About the scale of human losses of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War
First published in: Militaryhistorical archive. 2012, No. 9. S. 59−71
On this issue, there is a lot of literature, and maybe someone has the impression that it is sufficiently investigated. Yes, indeed, a lot of literature, but there are still a lot of questions and doubts. There are too many unclear, controversial and obviously unreliable. Even the credibility of the current official Soviet casualties in the Great Patriotic War (about 27 million people) raises serious doubts. This article shows the evolution of official statistics on these losses (from 1946 and to the present it has changed several times), and an attempt is made to establish the actual number of casualties for servicemen and civilians in 1941 — 1945. Solving this problem, we relied only on truly reliable information contained in historical sources and literature. The article presents a system of evidence that in fact the direct casualties were about 16 million, of which 11,5 million are military and 4,5 million are civilian.
During the 16 years after the war, all casualties of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War (total military and civilian) were estimated at 7 million. In February 1946, this figure (7 million) was published in the Bolshevik magazine 2. She in March 1946 was named I.V. Stalin in an interview with the newspaper Pravda. This is literally a quote by I.V. Stalin, published in this newspaper: “As a result of the German invasion, the Soviet Union irretrievably lost about seven million people in battles with the Germans, as well as thanks to the German occupation and the hijacking of the Soviet people to German penal servitude.” 3.
In fact, I.V. Stalin was aware of completely different statistics - 15 million 4. This was reported to him at the beginning of 1946 based on the results of the work of the commission, which was headed by the candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU (B.) Chairman of the USSR State Plan N.A. Voznesensky. So far, little is known about the work of this commission, and it is unclear what method it used in calculating 15 million of casualties. The question is: where are they, these data, gone? It turns out that in the document submitted to him by the commission, I.V. Stalin made an "editorial correction", correcting 15 million for 7 million. Otherwise, how could it be explained that 15 million "disappeared" and 7 million were made public and became official data?
On the motives of the act I.V. Stalin can only guess. Of course, propaganda motives and the desire to conceal from the people and the world community the real scale of the Soviet people's casualties took place here.
In the first half of 1960's. demographic specialists tried to determine the total casualties in the war using the balance method, comparing the results of the All-Union population censuses 1939 and 1959. This was done, of course, with the approval of the CPSU Central Committee. It immediately revealed a lot of difficulties in solving this problem, since with different approaches and methods it was really possible to derive any value in the range from 15 million to 30 million. This required an extremely professional and correct approach. According to the results of calculations made at the beginning of the 1960s, two conclusions followed: 1) the exact number of casualties in 1941 — 1945. impossible to establish; 2) they actually make up approximately 20 million or perhaps even more. Since the specialists understood that this indicator is purely demographic, which includes not only the victims of the war, but also an increased mortality rate due to the deterioration of living conditions in wartime, the correct wording was developed - “the war claimed lives”. In this spirit, all this was reported "upstairs."
At the end of 1961, Stalin's 7 million 5 November 1961 was finally “buried”. Khrushchev, in a letter to the Swedish Prime Minister T. Erlander, noted that the last war “claimed two tens of millions of lives of Soviet people” 5. 9 May 1965, on the day of the 20 anniversary of the Victory, L.I. Brezhnev said in his speech that the country had lost “over 20 million people” 6. A little later, L.I. Brezhnev corrected the wording: "The war claimed more than twenty million lives of Soviet people." Thus, N.S. Khrushchev called 20 million, L.I. Brezhnev - more than 20 million, with the same terminology - “the war claimed lives”.
This statistic is reliable with the proviso that it takes into account not only the direct victims of the war, but also an increased natural mortality rate in excess of the corresponding figures in peacetime. This circumstance made these 20 million (or more 20 million) incomparable with the corresponding statistics of other countries (only direct victims of war are included in casualties). In other words, based on the calculation methods adopted in other countries, the calculation of the USSR human losses, determined by the value of 20 million, can even be called exaggerated. And he exaggerated in this case, according to our estimates, approximately 4 million people.
