Statistical work, on a different scale, was conducted in
every Soviet organization and/or agency since the
date of their inception. First and uppermost, in the
Supreme Council of People's Economy (SCPE),
which was created on December 14, 1917, by a
Decree of the All-Russia Central Executive
Committee, as a single general economic centre.
Since the second half of 1918, the SCPE from a
general economic body turned into an industrial
"narkomat" (abbreviation for "a People's
commissariat" - a ministry). There existed within
the SCPE a special department of statistics and
censuses (its tasks, in particular, included preparation
of the industrial census planned for 1918). But the
SCPE was unable to ensure a due scope, unity and
organization of statistical work. There was required a
single centralized system of state statistics.
In June 1918, there was convened the First All-Russia Congress of Statisticians which discussed the
draft Statute on Government Statistics presented by
Mr P.I. Popov who at that time headed the SCPE's
Statistics and Census Department.
On July 25, 1918, the Decree of the Council of
People's Commissars "On Government Statistics (Statute)" made official the setting up in the country
of a single national statistical body - the Central
Statistical Board (The Decree of the Council of
People's Commissars of 25.07.1918).
This Decree, together with the Statute on
Organization of Local Statistical Bodies and the
Statute on Council for Statistical Affairs under the
Central Statistical Board laid the foundation of the
Soviet state statistics in the Russian Federation.
Private companies and institutions were obliged
to submit, by the order of the Central Statistical
Board, all the required statistical data about their
organization and activities. All the civil, military and
religion-oriented government and public agencies
were bound to render to the Central Statistical Board
full assistance in the process of collection of
statistical information and submission of data for
further use, and also to carry out, in compliance with
special laws or instructions of the Central Statistical
Board, work on observation or control in the fields
placed in its jurisdiction.
All the Government and public bodies, private
persons and public figures publishing editions related
to the field of statistics were obliged within one
month after the publication to send them in duplicate
to the Central Statistical Board.
In 1926-1927 there was carried out
reorganization of the Central Statistical Board and the
local bodies of state (government) statistics. The
Chief of the CSB USSR was included in the Council
of People's Commissars with the right of a decisive
vote, and the CSB USSR was granted the rights of a
united narkomat (see above) of the USSR.
At the beginning of 1930, the CSB USSR was
abolished as a self-sustained narkomat, and its staff
and functions were transferred to the Gosplan (State
Planning Commission) of the USSR in the
framework of which there was set up the Section of
Economic Accounting. In December 1931
this Section was singled out into an independent unit - the Central Administration of
Economic Accounting (CAEA) of the Gosplan
of the USSR - with the right of direct entry
into the Government.
The increasing needs of state government
and guidance in the sphere of People's
economy required improvement of statistical
work. The Resolution of the Council of
Ministers of the USSR, dated 10.08.1948,
envisaged improvement of statistical work and
reorganization of Soviet statistics. The CSB
USSR was taken out from the structure of the
Gosplan USSR and became an independent
agency - the Central Statistical Board under
the Council of Ministers of the USSR (CSB USSR).
In the process of reorganization of state statistics,
there were set up at the CSB USSR the Division
of Statistical Methodology and the Scientific and
Methodological Council. In the capacity of a
scientific and consultative centre on methodological
problems of statistics, the Council was called upon to
consider methodological issues, programmes and
instructions in respect of the most important
statistical work.
It was decided to renew the edition of the
magazine "Herald of Statistics" and to organize a
publishing house for statistics literature -
Gosstatizdat.
In 1956, in connection with the abolition of
industrial ministries and creation of sovnarkhozes (Councils of People's Economy) keeping control of
industries in economic regions, the main forms of
statistical reports that had been previously maintained
by ministries were then passed to the CSB USSR
bodies.
The departmental statistics was only responsible
for compilation of summaries, and submitted
statistical reports in respect of individual enterprises
and agencies.
Following the centralization in the CSB
USSR bodies of industrial and construction
reports (1957), there were centralized statistical reports in other branches of the national
economy, although their management did not
change.
