I'm sure I sound lazy but, do any of you have statistics on the Soviet Union?

[Always Curious J]

I have been trying to find, like the title suggests, some first hand accounts and statistics on the Soviet Union as well as places like Hungary, Yugoslavia, China. A tall order I suppose, I'm particularly interested in the Soviet Union (post Stalin if that is specific enough) so the others would be more like bonuses to me. Specific statistics I would like are:
1. Literacy rate (if possible compared to before the revolution)
*2. Life expectancy*
3. Education (number of school, people in them etc.)
*4. Healthcare (number of doctors, hospitals, disease rates etc.)
5. Housing (how many people had homes or a place to live)
6. Employm
ent rates
7. Suicides*
8. Infant mortality
If there are any more you'd like to include feel free! Thank you! And I am working on a research project of sorts so citation would be great but it's ok if you can't!

[ComradeOm]

When? All those statistics varied hugely over time

I'll give you the literary statistics because I happen to have them right on hand. In 1897, in European Russia, some 35.8 of men and 12.4 of women were literate. There were real improvements in the following years though and by 1913 73% of army recruits were literate (compared to 31% in 1890). (Nove, An Economic History of the USSR). There were obviously massive variations between genders, generations and geographies but by the 1950s full adult literacy had been achieved

[Always Curious J]

Sorry, I should have been more specific. I was thinking post Stalin if that is specific enough. And thank you!

[Red Clydesider]

Two sets of figures from the Marxist Internet Archive. 1. Numbers in secondary and higher education: (1963) 68.6m; (1987) 164.3m. 2. Number of scientists with Master or Doctor degrees: (1947) 145,600; (1987) 1.5 million.

These really should be expressed as percentages of population, but MIA just gives raw figures. I'm interested in Soviet statistics too, and will try to find more of the kind you ask about.

James.

[Red Clydesider]

Population was 196,176,000 in 1941; 170,548,000 in 1946 - interesting because this reflects the terrible losses due to Nazi invasion.

Population in 1985 was 272m. These figures are from Wikipedia but a 1993 Russian (post-Soviet) statistical publication is cited.

The level of my arithmetic is such that it might take me a day to work out percentage increases in numbers of people in education, and numbers of scientists. I'm a retired English teacher, and remember - though it's many years ago - hearing lectures at training college on Soviet education, which was very highly regarded.

James.

[Red Clydesider]

One more statistical snippet: on the number of doctors in the Soviet Union per 10,000 population, compared with USA and Britain.

Year: 1974. USSR 27.5, USA 13.9, GB 13.1.

This comes from a book published in 1978, which explains why there's nothing more up to date - but at least it's about 20 years post-Stalin. The book is Michael Ryan: The Organization of Soviet Medical Care. Still available on Amazon. The author sources his figures from the World Health Organisation.

There's another book which may be a good source of statistics on Soviet education - Mervyn Matthews: Education in the Soviet Union. Trouble is, it's very expensive - but there may be used copies available. See Amazon.

I couldn't work out those proportions of people in higher education to whole population, as the years don't correspond, e.g you get an education figure for 1963 but no population figure for that year. Never mind - Soviet education was extremely good, and improved consistently in the post-Stalin years. It gave unprecedented opportunities for children of workers and peasants to become professionals of all kinds. It also had an excellent record in offering equal educational opportunities for women.

James.