In fact, 20 million is the total number of direct (16 million) and indirect (4 million) losses. This fact itself speaks of the shortcomings and costs of the balance method of calculation, which can only establish the total number of direct and indirect losses and is not able to isolate them and separate them from each other. And here the methodologically incorrect summation of direct and indirect losses is unwittingly obtained, leading to a certain devaluation of the concept “victims of war” and an exaggeration of their scale. Recall that in the relevant statistics of other countries there are no indirect losses. In fact, the problem of indirect losses is a separate topic, and there should, in theory, separate statistics exist, and if they are included in the total number of casualties in a war, then it must be accompanied by a number of serious reservations. Since no explanations of this kind were ever made, in the public mind the magnitude in 20 million was distortedly perceived as the total number of direct victims of the war.
For a quarter of a century, these 20 million were official data on the Soviet losses in the Great Patriotic War. But at the end of the 1980s, at the height of Gorbachev's perestroika, when many previous stereotypes and ideas were criticized and overthrown, this also affected the official data of the losses. In publicism, they were then branded as “fake” and claimed that in fact the number of victims of the war was much higher (over 40 million). Moreover, these deliberately false claims were actively introduced into the mass consciousness. There were calls to "establish the truth about the losses." In the wake of this “righteousness”, a rather vigorous activity began in 1989 to “recount” Soviet casualties in 1941 — 1945.
In fact, all this was an integral part of the widespread propaganda campaign “to expose Stalinism” inspired by Gorbachev's Politburo. All the then propaganda was built with the expectation that I.V. Stalin looked like the only culprit (A. Hitler was rarely mentioned) of enormous human losses in the Great Patriotic War, and there was a predisposition (to increase the degree of negativeness of the image of IV Stalin and “Stalinism” in the public mind) to “cancel” 20 million and “ Count "much more.
Since March, 1989, on behalf of the Central Committee of the CPSU, has been working a state commission to study the number of human losses of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War. The commission included representatives of the State Statistics Committee, Academy of Sciences, the Ministry of Defense, the Main Archival Administration under the USSR Council of Ministers, the Committee of War Veterans, the Union of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. The peculiarity of the psychological attitude of the members of this commission was the conviction that the then official official casualties of the USSR in the war (20 million) were supposedly “approximate” and “incomplete” (which was their mistake), and she, the commission, should be counted significantly more. They considered the demographic balance method they used as “innovative”, not understanding or not wanting to understand that it was the same method in the first half of the 1960-s. were counted and marked 20 million
The All-Russian Book of Memory, published in 1995, describes in detail the calculation methodology, which resulted in almost 27 million (more precisely, 26,6 million) of all Soviet casualties in the Great Patriotic War. Since even the smallest details and nuances matter for our further conclusions, we give this description verbatim and in full below: “The total human losses, calculated by the commission using the balance method, include all those who died as a result of military and other actions of the enemy who died as a result of the mortality rate during the war in the occupied territory and in the rear, as well as persons who emigrated from the USSR during the war and did not return after it. The number of direct casualties does not include indirect losses: from a decline in the birth rate during the war and an increased mortality rate in the post-war years.
The losses were calculated using the balance method for the period from June 22 1941 to December 31 1945. The upper limit of the period was moved away from the end of the war at the end of the year to take into account those who died from wounds in hospitals, the repatriation of civilian prisoners of war and displaced persons from among civilians population and the repatriation of citizens of the USSR from other countries.
The demographic balance implies a comparison of the population within the same territorial boundaries. For calculations, the USSR borders were taken on 22 June 1941.
The estimated population of the USSR on 22 June 1941 was obtained by moving to a specified date the results of the pre-war census of the country’s population (17 January 1939) adjusted for the numbers of births and deaths for the two and a half years from the census to the attack of Nazi Germany. Thus, the population of the USSR in the middle of 1941 was determined in 196,7 million. At the end of 1945, this number was calculated by moving back the age data of the All-Union 1959 census. The updated information on mortality and external migration data for 1946 – 1958 were used. The calculation was made taking into account the changes in the USSR borders after 1941. As a result, the population on 31 December 1945 was defined in 170,5 million, of whom 159,5 million were born before 22 June 1941.
