Claims the USSR suffered 42 million dead in WW2

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stg 44
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Claims the USSR suffered 42 million dead in WW2

#1

Post by stg 44 » 09 May 2021, 17:16

I recently came across some claims that the USSR actually lost 42 million dead in WW2. Apparently the most recent of which came up in a hearing in the Russian Duma based on declassified Gosplan documents:
https://web.archive.org/web/20180705150 ... tnyiy_polk
According to declassified data from the State Planning Committee of the USSR, the losses of the Soviet Union in the Second World War amount to 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 be 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.
Apparently this claim is determined by a census report from 1941 that states that the Soviet population was 205 million instead of the 196.7 million usually claimed and the post-war census showed only 169.8 million people in the USSR (births and natural deaths also are factored into the loss numbers). Can anyone shed any light on these claims about census data? Frankly these claims seem completely bonkers and it is rather odd that they'd be presented in the Duma.

However Soldat.ru and its creator Igor Ivlev supports this with document scans and considerable calculations:
https://www.soldat.ru/news/1069.html
https://www.apn.ru/index.php?newsid=36078
http://www.demoscope.ru/weekly/2013/0559/analit02.php

That adds some credibility to the claim, but I'm not nearly well versed enough in Soviet documents to be able to tell what actually makes sense and what is creative accounting by the claimants. Can anyone shed some light on this claim and any debates around it?

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stg 44
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Re: Claims the USSR suffered 42 million dead in WW2

#2

Post by stg 44 » 09 May 2021, 17:44

Forgot that Art already discussed this back in 2017:
viewtopic.php?t=228833


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