Excess Deaths and Industrialization

Although more than a half a century has passed since Stalin abandoned NEP and laid the foundation of what many thought would be a socialist economic order, assessments of the size and character of Soviet achievements during the 1930s remain intensely controversial. This essay attempts to illuminate the nature of these divergent appraisals by examining their analytic underpinnings, and by evaluating them in terms of the relationship between excess deaths and the achieved levels of economic development indicated by Soviet statistics. It will be argued that the extraordinary number of excess deaths observed during the 1930s diminishes the credibility of economic development estimates based on official economic statistics and calls into question the efficacy of the Stalinist development model. The historical record shows that in the autumn of 1929 Stalin

Development economics · Economics · Industrialisation · Market economy · History · Russia and Soviet political economy

• Documented Homicides and Excess Deaths

  Open Access•Steven Rosefielde•Communist and Post-Communist…•1997

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• Stalinism in post‐communist perspective

  Steven Rosefielde•Europe Asia Studies•1996

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• Incriminating evidence

  Steven Rosefielde•Soviet Studies•1987

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• Forced Labor in Soviet Russia

  Walter A Lunden, David J Dallin et al.•Journal of Criminal Law and…•1949

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• The Soviet Economy in crisis

  Steven Rosefielde•Soviet Studies•1988

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• An assessment of the sources and uses of gulag forced labour 1929–56

  Steven Rosefielde•Soviet Studies•1981

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• Demographic Analysis and Population Catastrophes in the USSR

  Open Access•Steven Rosefielde•Slavic Review•1986

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