Centralization of industrial statistics
remained after the re-establishment of
industrial ministries in 1964, as the volume of
elaborated and submitted statistical data
increased, as well as their detalization.
The concentration of collection and
processing of reported data in the CSB USSR
bodies required a further strengthening of the
entire system of state statistics, from the
district link to the centre, and a decisive
reinforcement of mechanization used for
statistical work. In the regional statistical
offices there were set up computer centres (machine-calculating stations) and in
administrative districts - machine-calculating
stations which were afterwards
merged with the state statistical inspectorates
into one low-level statistical body - a district
information and computing station (DICS). It
should be noted that for the first time the
problem of the necessity of mechanization of
statistical work was seriously raised in
connection with the elaboration of materials of
the 1926 Population Census. The January 1927
Decree of the Council of People's Commissars
gave the task to work out the mechanization
issue and to submit for approval of the Council
the plan of mechanization of state statistical
work.
During the period of the 50-80ies, the
transformed central statistical agency of the
country solved the tasks of methodological and
organizational nature set by the Government as
those ensuing from the socio-economic policy
conducted in the country.
At the end of the 80ies, state statistics got
down to the realization of a principally new
approach to the appraisal of economic activities
carried out by amalgamated enterprises and
organizations, proceeding from the conditions
of management based upon complete selfsupporting routine, new way of preparing plans
of socio-economic development, strengthening
the role of qualitative indicators, that is,
conditions linked with the period of radical
restructuring of the country's economy. During
this period, much attention was paid to the
improvement of economic analysis and
statistical information, regulation of reporting
and guarantee of its accuracy, extension of the
openness of statistics, the reorganization and
promotion of the role of statistical bodies.
In 1987 the Central Statistical Board was
transformed into a Union-Republican
Committee of the USSR on Statistics (Goskomstat USSR).
This stage of Soviet statistics was noted for
its sufficient intensity: there was carried out a
great number of specially organized censuses
and surveys, the first balance of the people's
economy was prepared.
Already by the end of 1918, the CSB
conducted the All-Russia industrial and
occupational census and in August 1920 -
some work at an all-Russia scale: a demographic and occupational census of population,
an agricultural census and a brief registration of
industrial enterprises.
The materials of the 1920 censuses were
laid as the basis for the development of the
State Plan for Electrification of Russia.
One of the first fundamental works was an
original and complicated in theoretical,
methodological and practical respect development of the first balance of the national
economy for 1923/24, compiled in accordance
with the Resolution of the Council for Labour
and Defence, dated July 21. 1924.
In a spacious preface to this work, P.I. Popov, Chief of CSB, Chairman of the Balance
Commision, was fully justified in writing that
"...neither in statistical nor economic
literature, be it Russian or West European,
were there any examples of similar nature, and
we not only had to solve independently, in the
process of doing the work, some technical
problems but also to find the ways and means
of conducting research".
The Balance made it possible to trace the
movement of products from one branch to
another, to reveal the interrelationship between
branches in the line of production and
distribution of output.
The application of the balance method in
the analysis of inter-branch relations was one of
the most significant achievements of the
authors of the first balance, which was not quite
appreciated at that time. Later on,
these ideas were creatively developed by V. Leontyev
in his "input-output" system.
During the period of 1926-1930 there was
conducted a number of statistical surveys: an annual
survey of industrial enterprises according to the socalled Â-form, a survey of labour productivity and its
factors, a census of minor enterprises which at that
time represented a considerable share, etc. There
began its formation the methodology of statistical
analysis of the economy of kolkhozes and sovkhozes.
Great economic importance was attached to the
General Population Census of 1926. In 1927 there
was held the All-Union School Census whose
materials were used in the transition to the compulsory primary education.
In the 30ies there was organized current
statistics, operative reporting, elaboration of annual
reports of enterprises and organizations; a number of
major works were implemented, such as: censuses of
industrial equipment in 1932 and 1934; censuses of
cattle in 1932, that were afterwards conducted,
effective 1935, annually; the general trade census of
1935; All-Union Population Censuses of 1937 and
1939 (the results of the All-Union Population Census
of 1937 were not published), and others.