The total number of dead, dead, missing, and trapped outside the country during the war years was 37,2 million (the difference between 196,7 and 159,5 million). However, this whole value cannot be attributed to casualties caused by the war, as in peacetime (in 4,5 year) the population would be subject to natural loss due to normal mortality. If the mortality rate of the population of the USSR in 1941 — 1945. taking the same as in 1940, the number of deaths would be 11,9 million. Excluding this figure, casualties among citizens born before the outbreak of war are 25,3 million. To this figure it is necessary to add the losses of children born in the war years and at the same time dead due to increased child mortality (1,3 million). As a result, the total human losses of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War, determined by the method of demographic balance, are equal to 26,6 million people »7.
Despite the seeming fundamentality and solidity of these calculations, as we repeatedly tried to double-check them, this kind of suspicion grew steadily: did they, these calculations, result from the correct approach and is there falsification hidden there? Finally, it became clear what the matter was: behind a detailed and outwardly impartial description of the calculation method, a statistical forgery was concealed, designed to increase the previous official loss data by 7 million people (from 20 million to 27 million) by lowering by the same amount (by 7 million) of the scale of natural mortality in 1941 — 1945. based on the mortality rate of the USSR population in 1940 (without specifying the specific number of deaths in 1940). The logic here, apparently, was this: no one knows how many people in the USSR died in 1940, and will not be able to verify.
Check, however, you can. In 1940, 4,2 million people died in the USSR. This figure was published in 1990 in the journal "Journal of Statistics" 8. It also appears in the 2000 volume of the fundamental scientific work “The Population of Russia in the 20th Century” 1 published in 9. This means that for 4,5 of the year (from the middle of 1941 to the end of 1945), if calculated in terms of 1: 1 to the mortality rate of the USSR population in 1940, 18,9 million would die (4,2 million x 4,5 of the year = 18,9 million) . This is the number of people who would still have died in the specified period (1941 − 1945), even if there was no war, and they must be deducted from any calculations by definition of casualties due to war.
The Commission, which worked in 1989 — 1990, understood this and carried out the corresponding operation in its calculations, but deducted (allegedly from the mortality rate in the USSR in 1940) only 11,9 million people. But it was necessary to subtract 18,9 million. In this way, “additional” 7 million losses were obtained (18,9 million - 11,9 million = 7 million). Through this clever statistical fraud in 1990, the official figures of Soviet casualties in the Great Patriotic War were increased from 20 million to 27 million people. In fact, these 27 million are the same profanation as the Stalinist 7 million, only inside out.
Such is the background of the emergence of new official statistics of casualties in the war. All other existing and existing versions of its origin, including the funny “mathematical formula” (Stalin's 7 million + Khrushchev's 20 million = Gorbachev's 27 million), are, of course, erroneous.
8 May 1990, President of the USSR M.S. Gorbachev, in a report on the 45 anniversary of the Victory, said that the war claimed almost 27 millions of Soviet lives10. We note that M.S. Gorbachev used the same wording (“claimed lives”) that N.S. Khrushchev and L.I. Brezhnev. Since that time, that is, since May 1990, to this day, these almost 27 million (sometimes called “more precisely” - 26,6 million) are official figures of Soviet casualties in the Great Patriotic War. Moreover, in propaganda, instead of the fairly correct expression “war took lives”, implying demographic losses in a broad sense, the verb “perish” is used, which is a serious semantic distortion (then direct victims of the war should be singled out as part of general demographic losses).
It is curious that even in 1990, the old Soviet tradition was observed, according to which any new information about the statistics of human losses in 1941 — 1945. proceeded only from the highest officials of the party and the state. Over 1946 − 1990 these statistics were changed and refined 4 times, and they were always voiced by the general secretaries of the CPSU Central Committee - consistently I.V. Stalin, N.S. Khrushchev, L.I. Brezhnev and MS Gorbachev. The last three, apparently, did not doubt the authenticity of the figures referred to (IV Stalin, as you know, consciously falsified the statistics in the direction of lowering its scale).
