Estimates of the losses of Soviet citizens in the Great Patriotic War have a huge scatter: from 19 to 36 million. The first detailed calculations were made by the Russian emigrant, the demographer Timashev in 1948 - he got 19 million. The maximum figure was called by B. Sokolov - 46 million. The latest calculations show that only the military of the USSR lost 13.5 million people, all the same losses - over 27 million.
At the end of the war, long before any historical and demographic studies, Stalin named the figure: 5.3 million people in military losses. He also included the missing (obviously, in most cases, prisoners). In March 1946, in an interview with the Pravda newspaper correspondent, the generalissimo estimated the human losses at 7 million. The increase was due to civilians who died in the occupied territory or were driven to Germany.
In the West, this figure was received with skepticism. Already at the end of the 1940s, the first calculations of the demographic balance of the USSR for the war years, which contradicted Soviet data, appeared. An illustrative example is the calculations of the Russian emigrant, demographer N.S. Timashev, published in the New York "New Journal" in 1948. Here is his technique:
The All-Union Population Census of the USSR in 1939 determined its number at 170.5 million. The increase in 1937-1940 reached, according to his assumption, almost 2% for each year. Consequently, the population of the USSR by the middle of 1941 should have reached 178.7 million. But in 1939-1940, Western Ukraine and Belarus, the three Baltic states, the Karelian lands of Finland, were annexed to the USSR, and Romania returned Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. Therefore, taking into account the Karelian population who left for Finland, the Poles who fled to the west, and the Germans repatriated to Germany, these territorial acquisitions gave a population growth of 20.5 million. Considering that the birth rate in the annexed territories was no more than 1% per year, that is, lower than in the USSR, and also taking into account the shortness of the time interval between their entry into the USSR and the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the author determined the population growth for these territories by the middle of 1941 at 300 thousand. , 7 million who lived in the USSR on the eve of June 22, 1941.
Further, Timashev divided 200 million into three age groups, again relying on the data of the All-Union census of 1939: adults (over 18 years old) - 117.2 million, adolescents (from 8 to 18 years old) - 44.5 million, children ( under 8 years old) - 38.8 million. In doing so, he took into account two important circumstances. First: in 1939-1940, two very weak annual flows, born in 1931-1932, passed from childhood to the group of adolescents during the famine, which covered large areas of the USSR and negatively affected the size of the adolescent group. Second: in the former Polish lands and the Baltic states, there were more people over 20 years old than in the USSR.
Timashev supplemented these three age groups with the number of Soviet prisoners. He did it as follows. By the time of the elections of deputies to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in December 1937, the population of the USSR reached 167 million, of whom voters accounted for 56.36% of the total, and the population over 18, according to the 1939 All-Union Census, reached 58.3%. The resulting difference of 2%, or 3.3 million, in his opinion, was the population of the GULAG (including the number of those executed). This turned out to be close to the truth.
Then Timashev moved on to post-war figures. The number of voters included in the lists for voting for the elections of deputies to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in the spring of 1946 was 101.7 million.Adding to this figure 4 million of the Gulag prisoners calculated by him, he received 106 million of the adult population in the USSR at the beginning of 1946. Calculating the adolescent group, he took as a basis 31.3 million primary and secondary school students in the 1947/48 academic year, compared it with the data of 1939 (31.4 million schoolchildren within the borders of the USSR until September 17, 1939) and received a figure of 39 million. Calculating the children's group, he proceeded from the fact that by the beginning of the war the birth rate in the USSR was approximately 38 per thousand, in the second quarter of 1942 it decreased by 37.5%, and in 1943-1945 - by half.
Subtracting from each annual group the percentage that relies on the normal mortality table for the USSR, he received 36 million children at the beginning of 1946. Thus, according to his statistical calculations, 106 million adults, 39 million adolescents and 36 million children lived in the USSR at the beginning of 1946, and a total of 181 million. Timashev's conclusion is that the population of the USSR in 1946 was 19 million less than in 1941.
Other Western researchers came to approximately the same results. In 1946, under the auspices of the League of Nations, F. Lorimer's book "The Population of the USSR" was published. According to one of his hypotheses, during the war, the population of the USSR decreased by 20 million.
In his article “Human losses in World War II” published in 1953, German researcher G. Arntz came to the conclusion that “20 million people is the closest figure for the total losses of the Soviet Union in World War II”. The collection, including this article, was translated and published in the USSR in 1957 under the title "Results of the Second World War." Thus, four years after Stalin's death, the Soviet censorship released the figure of 20 million into the open press, thereby indirectly recognizing it as correct and making it the property of at least specialists - historians, international affairs experts, etc.
It was only in 1961 that Khrushchev, in a letter to the Swedish Prime Minister Erlander, admitted that the war against fascism "claimed two tens of millions of Soviet lives." Thus, in comparison with Stalin, Khrushchev increased Soviet human losses by almost 3 times.