In the years of the Great Patriotic War, statistics
contributed to revealing and mobilizing all the
available resources for implementation of pressing tasks in the conditions of
wartime. First priority was given to urgent
censuses of material resources, surveys and
calculations of the numbers and composition of
the population, organization of operative
statistics concerning the work of most
important, in military and strategic respects,
enterprises and branches of national economy.
During the period of the Great Patriotic
War and in the post-war years of 1946-1947,
the CSB conducted on the whole 142 urgent
censuses.
In the first post-war years, statistics maintained its main distinctive features inherent
during the wartime. After the war's end and
upto 1947, there were carried out 37 urgent
censuses of equipment and materials, a number
of one-time (once only) surveys of workers and
employees by sex, age, profession, salary.
There were resumed annual censuses of cattle,
censuses of perennial plantations were carried
out.
In January 1959, there was conducted the
first post-war All-Union Population Census.
In connection with the formation of the
Councils of People's Economy (sovnarkhozes)
and fortified attention towards the social
sphere, there were carried out a number of
surveys of new forms of co-operation and
specialization in industry (1958),
mechanization and automation of production
processes, modernization of equipment, introduction
in industry of new technological processes and
improvements (1958-1961);
the condition of inter-district and intra-district
production relations in regard of cooperated supplies (1960); a sample survey of trade in packed
commodities and work of shops without sales
personnel (1958-1962, 1967); a sample survey of
work of self-service canteens (1958, 1959); a sample
survey of credit sales (1960); a sample survey of
fertilizer use by kolkhozes and sovkhozes and its
influence towards an increased crop capacity (1964, 1965).
In the late 20ies - early 30ies, there was
resumed the work on compilation of the Balance of
People's economy. The results of this work were
published in the shape of a compendium of materials
relating to the national economic balance for 1928,
1929 and 1930 prepared under the guidance of A.I. Petrov. In the mid-30ies there were constructed
schemes and started work on the
tures of the population, and, by the end of the
30ies, on the Balance of distribution and
redistribution of social product and national
income (the so-called financial balance).
Effective the second half of the 50ies, the
work on the balance of people's economy
began developing intensively in the country as
a whole and in the neighbouring republics.
There were widely spread the inter-branch
reporting balances of production and distribution of output, that were prepared, starting
from 1950, on a wide scale (110-120 branches)
practically once in five years.
Since 1972, the brief-scale balances (18
branches) have been prepared on an annual
basis.
In the 50ies there was resumed publication of a
number of statistical materials:
CSB's statements on the results of the
implementation of national economy plans,
statistical yearbooks "People's Economy of the
USSR", branch and regional statistical
compendiums, the magazine "Vestnik
Statistiki" ("The Herald of Statistics").
Statistical science in the 20-30ies inherited
the traditions of Russian statistics and
essentially enriched the theory of statistics.
Scientific concepts were formed by a number
of schools and trends (Methodological Council
under CSB, Institute of Experimental
Statistics, Institute of Experimental Statistics
and Statistical Methodology, Institute of
Demography of the Ukrainian Academy of
Sciences, etc.). The stohastic school of Russian
statistics was in the lead, represented by
supporters of statistical-and-mathematical
methods. The most original results were
obtained in the theory of dynamics analysis,
conjuncture research.
N.D. Kondrat'ev advanced the theory of
major conjuncture cycles. A.L. Vainstein
worked out problems of econometric forecasts,
worked out problems of econometric forecasts, interbranch balances (input-output tables).
A large group of scientists (À.À. Konyus, M.V. Ignat'ev, S.P. Bobrov, etc.) successfully studied the
problem of constructing indices of physical volume
and prices, and the first Russian article on the index
method was written by Nikolay Sergueyevich
Chetverikov (1885-1973). The first Soviet monograph
on the index method in statistics belonged to Serguey
Pavlovich Bobrov (1889-1979) and was published
under the title of "The Indices of Gosplan" (Moscow, 1925). The three main questions were raised in the
book: the choice of form of the mean value in
constructing the index, the problem of weighing and
the procedure of comparison with a remote base. He
advanced the weighted geometric mean as the best
form of the index.
