Translartion. Region: Russians Fedetion –
Source: State University Higher School of Economics – State University Higher School of Economics –
On April 16, as part of XXV April International Scientific Conference of the National Research University Higher School of Economics a round table discussion entitled “Historical Statistics for Studying Mechanisms of Social Stability in the USSR” was held. The event was supported by Interdisciplinary group on historical statistics of the National Center for Humanities and Social Sciences “Center for Interdisciplinary Research of Human Potential”.
The opening speech was given by the Vice-Rector of the National Research University Higher School of Economics Liliya Ovcharova. She emphasized the importance of studying the socio-economic legacy of the USSR not only for understanding the past, but also for analyzing modern trends: “The Soviet past contains the reasons for those long-term trends that are still in effect today. We see them in science and scientific schools, in education, in demography, as well as in the development features of Russian regions. Without attention from the Russian research community, important components may be missed in this history, which I include the connecting, civilizational role of the Soviet Union and Russia, as an institution for the development of union republics – future independent states in the post-Soviet space, as well as adjacent territories.”
Round table chaired by the director Expert Institute And Center for Productivity Research The HSE Ilya Voskoboinikov conference brought together not only HSE experts, but also representatives of the Presidential Academy (RANEPA), Rosstat, Moscow State University, and the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The discussion focused on rethinking Soviet official statistics and the availability of archival data, as well as the need for an interdisciplinary approach to studying the socio-economic development of the USSR and Russia using modern quantitative methods. Participants discussed the complexity of interpreting Soviet data, the comparability of sources, and the institutional barriers facing researchers.
Vladimir Sokolin, Chairman of the Federal State Statistics Service (1999-2008) and the Interstate Statistical Committee of the Commonwealth of Independent States (2009-2022), devoted his speech to the importance of revising and refining official Soviet statistics based on modern scientific principles. He emphasized the uneven quality of Soviet data — high in terms of physical indicators of industrial production and transport, but questionable in agriculture. He also pointed out the almost complete lack of data in terms of price statistics and mentioned the influence of ideology on decisions to publish data and even statistical developments in certain areas — for example, in cross-country comparisons of living standards. The expert paid special attention to the importance of restoring long dynamic series of statistical indicators and preserving expert knowledge in the field of Soviet statistics as long as its bearers are alive.
A presentation of the results of a project to analyze wage inequality in the USSR was given by Professor Leonid Borodkin of Lomonosov Moscow State University and Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. His research showed how the degree of differentiation of wages between workers and engineering and technical workers changed in different periods, from the NEP to the late Soviet era. The professor emphasized that data on actual accruals in the archives of enterprises often contradict official statistics. For example, under the conditions of equalization in the post-war period, responsible engineering and technical workers (ITW) were supposed to receive salaries comparable to or even lower than those of workers. This did not correspond to the role of IWW in production and could lead to a shortage of specialists. The solution was incentive funds, which made it possible to create material incentives for responsible and qualified engineers.
Roman Konchakov, Dean of the Faculty of History and Philology at the Institute of Social Sciences of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, spoke about institutional and methodological obstacles to the use of Soviet statistics. He presented statistics not only as a source of data, but also as an element of state building. Konchakov emphasized the importance of the 1920s as a key period for the formation of the Soviet statistical school and pointed out the need to create an infrastructure for combining various historical datasets.
Speech by Ekaterina Boltunova, Director Institute of Regional Historical Research HSE, was devoted to the study of financial and time budgets of households in the context of late Soviet domestic tourism (late 1950s – 1960s). She paid special attention to how the prism of tourism can be used to study the availability of infrastructure, the perception of territories and the everyday economy of Soviet citizens.
Mikhail Denisenko, director Institute of Demography HSE named after A.G. Vishnevsky, in his report examined the dynamics of the age structure of the population of Russia in the 20th century. In his speech, the expert emphasized the importance of demographic data for the analysis of social sustainability, and also spoke about the challenges that researchers face when reconstructing this data, especially in the absence of continuous data for a number of years.
The discussion was summed up by the moderator of the round table, Ilya Voskoboinikov: “When a modern statistician submits a report, the document goes into the archive – but this is not the end of the work. In ten, twenty, fifty years, a historian will come to this archive. Statistics are not only numbers, but also a long-term contribution to our understanding of the past and the present. Soviet historical statistics are very important for modern research, since the Soviet experience touches on a big issue of the modern economy – finding a balance between economic efficiency and social sustainability.”
The second part of the round table included a discussion with representatives of the scientific community, including Maria Drobysheva, Deputy Head of the Department of Living Standards Statistics and Household Surveys of Rosstat, Vyacheslav Stepanov, Leading Researcher at the Center for Ethnopolitical Studies at the Institute of Economics and Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Researcher Laboratories for institutional analysis of economic reforms HSE University Alexey Popov. The latter noted that many statistical funds still remain classified and this greatly complicates working with data.
The discussion confirmed the high interest in the topic and emphasized the need for further development of the historical data infrastructure. Deputy Vice-Rector of the National Research University Higher School of Economics Maria Nagernyak noted the often fragmented and unsystematic nature of a large part of the statistical data collected over a long period of time: “These data on various areas of the socio-economic development of our country are of interest not only to the scientific community, but also to the general public. The activities of the Interdisciplinary Group on Historical Statistics are aimed at uniting the efforts of scientists from various fields of science for the joint study of historical statistical data on the development of human potential both in our country and in the post-Soviet space, as well as in friendly foreign countries.”
The group plans to create working groups to discuss statistics in various areas and to formulate an official position of Rosstat on unofficial data, as well as to organize regular conferences to discuss issues of access to archival data and cooperation between historians, economists and statisticians with the involvement of specialists from the faculties of social and economic sciences, as well as schools of historical research National Research University Higher School of Economics.
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