Some preliminary notes:
By no means I don't deny the role of the well-known objective and
subjective factors of Russian modern time reforms, revolutions and wars. I
only try to point at a principal tie of Russia's peculiar demographic
development with the Russia had chosen in the 20th c. The main sources
are: the yearly vital statistics based on parish registers of 20 villages
(16 are in Tambov Region, 2 - in Olonets Region, 1 - in Belorussia, 1 - in
France) for 1758-1919, Soviet vital statistics of 3 villages for
1920-1999, vital statistics of Tambov Region and Russia for 1800-1999,
data on cohort analysis for Tambov villages, medical statistics of Tambov
Region for 1800-1940, the harvest statistics of Tambov Region for
1800-1999, biographies published in encyclopedias, "Books of
Memory" of Tambov Region. The basic methods were: forming and work
with E-data bases, general and cohort analysis in the context of integral
history. I don't pretend to give an answer how did the Nature worked with
a human being, our effort is to reveal what, where, when and why it was
so.
Steps to the Cycle
The work on cohort analysis cleared that our parish registers had a
grave underregistration of births and infant deaths. The comparison of
parish registers with medical statistics and studies helped to calculate
some coefficients: real numbers of births and perinathal deaths were at
least as 1,3-1,4 higher as the numbers in church registration. Real
numbers of conceptions and pregnancies were as 1,8 higher and the
intervals between the real deliveries should be cut as 1,4. Infant death
rate was at least 10% higher than registered one. The crucial conclusion
was - in late 19th c. and in early 20th c. (no saying of the previous
periods) the overwhelming majority of the Russian peasants could have
conscious family planning. Some historical events and conditions
consolidated peasants life in the frame of natural selection, bio-
struggle for survival. Up to the times of Russian revolution the peasants
were mainly not social but bio-beings contrary to urban life system with
its values. The bio-dominant of peasant demographic behavior was confirmed
by correlation of harvest wave fluctuations and rural marriage/births,
increase of population dynamics. Conception/birth rates, safety of
pregnancies and infants' survival was tied up much more with coming and
less with former yield. It became clear that peasant life was led by a
low-frequency bio-rhythm. The mechanism was auto regulated, e.g. a low
birth rate in a good harvest year was compensated by lower death rate ad
vice versa. Epidemics were not a result of poverty and anti sanitation but
acted like natural rhythmic population regulator. Here came a cycle
model.
The 28-year Cycle: Some Characteristics
The cycle that governed human reproduction appeared to be a bunch of
rhythms close in their frequencies. It was balanced including of equal
number of "fertile" (F) and "mortal" (M) years.
"Usual" (F) years displayed high birth- and low death-rates, a
greater share of females in the newborns and smaller in the deceased. On
the contrary "usual" (M) years had rises in death-rates and
lower birt-rates, a smaller share of females among the newborns and
greater in the deceased. Infants (0-1) and the old were the greatest
shares in the deceased in (F) years, while (M) years had mortal rises
(peaks) for age groups from 5 to 50. In most powerful (M) years like the
12th-14th cyclic years the mortal wave swept off people starting with the
older ages descending to the younger ones.
The symmetry of the cycle model was slightly broken at the end of the
second half-cycle - the last 4 years and the first year appeared to be the
years of "tuning up", of cycle pulsation. (F) and (M) years were
taking turns here. We'll return to that zone most painful for the human
beings and the society, now let us point out the initial year of pulsation
- the 25th year. Unlike the "usual" the 26th (F), 27th(M),
28(F), 1st (F) years it looked like a (F) year for the birth-rate, but as
a (M) for the splash of deaths, so we named it (Fm) year. The demographic
recurrence is traced also in the 7-year cyclic phases. The absolute
increase of population in the 1st 7-year phase was less than in the
previous, the 4th 7-year phase. The 2nd, the 3rd and less vivid the 4th
7-year phases demonstrated an ascent of population increase with necessary
fall in the 1st 7-year phase drawing a typical cyclic wave so
characteristic not only for sheer demographic process but also for
dynamics of mass violation and "activists'" production. With no
exclusion the 3rd 7-year phases (the 15th - the 21st cyclic years)
displayed a sharp rise of female share among the newborns and every second
cycle that very phase was accompanied with also sharp decline in female
death-rate making in every 56 year a kind of "female attack".