Vyacheslav Gustavovich Strumilin (1877-1974)
and Vladimir Nikonovich Starovsky (1905-1975)
favoured the aggregate indices over the mean ones:
the idea of the analytical concept of indices was
advanced by Mrs N.M. Vinogradova in her work
"The Theory of Indices" (Leningrad, 1930, published
as a manuscript). A considerable contribution in the
practice of constructing indices and its scientific
substantiation was made by Mikhail Vassilievich
Ignat'ev (1894-1959). He was the first to compare
prices in the USSR and other countries, calculated the
general index of commodity prices in different
countries with regard to the USSR.
Practical needs preconditioned elaboration of
materials related to productivity statistics (or various
crops. This problem was worked out by a group of
scientists:
V.M. Obukhov, B.S. Yastremsky, N.M. Semenov.
While studying the connection between bread prices
and crop yields (1924), N.S. Chetverikov discovered the
existence of waves, or "cycles" testifying to the
relation between yields in adjacent years. Thus,
he showed for the first time the practical
importance of the phenomenon of autocorrelation. Evghenii Evghenievich Slutsky (1880-1948) discovered pseudoperiodic waves
occurring in rows whose members are
correlatively linked with one another, and this
allowed to find a mistake in the correlation coefficient between such rows. Further on, he was
engaged in the theory of balance and the theory
of accidental processes.
Great attention was given to the analysis of
time series. Boris Sergheyevich Yastremsky (1877-1962) studied the stability and fluctuability of time series. Critical analysis of Lexis'
theory of stability made it possible for Mr Yastremsky to create a harmonious theory of
statistical analysis of dynamics, that was started
by the article "Statics and Dynamics in
Mathematical and Statistical Study" ("The
Herald of Statistics", No.7-11, 1923). He
investigated the problem of variable correlation, dependence of the relative stability of a
statistical series on the data volume, the problems of the law of large numbers, correlation
between the notions of frequency and probability, the apprisal of the general mean, the
general distribution.
Practical importance of the sampling
method, in combination with its theoretical
justification, comprised the contents of A.G. Kovalevsky's book "The Fundamentals of the
Theory of the Sampling Method". It paid due
attention to stratified sampling. The logical
principles of the sampling method was studied
by Mr Chetverikov in his article "On sampliing
investigation (the experience of logical
characteristic of the method" ("The Herald of
Statistics", No.8-12, 1919).
was viewed by V.I. Khotimsky in the monograph "The Alignment of Time Series by the
Method of the Smallest Squares (Chebyshev's
Method)". The work allowed to facilitate the
calculations in aligning time series by
parabolas, and contained special computing
tables.
The last works by A.A. Chuprov "The Main
Tasks of the Stohastic Theory of Statistics" and
"The Main Problems of the Correlation
Theory", published in 1925, contributed to the
extention of the correlation method, the
disclosure of the specificity of the correlation
connection, its non-discrepancy to the concept
of causality. There was clarified the dialectics
of various kinds of determination (functional
and stohastic), the possibility of the functional
dependence being turned into stohastic one due
to errors in measurement.
Scientific interest was also displayed
towards the statistical methodology of the
analysis of economic differentiation of the
peasantry by typological groupings. In Mrs. A. I. Khryascheva's article "Concerning the
Principles of Grouping Mass Statistical
Materials for the Purposes of Studying Classes
in Peasantry" ("The Herald of Statistics", No.13, 1925) proposed consecutive dismemberment
of the aggregate and synthesis of the types.
