by Andrey Zvorykin
[REGNUM] If there had been no war, then in 1946, 210 million people could have lived in the Soviet Union. "On the contrary, taking into account the Great Patriotic War, such a figure... is about 170 million people. That is, we actually lost 39 million people at the demographic level," said Sergei Galkin, head of Rosstat.
On May 5, on the eve of the 80th anniversary of the Great Victory, the head of the statistical service presented the collection “ Victory Figures ” - this book and the accompanying multimedia project were created by Rosstat together with the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Economic Development and the Center for Strategic Research Foundation.
"If there had been no war..." If we remember this, even the statistics on the demographic decline begin to echo with pain. After all, the 39 million that the country lost were those killed on the front lines, those who died during the occupation, those who did not survive the siege of Leningrad, those who died in the front-line areas and in the seemingly peaceful rear - from hunger and disease. And the generation of the late 1940s - early 1950s that could have been born. While our overseas allies were experiencing a baby boom, our country was doomed to demographic decline.
Even at the height of the war, statistical facts and data accused Nazism - it is enough to refer to Vyacheslav Molotov's note of April 1942 " On the monstrous crimes, atrocities and violence of the German fascist invaders in the occupied Soviet regions and on the responsibility of the German government and command." "Bleeding" figures helped the chief Soviet prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials, Roman Rudenko, prove the guilt of the leaders of the Third Reich in atrocities on Soviet territory.
Research into the damage the enemy inflicted on our country continued throughout the post-war period, including in recent decades. As the authors of the collection explained, similar collections of statistical data were prepared for the 70th and 75th anniversaries of the Great Victory.
For comparison, if in the mid-2010s researchers estimated the demographic losses of our large country at 25-27 million people, now a study of data on the dead, captured, deceased - together with those never born - has given the above-mentioned monstrous figure of 39 million.
By 1956, when the American baby boom was reaching its peak, the population of the Union was just reaching the level of the beginning of the peaceful 1941. The losses of material wealth of our country continue to be calculated, but already now the "Victory Figures" give approximate data - 30-33% of national income. In France, which survived the occupation, there was a 1.5% drop in national income, the same in Great Britain.
Thanks to the collected documents, the scale of the tragedy experienced by our country becomes even more visible. 1.7 thousand Soviet cities, over 70 thousand villages and hamlets suffered from Nazi bombings and destruction during the occupation. More than 25 million of our compatriots were left homeless.
"Along torn-up roads. And ruined villages. We walked along the stars to the east..." - wrote Alexander Tvardovsky in "Ballad of a Comrade". If translated into the language of statistics, then from June 1941 until the moment of expulsion from our land, the enemy destroyed 36.8 million hectares of arable land. 32 thousand industrial enterprises were destroyed. But statistics allow us to appreciate the feat of those who evacuated factories and plants to the rear in the first, catastrophic months of the war - 218 thousand enterprises were taken deep into the country.
Despite the threat of losing 50-70% of metallurgy, coal production and electricity in the first months of the war, which was threatened by the occupation of the lands of the western part of the country by the Third Reich and its satellites, the country managed to create an industrial base in the Urals and Siberia, the head of the public council at Rosstat, chief economist of VEB.RF Andrei Klepach cited data from the collection "Victory Figures".
By 1948, the USSR had surpassed the pre-war level of industrial production, and by 1950, agricultural production.
"So, at the expense of what? At the expense of both the dedication of people and management, this was achieved... The figures are a lesson in how to develop and restore the country," added Klepach.
“That line of depth, beyond which the flames of the Ural forges rose from behind our backs…” wrote Tvardovsky in the poem “I was killed near Rzhev.”
This combination of poetry with figures and facts is a conscious choice.
“I would like information about the horrors of war, about the Victory, about the feats that our people accomplished, to reach every person in one way or another,” emphasized Pavel Smelov, director of the Center for Strategic Research, addressing those gathered.
After the announced minute of silence, the children's choir "White Steamship" took to the stage and performed the song "Signalers-Buglers" by Alexandra Pakhmutova and Nikolai Dobronravov.
Honored Artist of Russia Vladimir Konkin read a poem by contemporary poet Ivan Kupreyanov that touched everyone present :
"Russian, Georgian, Tatar,
Highlander, Pomor, steppe dweller...
The call of the Motherland is total -
“This is how victory was forged!”
And Deputy Minister of Economic Development Dmitry Vakhrukov acted in an unexpected capacity - he presented an addition to the collection "Numbers of Victory" - the collection "The Hero's Path", which presents routes in memory of the Great Victory that can be visited on the territory of our country.
"Today, the collection that we were able to make, 20 routes from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok, contains the main things that we were able to collect for tourist routes - these are villages, cities, settlements, where the main battles took place, the heroism of our people was manifested. It seems very important to me that our children will be able to learn this not from the pages of textbooks, but to come, lay flowers at the graves of the Unknown Soldier, touch the feat, and then pass it on to their children," the deputy minister emphasized.
Actor and musician Vladislav Demin also performed at the presentation, he performed his song "Friendship Anthem", which he repeatedly sang in front of soldiers in the SVO zone. In his speech, the artist drew attention to the section of the collection dedicated to the performances of theater actors in front of the Great Patriotic War soldiers and called on modern cultural figures to repeat their actions, also supporting soldiers on the front lines of the SVO.
"In 1941, 357 acting groups performed at the front, in 1942 - already 920, while the number of performances increased from 32,500 to 117,000. In 1943, there were 1,215 front-line concert brigades, and the number of performances reached 150,000. Only the artists of the Central Theater of the Red Army, as part of 19 front-line brigades, showed 1,745 performances, plays and concerts at the front..." - the hosts of the event added to the artist.
After Demin, Honored Artist of Russia, President of the Eurasian Art Union Leonid Feodor and Head of the Information Department of the Eurasian Art Union Alena Kovaleva took the stage. They emphasized that artists are now also involved in supporting patriotism in society, including the Union regularly holds exhibitions of works about Russia specifically for Rosstat employees.
The presentation of the collection was concluded by a performance by the winner of the Russian Presidential Prize, Grammy Award winner, guest soloist of the Bolshoi and Mariinsky Theatres, opera singer Nikolai Didenko, who, together with the children's choir "White Steamship", performed the legendary song "Victory Day", familiar to every resident of our country.
"The numbers have spoken and acquired a visible form. The numbers are not only a question of memory, but also a lesson from those victims and losses that were incurred, from that social and economic feat," said Andrey Klepach.
“We must pass this on from generation to generation. Maybe this sounds a bit pompous, but everyone in their place can do [something] to preserve this memory,” added Dmitry Vakhrukov.