1. Steven Rosefielde, “Excess Collectivization Deaths 1929–1933: New Demographic Evidence, “Slavic Review, 42, no. l “(Spring 1984): 83–88. The precise dating is January 1, 1929 to January 1,1933.

2. Wheatcroft chides me tor describing Urlanis as a leading—if not the leading—Soviet demographer,but then shifts his ground and refers to him as “the grand old man of Soviet demography. “

3. Rosefielde, “Excess Collectivization Deaths,” tables 1 and Al, pp. 84 and 87.

4. Murray Feshbach, “The Soviet Union: Population Trends and Dilemmas,” Population Bulletin, 37, no. 3 (August 1982): 7. Wheatcroft alleges that Feshbach did not attribute 5 million deathsto collectivization as cited above. He accomplishes this by ignoring the distinction drawn in my textand Feshbach's between collectivization per se 1929–32 and the famine 1933–34. See Wheatcroft, “New Demographic Evidence,” and Rosefielde, “Excess Collectivization Deaths,” pp. 83 and 88.There is some overlap in Feshbach's and my periodization 1932–33, but this ambiguity does notjustify Wheatcroft's distortion. It should also be noted that Mace insists that the famine ended in1933. See James Mace, “Response to Stephen Wheatcroft,” Problems of Communism, 34 March-April 1985): 137.

5. Wheatcroft for rhetorical effect twists the interpretation I place on my findings by assertingthat “Rosefielde is implying an accuracy within one hundred thousand.” See also n. 27.

6. Wheatcroft accepts Lorimer's excess death estimates subject to various minor qualifications.Presumably he believes his estimating procedure is correct, although his comments about inflatedand noninflated data suggest that he may not fully grasp Lorimer's method.

7. “Urlanis's estimate of the 1933 population level of approximately 158 million is significantlylower than the only Soviet official figures that have ever appeared.” Wheatcroft, “New DemographicEvidence.” Compare discussion of Gertsenzon and Shliapochnikov's 1933 population statistic of 155.1million in n. 24.

8. Ibid., n. 9.

9. “On one page Urlanis talks about a real 1933 figure of about 160.7 million and on anotherof approximately 158.2 million. This is not necessarily a contradiction.” Ibid.

10. “The Gosplan projection cited by Urlanis referred not to January 1, 1933 as Rosefieldeclaims, but to April 1, 1933.” Ibid. I made no such claim. Of course the Gosplan figure is a fiveyearprojection point to point April 1, 1928 to April 1, 1933. But this in no way informs us whetherUrlanis's 1933 population estimate pertains precisely to April 1, 1933 or any other date.

11. Compare the original Novosel'skii and Paevskii population estimates cited by Urlanis, Problemydinamiki naseleniia (Moscow, 1974), p. 318, and reported in “O svodnykh kharakeristikakhvosproizvodstva i perspektivykh ischisleniiakh naseleniia,” Trudy demograficheskogo instituta, torn I,1934, p. 16.

12. Wheatcroft's assertion about the unreliability of Urlanis's population statistic for 1933 isunconvincing. The fact that there was no census taken in 1931 or 1933 does not mean that othersampling procedures were not employed.

13. Urlanis, Problemy, p. 318.

14. Wheatcroft, “New Demographic Evidence. “

15. Wheatcroft implicitly estimates that the Soviet population grew 0.7 million January 1, 1933to April 1, 1933 when he asserts that Urlanis's estimate of 158 million April 1, 1933 is equivalent to157.3 on January 1, 1933. Adding 0.7 million to the 160.7 million figure he derives from Urlanis'sdiscussion of p. 318 yields an alternative estimate April 1, 1933 of 161.4 million people.

16. Wheatcroft loosely fixes this difference at 2.5 million.

17. Urlanis, Problemy, p. 318. Novosel'skii and Paevskii's estimates were published in 1934.

18. Urlanis's estimate for the end of 1933 is 160.7 million. If he estimated a net populationincrease of 2.7 million during 1933, his figure for January 1, 1933 would be 158 million as reportedin the table. Observe also that the net increase need not be precisely 2.7 because both the 160.7and 158 million figures are described as approximations. Ibid.

19. Wheatcroft cultivates this impression to justify his contention that Urlanis is merely reportingLorimer's estimate and has no valid independent basis to compute his 1933 populationestimate.

20. “But even Urlanis would not have been able to say in print that he thought the estimatesof the Western bourgeois demographer Lorimer were the best approximate figures available.” Wheatcroft, “New Demographic Evidence.”

