Excess mortality in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin
Estimates of the number of deaths attributable to the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin vary widely. Some scholars assert that record-keeping of the executions of political prisoners and ethnic minorities are neither reliable nor complete, others contend that archival materials declassified in 1991 contain irrefutable data far superior to sources used prior to 1991, such as statements from emigres and other informants.
Prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the archival revelations, some historians estimated that the numbers killed by Stalin's regime were 20 million or higher. After the USSR dissolved, evidence from the Soviet archives was declassified and researchers were allowed to study it. This contained official records of 799,455 executions, around 1.7 million deaths in the Gulag, some 390,000 deaths during the dekulakization forced resettlement, and up to 400,000 deaths of persons deported during the 1940s – with a total of about 3.3 million officially recorded victims in these categories. The deaths of at least 5.5 to 6.5 million
persons in the famine of 1932–33 are sometimes, but not always, included with the victims of the Stalin era.
Events
Gulag
According to official Soviet estimates, more than 14 million people passed through the Gulag from 1929 to 1953, with a further 7 to 8 million being deported and exiled to remote areas of the Soviet Union.According to a 1993 study of recently declassified archival Soviet data, a total of 1,053,829 people died in the Gulag from 1934 to 1953. More recent archival figures for the deaths in the Gulag, Labor Colonies, and prisons combined for 1931–53 were 1.713 million. However, taking into account the likelihood of unreliable record keeping, and the fact that it was common practice to release prisoners who were either suffering from incurable diseases or near death, non-state estimates of the actual Gulag death toll are usually higher.
For example, Golfo Alexopoulos, history professor at the University of South Florida, believes that at least 6 million people died as a result of their detention in the gulags. This estimate is disputed by other scholars; critics such as J. Hardy say that the evidence Alexopoulos used is indirect and misinterpreted, and Dan Healey says that the estimate has obvious methodological difficulties.
John G. Heidenrich, citing materials pre-1991, estimates the number of deaths at 12 million. His book is not primarily about estimating deaths from repressive policies in the Soviet Union. He appears to have relied on Solzhenitsyn's political and literary work, The Gulag Archipelago, which Stephen Wheatcroft notes was not intended as a historical fact, but a challenge to Soviet authorities after their years of secrecy.
According to estimates based on data from Soviet archives post-1991, there were around 1.6 million deaths during the whole period from 1929 to 1953. The tentative historical consensus is that, of the 18 million people who passed through the gulag system from 1930 to 1953, between 1.5 and 1.7 million died as a result of their incarceration.
Soviet famine of 1932–33
The deaths of 5.7 to perhaps 7.0 million people in the 1932–1933 famine and collectivization of agriculture are included among the victims of repression during the period of Stalin by some historians. This categorization is controversial however, as historians differ as to whether the famine in Ukraine was created as a deliberate part of the campaign of repression against kulaks and others, was an unintended consequence of the struggle over forced collectivization or was primarily a result of natural factors.Judicial executions
According to official figures there were 777,975 judicial executions for political charges from 1929–53, including 681,692 in 1937–38, the years of the Great Purge Unofficial estimates estimate a total number of Stalinism repression deaths in 1937–38 at 950,000–1,200,000.Soviet famine of 1946–47
The last major famine to hit the USSR began in July 1946, reached its peak in February–August 1947 and then quickly diminished in intensity, although there were still some famine deaths in 1948. Economist Michael Ellman claims that the hands of the state could have fed all those who died of starvation. He argues that had the policies of the Soviet regime been different, there might have been no famine at all or a much smaller one. Ellman claims that the famine resulted in an estimated 1 to 1.5 million lives lost in addition to secondary population losses due to reduced fertility.Population transfer by the Soviet Union
Deportation of kulaks
Large numbers of kulaks regardless of their nationality were resettled to Siberia and Central Asia. According to data from Soviet archives, which were published in 1990, 1,803,392 people were sent to labor colonies and camps in 1930 and 1931, and 1,317,022 reached the destination. Deportations on a smaller scale continued after 1931. Data from the Soviet archives indicates 2.4 million Kulaks were deported from 1930–34. The reported number of kulaks and their relatives who had died in labour colonies from 1932 to 1940 was 389,521. Simon Sebag Montefiore estimated that 15 million kulaks and their families were deported by 1937, during the deportation many people died, but the full number is not known.Forced settlements in the Soviet Union 1939-53
According to the Russian historian Pavel Polian 5.870 million persons were deported to forced settlements from 1920–1952, including 3.125 million from 1939–52.Those ethnic minorities considered a threat to Soviet security in 1939–52 were forcibly deported to Special Settlements run by the NKVD. Poles, Ukrainians from western regions, Soviet Germans, Balts, Estonians peoples from the Caucasus and Crimea were the primary victims of this policy. Data from the Soviet archives list 309,521 deaths in the Special Settlements from 1941–48 and 73,454 in 1949–50. According to Polian these people were not allowed to return to their home regions until after the death of Stalin, the exception being Soviet Germans who were not allowed to return to the Volga region of the USSR.