Peasants' households were identified on the
basis of a combination of signs: the nature of
the household (agricultural, non-agricultural)
and the presence of signs of an exploiter
household (scope of employment of workers,
lease of own machinery, tools, cattle;
availability of trading and industrial institutions,
rent of land), a very detailed analysis of
problems arising in grouping the peasants'
households was given by B.S. Nemchinov in his
articles "On
Statistical Study of Class Stratification of the
Village" (1926), "On Socio-Economic
Groupings of Peasant Families" (1927), "The
Experience of Classification of Peasant
Households" (1928).
The problems of demographic statistics, in
particular, the methodology of constructing
mortality tables for Russia, the elaboration of
methods of constructing tables of marriages and
divorces, birth-rate and fertility tables were
successfully settled by Mikhail Vassilievich
Ptukha (1884-1964) and by Yuri Avksentievich
Korchak-Chepurkovsky (1896-1967).
The development of sanitary statistics was
much indebted to the activities of P.I. Kurkin,
the organizer of statistics of causes of death and
morbidity of population. S.G. Strumilin
calculated losses in births and work capacity,
gave a forecast of the number and age-sex
composition of the population of Russia for
1921-1941, which was mainly confirmed. A
detailed analysis of crime was made by M.N. Garnet in his monograph "Moral Statistics" (1922). Budgetary statistics was worked out by
Alexander Vassilievich Chayanov (1888-1937).
He estimated the effectivity of peasant households by methods of double-entry bookkeeping
- "bookkeeping statistics". The problems and
methods of taxation, representativeness of
samples, background of budgetary surveys were
examined by A.V. Chayanov in a number of
works, mostly in the monograph "Budgetary
Surveys. Background and Methods" (1929).
In industrial statistics, there were worked
out the problems of determining units of
observation, industrial census, classification of
industrial branches. A large contribution to their
settlement was made by M.N. Smith, L.V. Kafenhauz, D.V. Savinsky,
S.G. Strumilin, V.E. Varzar. There was elaborated the
methodology of constructing summary indicators of
the volume of industrial produce and industrial
production, improved the methods of measuring
labour productivity in industry.
In the 30ies, there was gaining hold in the works
By A.Ya. Boyarsky, V.N. Starovsky, V.I. Khotimsky,
B.S. Yastremsky the probability-oriented nature of
statistics, there was emphasized the necessity of using
the methods of mathematical statistics.
In 1957, 1968 and 1977, there were held All-Union Conferences of Statisticians convened by CSB
USSR.
In 1956 there were started within the framework
of the CMEA (Council for Mutual Economic
Assisance) international statistical comparisons of
main statistical indicators of the people's economy
development in the CMEA countries (for 1959,
1966,1973,1978,1983).
In 1932, the First factory of mechanized
calculation was set up under the Central
Administration of Economic Accounting (CAEA) of
the Gosplan USSR. There was started centralized
processing of statistical reports submitted by
enterprises and organizations. To carry out the All-
Union Population Census, in 1958 the First factory of
mechanized calculation was reorganized into the
Central Station of mechanized calculation.
In 1967, the Computer Centre of CSB USSR was
established (since 1994, the Computer Centre of the
Goskomstat of Russia) which at present carries out
computing and information processing operations in
compliance with the Federal Programme of statistical
work.
In 1963 there was set up the Research Institute for
Designing of Computer Centres and Economic Data
Systems (Research Institute CSB USSR). At present,
it is named The Institute of Statistics and Economic
Research of the Goskomstat of Russia.
In 1971 there was formed the All-Union State
Technical Design Institute for Mechanization of
Recordkeeping and Computing Operations. Now it is
named The Research and Designing Institute of the
Statistical Information System (NIPI-statinform) of
the Goskomstat of Russia.
In various periods of its existence, the Republican
body of state statistics was headed by the following
officials: Semen P. Sereda (1926-1931), Nikolai I. Solov'ev (1932-1936), Moissey M. Mudrik (1936-1937), Anatoly L. Krayevich (1937), Fedor N. Filippov (1937-1940), Fedor I. Kutyanin (1940-1947),
Alexander M. Sukharev (1947-1950), Boris T. Kolpakov (1950-1970), Alexander P. Druchin (1970-1985), Pavel F. Guzhvin (1985-1993).
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