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CHAPTER 2 The availability and reliability of statistical agricultural data for Russia One specific issue in retrospective analyses of Russian economic development is the availability of reliable statistical data that is freely accessible and can be used to check the claims of any researcher. The availability of Soviet agricultural statistical data at a regional level is extremely important in research on the impact of climate (mainly in the form of droughts) on agricultural production. Ideally there should be no interruptions in data sets for regions and years covered by the statistical reports. Information on agricultural land and crop areas in the regions of Russia seems to be adequately provided in Soviet official reports. These data allow for the reconstruction of changes in the area and structure of agricultural lands over the last hundred years. The availability of information concerning agricultural production is poor compared with the data on crop areas. However, the data published in Soviet statistical reports make it possible to investigate variations in the production of key crops, including wheat and rye, for many decades in the period. Unfortunately , information on livestock inventories, meat and dairy production in the regions is lacking for most of the period. Data on food consumption in the regions are available for only the last few years of the 1980s. The accuracy and reliability of statistical data published in the Soviet Union remains a key problem. It would be wrong to suggest that the Soviet authorities regularly sanctioned the publication of false statistics in order to mislead their political opponents. If the Soviet authorities did not wish to make public the statistics for a given year, they simply did not publish them (although in such cases the missing data might even appear in official reports a few years later). The problem of the accuracy of Soviet statistics is partly associated with the specific definition of some of the statistical parameters. Naturally the Soviet Union, like many other countries, had its own set of statistical criteria, which Climate Dependence and Food Problems in Russia, 1900–1990 sometimes makes it difficult to compare them with Western agricultural statistics. It is likely that many of the Soviet criteria used in official statistics were elaborated in order to present a more favorable picture of Soviet economic performance. A typical example is the Soviet method of measuring the growth of total agricultural and industrial production. Up until the mid-1950s, Soviet statisticians always used the early-year prices, which tended to exaggerate the size of the growth. On the other hand, American growth was generally expressed in terms of the prices for later in the year, which understated American growth. Technically, both calculations were acceptable, but the mechanics of statistical calculation meant that the USSR looked as if it were growing even faster than it was in comparison with the United States (Goldman, 1968). However, similar calculations of statistical indices should not be misleading to experts. It seems that impressive figures for achievements were published rather for “domestic consumption” . For example, in the 1930s and 1940s, the Soviet method for measuring grain harvests resulted in figures that exceeded the real harvest by 20 to 30 percent. This approach was used in order to raise the planned targets for grain deliveries for Soviet collective farms, rather than to prove to anybody abroad the advantages of collectivizing agriculture. It is difficult to draw a single portrait of Soviet statistics, in so far as they were dynamic phenomena directly dependent on the political situation in the country in a given historical period. The pre-revolutionary period in Russia was characterized by more favorable conditions for the development of the country’s statistical service. The first post-revolutionary decade and the period of Stalin’s dictatorship (1929–1953) both appear very problematic in terms of the reliability of statistics, although in different ways. After 1956, the Soviet Union became more open with its statistical information, although the problem of reliability regarding some data certainly still arises. 2.1. The pre-revolutionary period (before 1916) The history of the Russian statistical service begins in 1858, when the Central Statistical Committee (TsSK)1 was established. The Central Statistical Committee was formally under the aegis of the Ministry of the Interior of the Russian Empire. Later, many other government departments of the Russian Empire also established their own statistical departments . For example, by the end of the 1890s the Ministry of Finance 16 [18.118.12.222] Project MUSE (2024-04-23 16:47 GMT...

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