21. Ibid. In my article I stated that “assuming that Gosplan had access to the relevant datawhen this estimate was made in 1937, it appears to follow that all excess deaths calculated from thecensus of 1939 occurred after rather than before 1933.” See Rosefielde, “Excess CollectivizationDeaths,” p. 83. Wheatcroft points out that the same estimate was published earlier in Sotsialisticheskoestroitel'stvo. To be more precise, therefore, I should have substituted the words “publishedanew” for “made.” The reader can confirm that this correction does not materially alter the meaningof my statement, although Wheatcroft tried to make it appear as if the distinction were decisive.Compare Frank Lorimer, Population of the Soviet Union: History and Prospects (Geneva: League ofNations, 1946), p. 112.

22. Wheatcroft erroneously suggests that I compare Urlanis's statistic with Gosplan's demographicprojection of 165.7 million in tables 1, 2, and 1A. Similar comments which assume that myestimates are biased by natural increase projections are likewise incorrect: “A common cause oferror is to use a deflated figure for the size of the population in 1933 and a non-inflated figure for1931” (Wheatcroft, “New Demographic Evidence “). All the population estimates in table 1 arederived from official census data, census-compatible vital statistics, and Urlanis's 1933 fakticheskiipopulation statistic. None of these data are derived from projections.

23. Rosefielde, “Excess Collectivization Deaths,” p. 84.

24. The population statistic for 1929 was computed by adding the natural increase indicated byofficial, published vital rates in 1927 and 1928 to the January 1, 1927 census-based population statistic.Corroboration of Urlanis's estimate has recently been provided by Ger P. van den Berg, whodiscovered that the population statistics used by Gertsenzon and Shliapochnikov in the 1930s differedfrom officially published data and imply a population of 155.1 million in 1933. (The figures for 1931–35 are respectively 160.5, 159.5, 155.1, and 157.5 million). See Ger P. van den Berg, The Soviet System of Justice: Figures and Policy [Boston, Mass.: Martinus Nijhoff, Kluwer Academic, 1985],Demographic Data, table 1, p. 175. Van den Berg comments: “We do not know whether the populationdata used by Gertsenzon to calculate the number of sentences for hooliganism per 100,000inhabitants are the correct figures, but the publication of these numbers in 1935 at least proves thatGertsenzon knew that the population figures for the years 1932–1934 were about 10 million lowerthan the figures published in contemporary official sources” (p. 176).

25. The postwar rates are employed because they represent an official selection of sometimesinconsistent prewar rates, because they were probably adjusted to take account of new informationand because they cover the entire Soviet Union rather than the European part only. Nonetheless,they do have one drawback. They include the natality and mortality behavior of the populationsannexed to the Soviet Union after September 17, 1939. On balance they should provide a superior,but not an ideal impression of prewar vital rates. The differences among the pre- and postwar rates,however, are comparatively minor and do not significantly affect the excess death estimates computedin table 1. Rosefielde, “Excess Collectivization Deaths,” p. 84; Rosefielde, “Excess Mortality in theUSSR 1929–49: A Rejoinder to Stephen Wheatcroft,” unpublished manuscript, July 1985. CompareWheatcroft, “A Note on Steven Rosefielde's Calculations of Excess Mortality in the USSR, 1929–1949,” Soviet Studies, 36, no. 2 (April 1984): 280, n. 8.

26. Naselenie SSSR, p. 9; Lorimer, Population of the Soviet Union, p. 114.

27. Ibid., p. 134. Ger P. van den Berg argues persuasively that Urlanis's natality statistic for1932 of 32.6 per thousand may be an average for the years 1931–34. He uses statistics on cohortsurvivors in 1972 to estimate the crude birth rate 1931–34 and obtains the following results: 1931,35.6 per thousand; 1932, 37 per thousand; 1933, 29.2 per thousand; 1934, 29.8 per thousand. Seevan den Berg, Soviet System, table 2, p. 177. These alternative natality rates have little effect ontotal excess deaths 1929–39, but they have a profound impact on excess mortality for the periodJanuary 1, 1929 to January 1, 1933. Excess collectivization deaths increase from 5.8 million (Rosefielde, “Excess Collectivization Deaths 1929–1933,” table 1, p. 84) to 7 million shown in table Nlbelow.

28. Ibid., pp. 114 and 134.

29. Wheatcroft argues that intercensus vital statistics are more broadly unreliable than suggestedhere, but his reservations are not directed pointedly at the vital rates in question. See Wheatcroft, “New Demographic Evidence,” and Wheatcroft, “Population Dynamic and Factors Affecting it, inthe Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s,” part 1, CREES Discussion Papers, Birmingham University,1976, pp. 2–3.

