Living Standards in the USSR during the Interwar Period

NRU Higher School of Economics , 2023. No. 264.

Voskoboynikov I.

How was life in the Soviet Union in the interwar period? The two interwar decades fall into the years of relative prosperity of the mid-1920s; the years of tumult and disaster (1929 – 1938) with the famines of 1932-22, mass exiles, and repressions; and the initial years of the Second World War. These decades fall into the middle of a demographic transition and the formation of internal administrative borders between the Union republics. Despite some ongoing debates on data quality, there is a general understanding, that per capita GNP growth was outstanding in the mid-1920s and in the second half of the 1930s. The literature is divided, however, on the conversion of this growth into improved living standards. A number of studies have postulated that after 1928 real consumption never achieved this level. Recent revisions show that the second half of the 1930s was relatively prosperous, so that the living standards of the urban population improved. An alternative approach is looking at biological indicators, such as life expectancy at birth, child mortality, and child and adult stature as they do not have the biases peculiar to economic indices. In the case of the Soviet Union, they are of special interest because of the non-uniform quality of official statistics and, specifically, the fact, that non-market prices did not reflect product scarcity. In terms of life expectancy, child mortality, and stature, the second half of the 1930s was accompanied by growing living standards and remarkable progress was achieved in public education and healthcare. However, the mass terror of 1937‑38 with one million excess deaths was also part of the “high living standards” of the late 1930s. The conventional view on living standards mostly considers the Soviet Union as a whole, neglecting differences across the Union republics. This chapter attempts to also highlight what the literature says about differences across the Union republics.

Keywords: СССР, life expectancy, USSR, численность населения, ожидаемая продолжительность жизни при рождении, living standards, Soviet Union, межвоенный период, population, interwar period, жизненный уровень

Publication based on the results of: Long run economic growth in isolation and under conditions of exogenous shocks (2023)