Katyn massacre
The massacre was prompted by NKVD chief Lavrentiy Beria's proposal to execute all captive members of the Polish officer corps, dated 5 March 1940, approved by the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, including its leader, Joseph Stalin. The number of victims is estimated at about 22,000.Total number of victims
In 2011, the historian Timothy D. Snyder, after assessing 20 years of historical research in Eastern European archives, asserts that Stalin deliberately killed about 6 million.The release of previously secret reports from the Soviet archives in the 1990s indicate that the victims of repression in the Stalin era were about 9 million persons. Some historians claim that the death toll was around 20 million based on their own demographic analysis and from dated information published before the release of the reports from the Soviet archives. American historian Richard Pipes noted: "Censuses revealed that between 1932 and 1939—that is, after collectivization but before World War II—the population decreased by 9 to 10 million people. In his most recent edition of The Great Terror, Robert Conquest states that while exact numbers may never be known with complete certainty, at least 15 million people were killed "by the whole range of Soviet regime's terrors". Rudolph Rummel in 2006 said that the earlier higher victim total estimates are correct, although he includes those killed by the government of the Soviet Union in other Eastern European countries as well. Conversely, J. Arch Getty, Stephen G. Wheatcroft and others insist that the opening of the Soviet archives has vindicated the lower estimates put forth by "revisionist" scholars. Simon Sebag Montefiore in 2003 suggested that Stalin was ultimately responsible for the deaths of at least 20 million people.
Some of these estimates rely in part on demographic losses. Conquest explained how he arrived at his estimate: "I suggest about eleven million by the beginning of 1937, and about three million over the period 1937–38, making fourteen million. The eleven-odd million is readily deduced from the undisputed population deficit shown in the suppressed census of January 1937, of fifteen to sixteen million, by making reasonable assumptions about how this was divided between birth deficit and deaths."
Some historians also believe that the official archival figures of the categories that were recorded by Soviet authorities are unreliable and incomplete. In addition to failures regarding comprehensive recordings, as one additional example, Canadian historian Robert Gellately and British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore argue that the many suspects beaten and tortured to death while in "investigative custody" were likely not to have been counted amongst the executed. Conversely, Australian historian Stephen G. Wheatcroft asserts that prior to the opening of the archives for historical research, "our understanding of the scale and the nature of Soviet repression has been extremely poor" and that some specialists who wish to maintain earlier high estimates of the Stalinist death toll are "finding it difficult to adapt to the new circumstances when the archives are open and when there are plenty of irrefutable data" and instead "hang on to their old Sovietological methods with round-about calculations based on odd statements from emigres and other informants who are supposed to have superior knowledge".
| Event | Estimated number of deaths | References |
| Dekulakization | 530,000–600,000 | |
| Great Purge | 777,975–1,200,000 | |
| Gulag | 1,500,000–1,713,000 | |
| Soviet deportations | 450,000–566,000 | |
| Katyn massacre | 22,000 | |
| Holodomor | 2,500,000–4,000,000 | |
| TOTAL | ~5,780,000–8,101,000 |