Despite the prevailing perception of these new official data (27 million) of Soviet casualties in the war as supposed ultimate truth, there was no complete consensus in historical science, and there were evaluations that seriously questioned their authenticity. Thus, the well-known historian A.K. Sokolov in 1995 noted: “... I would like to remind individual authors who are prone to exaggeration that Russia is sparsely populated by world standards and considering its territory. The strange idea of the inexhaustibility of its human resources is a myth that most of the authors use, spreading to the right and left with tens of millions of victims. The number of those killed in the war years is still less than 27 million. ”11.
Since the beginning of the 1990's. In the scientific community, the results of calculating the total military losses, carried out by a team of military historians led by Colonel-General G.F. Krivosheev. According to them, all the losses of soldiers killed and dead (including those killed in captivity) amounted to almost 8,7 million people (more precisely, 8668,4 thousand) 12. All these calculations were published in 1993 in the statistical study "The neck of secrecy was removed: Loss of the Armed Forces of the USSR in wars, hostilities and military conflicts." The specified total loss of soldiers killed and dead was in fact unreliable, significantly lower than real losses, but, nevertheless, quickly entered the scientific revolution.
Thus, during the 1990 − 1993 biennium. for specialists and a wider audience, two actually fake figures were “launched”: overestimated almost 27 million (total human losses) and underestimated almost 8,7 million (general military losses). Moreover, even in the minds of many specialists (not all), these figures were perceived as certain dogmas that were not subject to doubt and challenge. And here began something that went beyond common sense. Immediately identified the total number (18,3 million) civilian casualties killed and tortured (27 million - 8,7 million = 18,3 million), and the most absurd idea about the "special character of the Great Patriotic War, in which civilian losses were significantly superior to the military," was promoted. To any sane person it is clear and understandable that such a relationship between military and civilian casualties could not exist by definition, and that the dead soldiers, of course, prevailed in the overall composition of direct casualties.
Nevertheless, these fantastic 18,3 million began to "walk" through the pages of various publications. Since this value was not documented in any way, there was a tendency to explain this by some virtual underestimation of the death of the civilian population in the territory of the USSR subjected to enemy occupation. So, A.A. Sheviakov confidently stated in an article published in 1991: “As a result of the mass extermination of the civilian population, the deliberate organization of hunger in the occupied Soviet territories themselves and the death of the hijacked population in German penal servitude, the Soviet Union lost 18,3 million of its citizens” 13. A.A. Shevyakov also found an explanation of why before such gigantic proportions of civilian deaths in the occupied territories were not known to anyone and nobody even suspected them. He laid the main “blame” for this on the State Extraordinary Commission on the establishment and investigation of the atrocities of the German fascist invaders and their accomplices (CPG), which, in his words, “often consisted in places of low-skilled people who did not possess political insight and methods of identifying Fascist atrocities »xnumx.
Claims A.A. Shevyakova to the ChGK in this matter is completely unfair. The local commissions of the ChGK carried out painstaking work to establish the losses (killed and tortured) of the civilian population in the former occupied territory. In total, they counted 6,8 million of such victims. Until the end of the 1960's. this figure was strictly classified and first published in 1969 in an article by the former chief prosecutor of the USSR at the Nuremberg trials, R. A. Rudenko15. It is also given in the 1973 volume published in 10, History of the USSR from Ancient Times to the Present, 16. Any serious underestimation, contrary to A.A. Shevyakova, ChGK statistics are not traced, but overstatement of data is undeniably present. So, the local commissions of the ChGK often took into account how all the inhabitants of the burned deserted villages who had lived here before died, and then it turned out that these people did not die at all, but simply moved to live in other areas. The victims included even people who were evacuated. On this occasion, Academician of the RAS Yu.A. Polyakov noted: “It is known, for example, that in many cities immediately after the war people who were evacuated to 1941 and did not return were put on the loss lists, and then they returned from somewhere from Tashkent or Alma-Ata” 17. In practice, the local commissions of the ChGK included in the lists of the dead and tortured many living people who were absent for various other reasons. It is completely clear to us that the ChGK data on the deaths of civilians in the occupied territory (6,8 million) are exaggerated by at least 2 times. Of course, it is impossible to deny the genocide, terror and repression of the invaders and their accomplices, and, according to our estimates, such victims, taking into account the fighting losses of the partisans from among the local residents, amounted to at least 3 million people. This is the main component of the direct victims of the war of the civilian population of the USSR.