In 1965, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Victory, Brezhnev spoke of "more than 20 million" of human lives lost by the Soviet people in the war. In the 6th, final, volume of the fundamental "History of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union" published at the same time, it was stated that of the 20 million dead, almost half "are military and civilians killed and tortured by the Nazis in the occupied Soviet territory." In fact, 20 years after the end of the war, the USSR Ministry of Defense recognized the deaths of 10 million Soviet servicemen.
Four decades later, the head of the Center for Military History of Russia at the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Professor G. Kumanev, in an interlinear commentary told the truth about the calculations that military historians carried out in the early 1960s when preparing the "History of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union": "Our losses in the war were then determined at 26 million. But the high authorities adopted the figure "over 20 million."
As a result, "20 million" not only took root for decades in historical literature, but also became part of the national consciousness.
In 1990 M. Gorbachev published a new figure of losses obtained as a result of research by demographers - “almost 27 million people”.
In 1991, B. Sokolov's book “The Price of Victory. The Great Patriotic War: the unknown about the known. " In it, direct military losses of the USSR were estimated at about 30 million, including 14.7 million military personnel, and "actual and potential losses" - at 46 million, including 16 million unborn children. "
A little later, Sokolov clarified these figures (deduced new losses). He received the number of losses as follows. From the number of the Soviet population at the end of June 1941, which he defined at 209.3 million, he deducted 166 million who, in his opinion, lived in the USSR on January 1, 1946, and received 43.3 million deaths. Then, from the resulting number, he deducted the irrecoverable losses of the armed forces (26.4 million) and received the irrecoverable losses of the civilian population - 16.9 million.
“It is possible to name the number of killed Red Army soldiers close to reality during the entire war, if we determine the month of 1942 when the Red Army's losses were taken into account most fully and when it had almost no prisoner losses. For a number of reasons, we chose November 1942 as such a month and extended the ratio of the number of dead and wounded obtained for it for the entire period of the war. As a result, we came to a figure of 22.4 million killed in action and died from wounds, diseases, accidents and Soviet servicemen who were shot by the verdict of the tribunals ”.
To the 22.4 million received in this way, he added 4 million soldiers and commanders of the Red Army who died in enemy captivity. And so it turned out 26.4 million irrecoverable losses incurred by the armed forces.
In addition to B. Sokolov, similar calculations were carried out by L. Polyakov, A. Kvasha, V. Kozlov and others. The methodological weakness of this kind of calculations is obvious: the researchers proceeded from the difference in the size of the Soviet population in 1941, which is known very approximately, and the size of the post-war population of the USSR, which is almost impossible to determine precisely. It was this difference that they considered the total loss of life.
In 1993, a statistical study was published, "The classification of secrecy has been removed: the losses of the Armed Forces of the USSR in wars, hostilities and military conflicts", prepared by a team of authors, headed by General G. Krivosheev. The main source of statistical data was previously secret archival documents, primarily the reports of the General Staff. However, the losses of entire fronts and armies in the first months, and the authors specifically stipulated this, were received by them by calculation. In addition, the reports of the General Staff did not include the losses of units that were not organizationally part of the Soviet armed forces (army, navy, border and internal troops of the NKVD of the USSR), but took a direct part in the battles - the people's militia, partisan detachments, and underground groups.
Finally, the number of prisoners of war and missing is clearly underestimated: this category of losses, according to the reports of the General Staff, totals 4.5 million, of which 2.8 million remained alive (they were repatriated after the end of the war or were recruited into the ranks of the Red Army for the second time). on the territory liberated from the occupiers), and, accordingly, the total number of those who did not return from captivity, including those who did not wish to return to the USSR, amounted to 1.7 million.
As a result, the statistical data of the reference book "The classification of secrecy has been removed" was immediately perceived as in need of clarifications and additions. And in 1998, thanks to the publication of V.Litovkin, "During the war, our army lost 11 million 944 thousand 100 people", this data was replenished with 500 thousand reserve-reservists who were drafted into the army, but not yet enlisted in the lists of military units and died along the way to the front.
V.Litovkin's research says that from 1946 to 1968 a special commission of the General Staff, headed by General S. Shtemenko, was preparing a statistical reference book on the losses of 1941-1945. At the end of the work of the commission, Shtemenko reported to the Minister of Defense of the USSR Marshal A. Grechko: “Taking into account that the statistical collection contains information of state importance, the publication of which in the press (including the closed one) or in any other way is currently not necessary and undesirable, the collection is supposed to be kept in the General Staff as a special document, to familiarize with which a strictly limited circle of persons will be allowed. " And the prepared collection was sealed with seven seals until the collective under the leadership of General G. Krivosheev published his information.
V.Litovkin's research sowed even greater doubts about the completeness of the information published in the collection "The secrecy stamp has been removed", because a natural question arose: were all the data contained in the "statistics collection of the Shtemenko commission" declassified?
