Prompt Cast
The Power and Ruthlessness of Joseph Stalin: The Buried Results of the 1937 Soviet Census
TLDR Joseph Stalin ordered a census in 1936 to showcase the success of the Soviet system, but the results, which showed over half of the country identified as religious, were not what he expected. Stalin buried the data and began arresting and executing those involved in the census to control the narrative and prevent the release of accurate information.
Timestamped Summary
00:00
In 1936, Joseph Stalin ordered a census to showcase the success of the Soviet system, but the results were not what he expected.
01:17
The podcast discusses the power and ruthlessness of Joseph Stalin, as well as the challenges of conducting censuses in Russia during the late Tsarist and early Soviet eras.
02:25
The Soviet Union attempted censuses in 1897, during World War I, and during the Russian Civil War, but accuracy was difficult due to the chaos of the times, and the 1926 census under Lenin also faced opposition in rural areas.
03:26
Stalin saw population growth as a measure of success and wanted to show a significant increase in the Soviet Union's population since the last census in 1926, but the census questions, particularly the one on religion, caused concerns and suspicion among the people.
04:33
The results of the 1937 Soviet Census showed that over half of the country identified as religious, which was problematic for the officially atheist communist government, and the population count was much lower than Stalin had expected.
05:39
Stalin buried and never released the data from the 1937 Soviet Census, and began arresting and executing those involved in the census in order to control the narrative and prevent the release of accurate data.
06:44
The results of the 1937 Soviet Census were buried for over 50 years until the fall of the Soviet Union, when researchers were able to uncover what had been covered up by Stalin.