The direct civilian victims of the war also include deceased Soviet citizens who were hijacked to forced labor in Germany and were there in the position of the so-called "Eastern workers" ("Ostarbeiter"). If we strictly rely on statistical data available in historical sources (which is our professional duty), then the scale of mortality of “Ostarbeiter” can only be discussed in the following range: from 100 thousand to 200 thousand people. But this is an area where direct testimony from historical sources is completely ignored, and instead of them they are presented with absurd and fantastic “assumptions” and “calculations” with virtual “millions of victims”. A.A. Shevyakov "counted" even two versions of the most absurd "statistics" of the death of Soviet civilians at work in Germany - 2,8 million and 3,4 million. 18. False statistics are also shown in the "All-Russian Book of Memory" - allegedly such victims were 2 164 313 people 19. The "accuracy" of this figure should not be misleading - this is a blind. All this "statistics" does not appear in any documents and is entirely the fruit of copyright fantasies.
However, there is a relatively reliable historical source in the form of consolidated German mortality statistics for "eastern workers" for individual months. Unfortunately, for a number of months, such reports were not revealed by the researchers, but from the available ones one can make a fairly clear picture of the scale of their mortality. We present the number of dead “Ostarbeiter” by individual months 1943 g .: March - 1479, May - 1376, October - 1268, November - 945, December - 899; for 1944 d .: January - 979, February - 1631 people20. Based on these data and using the extrapolation method (taking into account possible jumps in the mortality rate in certain months for which there is no information), PM Polyan determined the total mortality of "Eastern workers" in the range from 80 thousand to 100 thousand 21. In principle, with P.M. We can agree with Polyan, but we are confused by one circumstance - the lack of information in the last months of the war, and due to the transfer of military operations to German territory, the death toll of the “eastern workers” increased for a number of indirect signs. Therefore, we tend to determine the number of dead and deceased Soviet civilians ("Eastern workers") in Germany, about 200 thousand.
Direct civilian casualties include fallen civilian volunteer units - unfinished militia units, city self-defense units, fighter units, party-Komsomol activist groups, special units of various civil agencies, and others (partisan losses are included in the overall statistics of the victims in the occupied territory), as well as the death of the civilian population from bombing, shelling, etc. These sacrifices number in the hundreds of thousands. Part of the direct civilian casualties are the Leningrad blockade (about 0,7 million dead).
Summing up all the above components of direct civilian casualties, to which the term “victims of war” is applied without any exaggeration, we determine their total number by at least 4,5 million people.
As for the military casualties of those killed and dead, they were at least 11,5 million (and not nearly 8,7 million). We are talking about the total number of servicemen who did not live to see the end of the war, and we conditionally divide them into three groups: 1) combat losses; 2) no combat losses; 3) dead in captivity.
We define the combat losses of servicemen as 7 million (most of them died directly on the battlefield). Our estimates regarding the casualties of those killed and deceased somewhat differ from the value indicated in the book “The Vault of Secrecy has been removed” - 6329,6 ths. In one place of this book, it is noted: “About 22 thousand died in battles, although according to reports from the fronts they were counted as missing” 500. But in the total number of combat losses (23 thousand), these about 6329,6 thousand people are not included by the authors of the “Vulture's Secret” book, despite the fact that they died in battles. Therefore, when we claim that the casualties of the dead and the dead were about 500 million, we must bear in mind that this is taking into account the estimated number of those killed in the battles as part of the missing.
The so-called non-combat losses amount to over 0,5 million. These are the servicemen who died from diseases, as well as the depressingly large number of people who died as a result of all sorts of accidents and accidents that are not related to the combat situation. This also includes 160 thousand military tribunals who were executed on sentences and orders of commanders mainly for cowardice and desertion. The total number of all these non-combat casualties is indicated in the book “The Vault of Secrecy” - 555,5 thousand people24.