Our vital statistics displayed such "attacks" about 1759-65,
1815-21, 1871-77, 1927-33, 1983-89. Harvest dynamics was also cyclic
having a big (7-year period) and a small (3-4-year period) waves. So the
cycle had coincidences of two harvest waves minimums about the 7th and the
21st (F) years. With no exclusion such crop failure years (Fcf) had not
only "lawful" peaks in birth-rate and female share but also
peaks of infant mortality irrespective to the degree of agrarian
overpopulation and hunger stroke. The (Fcf) years with minimums of a small
harvest wave (about the 10th and the 24th years of cycle) had similar but
not so vivid demographic pattern, though those hard years showed
themselves in "activists'" dynamics.
The Russian Natural-Demographic Situation and Human Activities,
1850-1914
It is clear that cycle was bound to regulate human reproduction
determining man's niche in the biosphere. But ought to natural selection
human beings have extraordinary survival, adaptation qualities and ability
to change environment - that's why the Russian peasant population with
their extensive routine agriculture grew at a precarious exponent moving
to the trap of land exhaustion and overpopulation. There were only two
ways out. First was the combining of transition to highly productive
intensive agriculture with rational birth control and family planning. The
population of West Europe had done so well long before, and in 1830s-1880s
we can notice the first signs of this transition only in the non-Russian
West of Russian Empire. Other peasant Russia by virtue of the well-known
geographic, social and historical conditions couldn't wouldn't have solved
the problem on the first way. One can't notice the peasant mass rational
birth control and family planning (rise of marriage age) l not only in the
late 19th c. but in the 1930s as well. Practically all cases of birth
limitation were due to women's health and any destruction of family.
Moreover (and unique), the Russian village pressed by agrarian
overpopulation and the commune regulations had been not rising but
lowering through the 19th c. the women's age at marriage fastening it to
reproductive bio-limits. The brides became younger than grooms, in the
1860s-70s we had a peak in the numbers of brides even beyond the church
age border (14-15 years old).(An example for 2 big villages at table ).
The19th c. loaded one more demographic mine under Russia. Maybe it was
(we need longer year lines to clear the reason) a long demographic wave
plus some progress in life and labor conditions, but the fact was that
each phase of the cycle brought more girls among the newborns and less
women among the dead. Female life duration grew parallel the extension of
fertility period. Russian women had been catching up men in population
increase numbers and finally overcome them in the 2nd half of 1857-84
cycle. By 1897 in regions alike Tambov men remained leaders only in the
ages over 67, the younger ages displayed a zone of "women's
kingdom". That was an extra deliveries' potential realizing itself
with millions of babies from the 1880s.
At the same time crop yields grew at a very slow pace (In most Russian
regions they hadn't grown at all within 1870-1947 period demonstrating at
full swing their cyclic character). The land reserve was exhausted and as
a result the most populated regions crossed the border of agrarian
overpopulation in 1875-85 having the highest tempos of population
increase. Russian village tried to cope with that suffocating threat with
its own ways making not any changes in the pattern of peasant demographic
behavior. Those objective and fully conscious ways were reduction of
consumption, relatives' health care neglect, abortions and even killing of
babies but most attractive historically was moving to town. That's why
long before and relatively independent from parallel industrialization and
modernization Russian village in rhythmic and ascending way (approximately
each 14-year half-cycle) threw its superfluous "mouths" into
town (Those peasant tides with characteristic sex/age fluctuations are
clearly seen in the urban vital statistics). The first strong peasant wave
came to town in the middle of the 1840s, it repeated in late 1850s, in the
early 1870s, in the middle of the 1880s. Extremely high with their crucial
social-political consequences were the tides of the 2nd half of the 1890s
and 1907-13. Russian urban type of demographic behavior had been always
(or long before) opposite to rural one but not because of predominance of
townsmen's conscious choice. Rural natural-economic cycle didn't work in
the town, the urban life circle, its rhythms were much more measured in
days, weeks, months and were simply quite different (and what was mirrored
in urban vital statistics). The different system types of the town and the
village and a high speed of the peasant tide caused not a pacific
transition, not a sparing rooting into modern urban life but a stress
break of former bio-rhythms accompanied with painful adaptation having
various mass manifestations so typical for the marginal strata (there were
such signs of the mass stress as skyrocketing crime statistics, rise of
mental diseases and deranges, rise in radical political activities
involving violation et c.).
