More than 68 years have passed since the day of victory over German Nazism, but only from the end of the eighties did a scientific assessment of the four-year series of victims and deprivations begin.
The first to name the losses of the USSR in World War II on the pages of the newspaper Pravda, Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars I.V. Stalin. He gave an interview just ten months after the Victory, during which time it was simply impossible to count all the dead and dead, and this was not required. The genius of the Soviet leadership in those years was not in doubt, the approximate losses of Germany amounted to eight million, and it is logical to assume that the figure of 7,000,000 arose as a result of counting smoke rings emanating from the pipe of the Supreme Commander, given that the number should have been less than the Germans.
In the early sixties, the losses of the USSR in World War II were overestimated. Already the figure of "two tens of millions" appeared in a letter to N. S. Khrushchev, addressed to the Swedish Prime Minister. The data, obviously, based on the form of presentation, are approximate, on the whole better reflected the already formed picture of the war. The atrocities of the invaders against the civilian population, the siege of Leningrad and the famine in the rear became well-known facts, books were written on this subject and films were made. This number also fit L.I. Brezhnev, and Yu.V. Andropov, and K.U. Chernenko. For nearly three decades, it was officially believed that 20 million gave their lives for victory.
And in the late eighties, new calculations were made. To eliminate errors, the losses of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War were calculated by two methods at once. In an accounting manner, they tried to reduce all documents about those who died of starvation, in captivity, in hospitals, tortured to concentration camps or under other circumstances related to German aggression. The balance method was to serve as a control. It consisted in comparing the population at the beginning of the war and its end, taking into account the birth rate and natural mortality of the population. The census was carried out at the beginning of 1939, with an approximation of June 1941, 196,700 thousand people lived in the Soviet Union. After processing the data of 1959, the country's population was calculated at the end of 1945, 159,500 thousand people. Thus, the total decrease amounted to over 37 million people. However, it did not take into account the natural mortality of the population. About four million people would have died in four years if Germany had not attacked. The losses of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War objectively amount to 26 600 thousand people, with an accuracy of half a million. This figure includes both those who died on the fronts, and those who were tortured in the occupied territories. The losses in the fleeting and victorious war with Japan were relatively small, about 12,000 people, so they were neglected in the calculations.
The accounting method turned out to be too time-consuming, calculations on it are carried out to this day and are unlikely to ever be completed.
Documents stored in the Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation make it possible to judge what losses the army, aviation and navy suffered in the Great Patriotic War. The approximate figure is 12 million, but it is also approximate. So, those who voluntarily or by force switched to the side of the enemy, and there were at least a million, are not taken into account.
The USSR lost more people in the Great Patriotic War than all other participating countries combined. Indirectly, this is confirmed even by Soviet films and songs. In what other country was it believed that if the sons returned from the front, then “they were lucky in three villages around”?