The total number of military casualties killed and dead also includes almost 4 million Soviet prisoners of war. It may be objected that other numbers are mentioned in domestic and foreign literature, significantly lower than this value. In the book “Grief of secrecy was removed” under the heading “Did not return from captivity (died, died, emigrated to other countries)”, the final figure indicates an incomprehensible and causing acute distrust among specialists - 1783,3 thousand people25. This figure should be immediately discarded because of its obvious absurdity. Much closer to the truth are the data of German summary statistics, according to which 3,3 million Soviet prisoners of war26 died in German captivity. This figure is the most popular in the scientific literature and does not cause much distrust among specialists. However, the study of the calculation method of German summary data revealed their very substantial incompleteness - from 600 to 700, thousands of Soviet prisoners of war, who actually died in captivity, were not included in the German summary mortality statistics. So that these our statements do not look unfounded, we present the following argument. First, the summary German mortality statistics of Soviet prisoners of war (3,3 million) as of 1 in May of 1944, and the war continued for another year, for which there is no relevant information; secondly, the specified summary statistics consists of two parts, as it were, where the data for 1942 − 1944 are. can be considered complete, since the counting was conducted from the moment of capture, but for 1941, the Germans “built in” into it, the summary statistics, only the camp statistics, that is, the prisoners who died in 1941 were not taken into account in the time interval capture until the moment they entered the camps (this is a major undercount - according to our estimates, at least 400 thousand Soviet prisoners were not taken to the camps by the Germans in 1941). Thirdly, the above statistics concerns only German captivity, and the mortality of Soviet prisoners of war in the Finnish and Romanian captivity is not reflected there. Based on this argument, we continue to insist that the scale of mortality of Soviet prisoners of war (summed up in the German, Finnish and Romanian captivity) was almost 4 million.
Thus, the total losses of soldiers killed and dead (including those killed in captivity) were at least 11,5 million. The statement of the authors of the “Grief of Secrecy” has been removed, that all these losses of servicemen in total amounted to almost 8,7 million (more precisely, 8668,4 thousand) is certainly erroneous. This is mainly due to the fact that the authors of this book have completely incorrectly determined the scale of mortality of Soviet prisoners of war, significantly understating it.
Consequently, the method of adding specific losses is approximately 16 million, of which 11,5 million is military, 4,5 million is civilian. And in this way it is customary to calculate the losses in other warring countries. For example, the total human casualties of Japan in World War II (2,5 million people) 27 were calculated based on the specifics of the Japanese losses, by adding their components: war dead + dead in captivity + bomb victims, including American atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The so-called balance method for such calculations has not been used either in Japan or in other countries. And this is the correct approach: the total number of war victims must certainly be calculated by adding together the various components of specific casualties.
But it is also possible to prove by the balance method that the direct human losses (war victims) of the USSR were about 16 million. To do this, we must establish the correct ratio of the natural mortality rate between the relatively demographically successful 1940 and the extreme 1941 – 1945. The ratio of 1: 1, established working in 1989 — 1990. Commission, can not be considered correct. After all, it was clear that in 1941 — 1945. due to deterioration of living conditions, lack of scarce drugs, etc. the level of natural mortality of the population will inevitably increase. And here, an upward correction is necessary when calculating this level in relation to extreme 1941-1945. and set it as part of not 18,9 million, but bring it to at least 22 million. This value (22 million) is the minimum acceptable level of natural mortality in 1941 — 1945. According to our estimates and estimates, by the end of 1945, there were no 38 million people alive before the war, as well as those born during the war and at the same time dead (this number also includes people who were actually alive, but were in emigration), and if we deduct the indicated 22 million from this amount, then there remains the 16 million war victims (38 million - 22 million = 16 million).
Let us touch upon a little the problem of the comparability of our losses with the losses of other countries. Japan’s total human losses (2,5 million) are comparable to the 16 million calculated by us, but not comparable with the Khrushchev and Brezhnevsky 20 million. Why is that? And because the Japanese casualties do not take into account the possible increased mortality of the civilian population in the war years compared with peacetime. This is not accounted for either in German, nor in English, nor in French, nor in other common human losses in a war. In other countries, it was direct human casualties that were calculated, and the one named in 1961 was N.S. Khrushchev magnitude in 20 million implied demographic losses in a broad sense, including not only direct casualties, but also a jump in the natural death rate of the population in wartime. By the way, the minimum calculations of German casualties (6,5 million) are comparable to our 16 million, but incomparable to 20 million, because the Germans, without using the balance method and trying not to calculate the natural mortality of the population, tried to scrupulously calculate and summarize all the components of direct military and civilian casualties, including German Jews 28, who became victims of the Holocaust.