30. Wheatcroft, “Population Dynamic and Factors Affecting it, in the Soviet Union in the 1920sand 1930s,” part 2, p. 70; and Wheatcroft, “A Note on Steven Rosefielde's Calculations of ExcessMortality,” pp. 178–79, and nn. 21 and 22, p. 281.

31. Lorimer, Population of the Soviet Union, pp. 115–19. Other evidence of underregistrationis discussed, but it is ordinal in character and does not permit precise cardinal adjustments. Theofficial 1926/27 mortality rate for the European part of the Soviet Union was 19.9 per thousand. Thedeath rate for Central Asia, the Asiatic steppe region, and most of the Transcaucasus was set at 35per thousand, in line with the rate reported for Viatka and the Ural regions in 1927, even thoughLorimer acknowledges that “we have no specific information” about mortality in these regions.Compare Sergei Maksudov's critique of Lorrimer's death rate estimate in “How Many MillionsPerished From 1930–1938?” Russia, nos. 7–8 (1983), pp. 10–11.

32. Lorimer estimated that the Soviet mortality rate 1926/27 was 26. The official rate for theEuropean part of the Soviet Union was 19.9 per thousand. Also see note 30.

33. Urlanis, Problemy, p. 234.

34. Wheatcroft, “A Note,” p. 181, nn. 21 and 22; and Wheatcroft, “Population Dynamic andFactors Affecting it, in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s,” part 2, p. 70.

35. Naselenie SSSR, p. 9; Lorimer, Population of the Soviet Union, p. 134.

36. Naselenie SSSR, p. 9.

37. Roseflelde, “Excess Mortality in the USSR 1929–49: A Rejoinder to Stephen Wheatcroft, “p. 85.

38. See note 27.

39. Roseflelde, “Excess Mortality in the Soviet Union: A Reconsideration of the DemographicConsequences of Forced Industrialization 1929–1949,” Soviet Studies, 35, no. 3 (July 1983): 402,table 12. Antonov-Ovseenko's 1937 population estimate of 156 million is supported by the Gertsenzonstatistics reported by van den Berg, especially if they are overstated as seems likely by theexclusion of sample data from the Ukraine, Kazakhstan, the North Caucasus, and the Middle Volga.See van den Berg, Soviet System, p. 177. Also observe that Gertsenzon's population estimates implausiblysuggest a positive natural increase in 1933. This was a principal famine year. Any significantadjustment on this score would place the population as of January 1, 1934 in the vicinity of 152.5million, a figure clearly compatible with Antonov-Ovseenko's 1937 census statistic.

40. Full rebuttals of Wheatcroft's prior criticisms are provided in Roseflelde, “Excess Mortalityin the USSR 1929–49: A Rejoinder to Stephen Wheatcroft,” and Roseflelde, “A Reassessment ofthe Sources and Uses of Gulag Forced Labor, 1929–56.” Both manuscripts are available on request.

41. In his impassioned concluding remarks Wheatcroft attempts to seize the high ground byasserting that “it is no betrayal of [the millions who died prematurely in this period] nor an apologiafor Stalin to state that there is no demographic evidence to indicate a population loss of more thansix million between 1926 and 1939 or more than 3 or 4 million in the famine.” This phraseologysuggests that he had dispassionately considered the counter-evidence, but this is not the case. In thesentence quoted above, note that the 5 million excess deaths Feshbach and I have ascribed tocollectivization have been transformed into excess famine deaths, a separate and comparativelyinnocent probable cause. Compare James Mace, “Famine and Nationalism in Soviet Ukraine,” Problemsof Communism, 33 (May-June 1984): 37–50; and Mace, “Response to Stephen Wheatcroft, “Problems of Communism, 34 (March-April 1985): 134–38, where he persuasively attributes thefamine to a deliberate policy of genocide in the Ukraine. Also see Sergei Maksudov, “Losses Sufferedby the Population of the USSR in 1918–1958,” Cahiers du monde russe et soviitique, 1977, no. 3.This formulation commits Wheatcroft to very little. As in the past, he is here prepared to acceptLorrimer's 5.5 million excess fatalities 1929–1939 as a starting point but then goes on to imply thatmost are imputable to innocent causes including malaria, the hardship of peasant relocation, famine,the Soviet-Finnish War, and statistical error. Thus while he acknowledges “excesses,” he is puzzlinglyunprepared to admit that they could be a consequence of Stalin's political and economic policies.