turkic ethnic group native to the wider Central Asian region, being among the largest Turkic ethnic group in the area. They comprise the majority population of Uzbekistan, next to Kazakh and Karakalpak mino ...
, and
Tatars
The Tatars ()[Tatar]
in the Collins English Dictionary is an umbrella term for different .
References
Further reading
All-Union census of the population of 1939: National composition of the population by republics of the USSR(in Russian)
{{USSRCensus
1939 in the Soviet Union
Censuses in the Soviet Union