Of course, in wartime, the birth rate dropped sharply. In the amateurish environment, there is a tendency to include “unborn children” in the total number of casualties in a war. Moreover, the “authors” usually do not have a clue how many, in fact, children “were not born”, and make extremely dubious “calculations”, being guided by their own “intuition” and sometimes reducing the total human losses of the USSR even to 50 million. Of course, such "statistics" can not be taken seriously. In the scientific demography of the whole world, the inclusion of unborn children in the total number of casualties in a war is considered incorrect. In other words, in world science this is a forbidden method.
There is a rather large layer of all kinds of literature in which, even without “unborn children,” the most improbable and, of course, deliberately false figures of direct losses — from 40 million and above — are derived through incorrect statistical intuitive evaluations. It is impossible to conduct a civilized scientific discussion with these “authors”, because, as we have repeatedly seen, their goal is not to seek historical truth, but lies in a completely different direction: defame and discredit Soviet leaders and military leaders and the Soviet system as a whole; downplay the significance and greatness of the feat of the Red Army and the people in the Great Patriotic War; glorify the successes of the Nazis and their accomplices.
Of course, 16 million direct casualties are huge casualties. But they, in our deep conviction, do not belittle, but, on the contrary, glorify the feat of the peoples of a multinational country (USSR) in the Great Patriotic War.
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3 True. 1946. 14 March.
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5 International Life. 1961. No. 12. C. 8.
6 Political self-education. 1988. No. 17. C. 43.
7 All-Russian Book of Memory. 1941 − 1945: Overview Volume. M., 1995. C. 395 − 396.
8 Herald Statistics. 1990. No. 7. C. 34 − 46.
9 Russia's population in the twentieth century: Historical essays / Ed. editors: Yu.A. Polyakov, V.B. Zhiromskaya. M., 2000. T. 1. C. 340.
10 True. 1990. 9 May.
11 Sokolov A.K. Methodological basis for calculating the loss of the population of the USSR during the Great Patriotic War // Human losses of the USSR during the Second World War. SPb., 1995. C. 22.
12 Nexus lifted: Loss of the Armed Forces of the USSR in wars, hostilities and military conflicts: Statistical research / Edited by G.F. Krivosheev. M., 1993. C. 131.
13 Shevyakov A.A. Hitler's genocide in the territories of the USSR // Sociological studies. 1991. No. 12. C. 10.
14 There e. S. 6.
15 Rudenko R.A. Not to be forgotten // True. 1969. 24 March. C. 4.
16 History of the USSR from ancient times to the present day. M., 1973. T. 10. C. 390.
17 Polyakov Yu.A. The main problems of studying the loss of life of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War // Human losses of the USSR during the Second World War. SPb., 1995. C. 11.
18 Shevyakov A.A. Decree. article. C. 10.
19 All-Russian Book of Memory. C. 406.
20 Polyan PM The victims of two dictatorships: Ostarbeiters and prisoners of war in the Third Reich and their repatriation. M., 1996. C. 146.
21 ibid. C. 68.
22 The security stamp is unchecked. C. 130.
23 ibid. C. 338.
24 ibid. C. 130.
25 ibid. C. 131.
26 Streit C. Keine Kameraden: Die Wehrmacht and die sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen. 1941 − 1945. Bonn, 1991. S. 244 − 246.
Our Navy is in a panic: they are defenseless in front of a destroyer that the US has experienced
27 Hattori T. Japan in the war. 1941 − 1945 / Trans. with jap M., 1973. C. 606.
28 Methodology of German calculations, see: Jacobsen G.-A. 1939 − 1945. World War II: Chronicles and Documents / Trans. with him. // World War II: Two Views. M., 1995.
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