Death in Stalin’s Politburo: some Soviet statistics

Everybody knew that Soviet statistics were unreliable, whether they were about industrial production or about mortality rates. The first time I realised how unreliable Soviet statistics were was in the early 1980s, when I started to look at child mortality statistics. Year after year, reports of child mortality kept on increasing. This was entirely unexpected.  Child mortality is a bad thing. Hence in the Soviet Union it had to decline, not to increase.

With hindsight I realised what might have happened. I was caught by an early manifestation of the glasnost principle: “Let’s tell the truth.” Some lowly official must have decided to put the true figures into the report and must have been very proud that he followed the leaders’ latest instructions. The year after, another lowly official must have realised that child mortality can’t be that bad in the Soviet Union and solved the problem by replacing the actual figure by a note: “Data not available.” And then there were no further reports.

This was of course just a minor interference with the handling of statistics at a time of uncertainty. For major interference we have to go back to 1937, when a census was held after eleven years without one. Stalin decided that the population of the Soviet Union would be 180 million. The census came up with a figure of 162 million. Those responsible for this discrepancy were arrested and shot. But this was a one-off thing. I believe those compiling the 1939 and 1970 censuses came to no harm.

My aim here is to examine a set of statistics which has never been compiled before, although the relevant figures were never contested. I am looking at the year of death for men who were at any time members of Stalin’s Politburo, the highest organ  of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.  I have a list of their names. The main piece of information I give is the date of their  death, from the youngest (Frunze) to the oldest (Kaganovich).  A letter  P after a name means that he was purged by Stalin, tried and shot. To highlight two examples: Bukharin was shot at 50, Beria at 54. Another piece of information is the length of time they spent in the Politburo. The longest time was Stalin himself, with 36 years; the shortest time was probably the Ukrainian Party leaders, Kossior, Postyshev, Rudzutak, Eiche, about 7 years 7 years (I could not find the exact date of their arrest). I can also add a few comments to the statistics.

• Out of the total number of 53 who were full members of the Politburo, according to my classification 23 were purged, about 43%. It was clearly a dangerous job. Unlikely that any life insurance company would have given them cover.
• Trotsky is down with a P as having been purged at the age of 61. It would be more correct to say that Stalin had him assassinated.
• Zhdanov and Shcherbakov were killed by misdiagnosing their illness.
• Tomskii and Ordzhonikidze escaped arrest by committing suicide.
• Ignatev is quoted to have died at the age of 79. This is a remarkable achievement. He was for a while the head of the Cheka or Secret Service. He and Dzerzhinski shared the privilege of dying in bed. The others — Yagoda, Ezhov, Abakumov, Ryumin, Beria — were all shot.
• The whole thing started with Kirov. At the end of the 17^th Congress in 1934, a vote took place for membership of the Politburo. Kirov got more votes than Stalin. That was a mortal offence. Kirov had to die. Stalin made sure that he would die. He procured a mentally unbalanced man who was ready to assassinate Kirov. The rest is Stalin’s revenge upon Kirov, upon Russia, upon the Communist Party, upon all decency.

List of Politburo members, with the age at which they died:

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