Here we have the main manifestation of how the Russian
natural-demographic, social, economic, political, cultural factors with
the 19th-early 20th cc. Russian as the core flocked together bringing our
country to her revolutions. History isn't made by each man equally. There
is a small share of aggressive, ambitious, egocentric, sensitive,
charismatic and organized "activists" who are to
"blame". Simple calculations reveal that births and deaths of
those activists, their quantity and "quality of radicalism"
elsewhere and especially in Russia were not occasionally scattered but had
a very precise tying up to the concrete years of the 28-year cycle. The
general trend of the "activists"' birth wave coincided
absolutely with the wave of the cycle . Each (M), (Fm), (Fcf) year (simply
speaking, each hard year for the biosphere) had obvious rises in number of
the "activists"' births. (Table ). The harder was a year the
more and more future (!) radical "activists" gave it. The most
"fertile" for radicals were the pulsation phase years giving in
Russia e.g. whole generations of the revolutionaries, the generations born
in the1857-84 and the 1885-1912 cycles were greatly enforced and
strengthened by the overpopulation and peasant tides in towns so the
Russian revolutions and the Civil War got the necessary leaders and mass
social base ( As for the Russian geography the "activists'
incubator" was moving precisely along the regional lines of agrarrian
overpopulation and modernization). Thus the natural-demographic factor
played the basic role in pushing up the country to a system catastrophe.
Moreover we take risks to contend that cyclic organized, unchangeable
demographic and economic behavior of the peasant majority causing
inevitable overpopulation and mass peasant tides to the urban world in
itself and independently from modernizations, parties, governments and
tzars inevitably led Russia to a system catastrophe. And a hypothetical
vice versa - a timely transition from a bio- to a social dominant in
Russian peasant demographic behavior would have canceled revolutionary
alternative even having had left all the other "questions"
unsettled.
Nature's Struggle With Russian Model of Demographic Development,
1880-1950
An absence of birth control and family planning which went together
with arable land exhausting were inevitably breaking natural balance. Old
mortal ways and tools of the (M) worked worse and worse. So since the last
quarter of the 19th c. in the overpopulated regionsthe Nature developed a
synergetic combination of measures aimed at balance safety.
New illnesses (syphilis, malaria, tuberculosis, diphtheria, influenza,
cancer, heart diseases) were one of those measures. Syphilis played an
outstanding role as a demographic regulator having had all chances to the
widest spread and by the 1890s it won the 1st place as a cause of
sterility, numer of stillborns and miscarriages. People's (esp. women's)
health and anthropometric measures got worse; doctors talked louder of
peasants' degeneration.
The (Fcf max.) years, which were followed by the (M) years and had been
slightly noticeable before for the rise of infant mortality, began to act
like the strongest mortal tools killing population hand in hand with other
mortal factors of political and social origin (1891-92, 1905-06, 1919-20,
1932-33, 1946-47 (Fcf max) and (M) years, 1886, 1899-1900, 1908, 1922 (Fcf
min) years.).
Infant mortality, shares of miscarriages and stillborns rose
substantially through the 2nd half of the 19th c contrary to the progress
of public health care. That process was supported by steadfast ousting of
women on the population staircase, so by 1959 men were leaders in the
first 27 ages.
Finally, wars were always the great demographic regulator. Up to the
1870s the Russian wars had been precisely fixed to (M) and especially to
the years of pulsation. Starting from the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-78
the mortal cap of more and more man-slaughtering wars crawled upon the
most fertile (F) phases. In a cycle from the Russian-Turkish war there was
the Russian-Japanese war of 1904-05, the cycle 1913-40 started with the
1WW whish led to revolution and devastating Civil war, the first years of
the cycle 1941-68 fell victim of the incredible for war losses the Great
Patriotic war. The population development and the demographic outcome of
our region reveal some characteristic (and often incredible) correlation,
trends and interaction of natural, demographic, social and economic,
political factors in the deal of destroying the Russian demographic
pattern. E.g. the more and faster a village (or a region) grew in
1860-1917, the more it was demographically and socially active - the more
it was destroyed in the Civil war, the less to kill was left for the WW2.
Less overpopulated regions with more modest but nevertheless unacceptable
demographic behavior were halted in 1916-22 and then gradually destroyed
in times of the "great break", the purges and the WW2 made a
final stroke.
If you want, you can download a full text with tables and of the
communication of Mr. Dyatchkov