For example, according to the data provided in the article, during the war years, the military justice authorities convicted 994 thousand people, of which 422 thousand were sent to penal units, 436 thousand - to places of detention. The remaining 136 thousand were apparently shot.
And yet the reference book "The secrecy stamp has been removed" significantly expanded and supplemented the ideas not only of historians, but also of the entire Russian society about the price of Victory in 1945. Suffice it to refer to the statistical calculation: from June to November 1941, the Armed Forces of the USSR lost 24 thousand people daily, of which 17 thousand killed and up to 7 thousand wounded, and from January 1944 to May 1945 -20 thousand people, of which 5.2 thousand killed and 14.8 thousand wounded.
In 2001, a significantly expanded statistical edition appeared - “Russia and the USSR in the wars of the twentieth century. Losses of the Armed Forces ”. The authors supplemented the materials of the General Staff with reports from military headquarters about losses and notifications from military registration and enlistment offices about the dead and missing, which were sent to relatives at the place of residence. And the figure of losses he received increased to 9 million 168 thousand 400 people. These data were reproduced in the 2nd volume of the collective work of the staff of the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences “Population of Russia in the XX century. Historical Sketches ”, published under the editorship of Academician Yu. Polyakov.
In 2004, the second, revised and supplemented, edition of the book by the head of the Center for Military History of Russia of the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Professor G. Kumanev, "Feat and Forgery: Pages of the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945" was published. It contains data on losses: about 27 million Soviet citizens. And in the interlinear comments to them, the same addition mentioned above appeared, explaining that the calculations of military historians back in the early 1960s gave a figure of 26 million, but the "high authorities" preferred to take something else as "historical truth": 20 million "
Meanwhile, historians and demographers continued to look for new approaches to finding out the magnitude of the losses of the USSR in the war.
The historian Ilyenkov, who served in the Central Archives of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, took an interesting path. He tried to calculate the irrecoverable losses of the personnel of the Red Army on the basis of files of irrecoverable losses of privates, sergeants and officers. These card indexes began to be created when on July 9, 1941, a personal loss accounting department was organized as part of the Main Directorate for the Formation and Recruitment of the Red Army (GUFKKA). The responsibilities of the department included personal accounting of losses and the preparation of an alphabetical card index of losses.
The records were carried out in the following categories: 1) the dead - according to the reports of military units, 2) the dead - according to the reports of the military enlistment offices, 3) the missing - according to the reports of the military units, 4) the missing - according to the reports of the military registration offices, 5) those who died in German captivity , 6) those who died from diseases, 7) those who died from wounds - according to reports from military units, who died from wounds - according to reports from military registration and enlistment offices. At the same time, the following were taken into account: deserters; servicemen sentenced to imprisonment in forced labor camps; those sentenced to capital punishment - execution; deregistered irrecoverable losses as survivors; those on suspicion that they served with the Germans (the so-called "signal") and who were in captivity, but survived. These soldiers were not included in the list of irrecoverable losses.
After the war, the card indexes were deposited in the Archives of the USSR Ministry of Defense (now the Central Archives of the RF Ministry of Defense). Since the beginning of the 1990s, the archive began to count the index cards alphabetically and by category of losses. As of November 1, 2000, 20 letters of the alphabet were processed, for the remaining 6 letters that were not calculated, a preliminary calculation was made, which has fluctuations up or down by 30-40 thousand persons.
Calculated 20 letters in 8 categories of losses of private and non-commissioned officers of the Red Army gave the following figures: 9 million 524 thousand 398 people. At the same time, 116 thousand 513 people were removed from the register of irrecoverable losses, as they turned out to be alive according to reports from military enlistment offices.
A preliminary calculation of 6 uncounted letters gave 2 million 910 thousand people irrecoverable losses. The result of the calculations turned out as follows: 12 million 434 thousand 398 Red Army men and sergeants lost the Red Army in 1941-1945 (Recall that this is without losses of the Navy, internal and border troops of the NKVD of the USSR.)
The same method was used to calculate the alphabetical index of irrecoverable losses of the officers of the Red Army, which is also kept in the Central AMO RF. They amounted to about 1 million 100 thousand people.
Thus, during the Great Patriotic War, the Red Army lost 13 million 534 thousand 398 soldiers and commanders as dead, missing, dead from wounds, diseases and in captivity.
These data are 4 million 865 thousand 998 people higher than the irrecoverable losses of the Armed Forces of the USSR (payroll) according to the General Staff, which included the Red Army, sailors, border guards, internal troops of the NKVD of the USSR.
Finally, let us note another new trend in the study of the demographic results of the Great Patriotic War. Before the collapse of the USSR, there was no need to assess human losses for individual republics or nationalities. And only at the end of the twentieth century L. Rybakovsky tried to calculate the approximate value of the human losses of the RSFSR in its then borders. According to his estimates, it amounted to about 13 million people - slightly less than half of the total losses of the USSR.
A killer loved by a people who are very sick in the head. And the war itself -
the work of his hands, and millions of those killed are the work of this serial killer
