Unnatural Deaths in the U.S.S.R.

by Iosif G. Dyadkin

Overview

This astonishing and sobering account of government- and war-induced civilian deaths in the Soviet Union calculates that Soviet loss of life between 1928 and 1954 was far higher than Western ex-perts have ever believed. Applying mathematical techniques to Soviet demographic statistics, Dyadkin shows that Stalinist repres-sion and World War II must have taken the lives of between 43 and 52 million Soviet citizens.

In the first period, 1929-36, one of collectivization, Stalin control-led and eliminated classes; during the Great Purge of 1937-38, mil-lions of Communist party members and bureaucrats were executed, and then the purge extended into the Red Army. Dyadkin shows that World War II took close to 30 million lives and that during 1950-53 another 450,000 died in prison camps.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780878559190
Publisher:	Transaction Publishers
Publication date:	01/30/1983
Pages:	72
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

losif G. Dyadkin was professor of geophysics at the All-Union Geophysical Research Institute, Kalinin, USSR, until his arrest in 1980 for writing this work and sending it to exiled author Alexander Solzhenitsyn. He is the author of more than fifty articles on geophysics.

Nicholas Eberstadt holds the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute. He is also a senior adviser to the National Board of Asian Research, a member of the visiting committee at the Harvard School of Public Health, and a member of the Global Leadership Council at the World Economic Forum. His previous works on Korean affairs include The Population of North Korea(co-author), Korea Approaches Reunification, A New International Engagement Framework for North Korea?, Korea’s Future and the Great Powers (co-editor), and The End of North Korea.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1. Has No One Been Forgotten? 2. Basic Sources 3. Population Losses during the Class Elimination Period of 1929-36 4. Male Losses during Peacetime (1926-40, 1950-54) and the Gulag Population and Prison Death Rate (1950-54).5. Natural Death Rate (1927-40) and Losses from Repression and the Soviet/Finnish War of 1939-40 6. Birth and Death Rates from Unnatural Causes (1929-36) 7. War Casualties and Losses Due to Privations during World War II 8. Assumptions and Techniques 9. Potential USSR Population Changes in 1926-50 without Repressive Policies and World War II 10. Conclusion

Editorial Reviews

"Although not a trained demographer, Mr. Dyadkin cites his consid­erable experience with applied mathematics .... The only com­prehensive study of the subject published in either the East or the West." —The Wall Street Journal

From the Publisher