Due to the devastating impact of the Second World War on the Soviet population, the total population in 1950 was almost 15.5 million fewer than in 1940, which is a decrease of eight percent. In Russia (RSFSR), the largest of the Soviet states, the population difference was almost nine million people; also eight percent. It would take until 1955 for the populations of either the USSR or Russia to reach their pre-war levels, which was a decade after the conflict had ended. Urbanization Despite this drop in total population, industrialization and urbanization saw a significant change in the USSR's population distribution between the given years. The Soviet urban population increased by 6.3 million, or ten percent, between 1940 and 1950; 5.8 million of this was in Russia, which was a 15 percent increase. In contrast, the Soviet Union's rural population dropped by 21.8 million (a 17 percent change), 14.5 million of which in Russia (a decrease of 20 percent). In terms of overall population, the urban population of the USSR rose from 33 to 39 percent between 1940 and 1950, and from 34 to 43 percent in Russia. By 1955, 44 percent of the Soviet population, and 49 percent of the Russian population, lived in an urban setting.

Russian estimates suggest that the total population of the Soviet Union in 1941 was 195.4 million people, before it fell to 170.5 million in 1946 due to the devastation of the Second World War. Not only did the USSR's population fall as a consequence of the war, but fertility and birth rates also dropped due to the disruption. Hypothetical estimates suggest that, had the war not happened and had fertility rates remained on their pre-war trajectory, then the USSR's population in 1946 would have been 39 million higher than in reality. Gender differences When it comes to gender differences, the Soviet male population fell from 94 million in 1941, to 74 million in 1946, and the female population fell from 102 to 96 million. While the male and female population fell by 19 and 5.5 million respectively, hypothetical estimates suggest that both populations would have grown by seven million each had there been no war. In actual figures, adult males saw the largest change in population due to the war, as a drop of 18 to 21 percent was observed across the three age groups. In contrast, the adult female population actually grew between 1941 and 1946, although the population under 16 years fell by a number similar to that observed in the male population due to the war's impact on fertility.

In Soviet Russia (RSFSR) in 1939 and 1959, ethnic Russians made up the largest share of the total population, with a share of approximately 83 percent. Tatars were the second largest ethnic group, followed by Ukrainians. Russians were consistently the largest ethnic group in the Soviet Union as a whole, with an overall share of 53 percent in 1979.

The Second World War had a profound impact on gender ratios within the Soviet Union's population, and its effect on different age groups varied greatly. The Soviet population structure had already been shaped heavily by the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the famines of the early 1920s and early 1930s. The impact of these events on mortality and fertility meant that, in 1941, the generations whose births corresponded with these events had a lower population than would be expected on a typical population model. For example, in 1941, those aged between 5 and 9 had a significantly lower population than those aged 10 to 14, due to the effects of the Soviet famine of 1932-1933. Additionally, women outnumbered men in all age groups except the very youngest, due to the disproportionate effect of conflict and infant mortality on male populations. Impact of WWII In order to observe the impact of the war, one must compare populations of specific age groups in 1941 with the following age group in 1946. For men of "fighting age" in 1941, i.e. those aged between 15 and 44, these populations experience the most substantial decrease over the course of the war. For example, there are 5.6 million men aged 15-19 in 1941, but just 3.5 million aged 20-24 in 1946, giving a decrease of 38 percent. This decrease of almost forty percent can be observed until the 45-49 group, where the difference is 25 percent. Additionally, women aged between 15 and 34 saw a disproportionate decrease in their populations over this period, as many enlisted in the army and took an active part in the conflict, most notably as medics, snipers, and pilots.

The war's impact on fertility and child mortality meant that, in 1946, the total population under four years old was less than half its size in 1941. Generally, variations between age groups then fluctuated in line with pre-war patterns, however the overall ratio of women to men increased further after the war. For all age groups over 20 years, the number of men decreased between these years, whereas all women's age groups over 30 years saw an increase; this meant that, despite the war, women over 30 had a higher life expectancy in 1946.

Throughout the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union had relatively similar total populations. The U.S.' population grew from around 205 million to almost 250 million people between 1970 and 1990, while the USSR's population grew from around 240 to 290 million in this time. In these years, the Soviet Union had the third largest population in the world, and the U.S. had the fourth largest (behind China and India respectively). Despite their similar sizes, these populations differed in terms of distribution as the U.S.' population was approximately three quarters urban in this period, whereas the Soviet Union's urban population was just 56 percent in 1970 and 66 percent in 1989. Additionally, the Soviet Union's population was much younger than that of the U.S. due to a higher birth rate and lower life expectancy.

In 1970, over 29 percent of the Soviet population were under the age of 15, however this figure fell below 25 percent in the subsequent decade. This was offset by the 15-24 age group making up a larger share of the population in 1980, due to the cyclical nature of baby booms and higher birth rates when certain generations reach childbearing age.

The Soviet population structure was also greatly affected by the Second World War. The long-term impact meant that the age groups between 35 and 54 in 1970, i.e. those who were teens and young adults in the 1940s, made up a lower proportion of the population compared to traditional age distribution models. This was due to the heavy death toll experienced during the war, particularly among males.

In 2020, the median age of Russia's population was 38.6 years. By the end of the century, it was forecast to exceed 46 years. The median age of a population is an index that divides the population into two equal groups: half of the population is older than the median age and the other half younger.

In 1940, the Soviet Union produced significantly less industrial material than the United States in terms of natural resources and construction materials. The same was true when compared with Germany, apart from iron and steel; the USSR produced over double the amount of iron ore as Germany, and a similar amount of cast iron and steel. However, while the U.S. and Soviet populations were more comparable in 1940, Germany's population was around 70 million, which was 100 million fewer than the USSR; therefore the difference in per capita output was even higher in Germany than what is shown in the graph.

In 1938, the year before the outbreak of the Second world War, the countries with the largest populations were China, the Soviet Union, and the United States, although the United Kingdom had the largest overall population when it's colonies, dominions, and metropole are combined. Alongside France, these were the five Allied "Great Powers" that emerged victorious from the Second World War. The Axis Powers in the war were led by Germany and Japan in their respective theaters, and their smaller populations were decisive factors in their defeat. Manpower as a resource In the context of the Second World War, a country or territory's population played a vital role in its ability to wage war on such a large scale. Not only were armies able to call upon their people to fight in the war and replenish their forces, but war economies were also dependent on their workforce being able to meet the agricultural, manufacturing, and logistical demands of the war. For the Axis powers, invasions and the annexation of territories were often motivated by the fact that it granted access to valuable resources that would further their own war effort - millions of people living in occupied territories were then forced to gather these resources, or forcibly transported to work in manufacturing in other Axis territories. Similarly, colonial powers were able to use resources taken from their territories to supply their armies, however this often had devastating consequences for the regions from which food was redirected, contributing to numerous food shortages and famines across Africa, Asia, and Europe. Men from annexed or colonized territories were also used in the armies of the war's Great Powers, and in the Axis armies especially. This meant that soldiers often fought alongside their former-enemies. Aftermath The Second World War was the costliest in human history, resulting in the deaths of between 70 and 85 million people. Due to the turmoil and destruction of the war, accurate records for death tolls generally do not exist, therefore pre-war populations (in combination with other statistics), are used to estimate death tolls. The Soviet Union is believed to have lost the largest amount of people during the war, suffering approximately 24 million fatalities by 1945, followed by China at around 20 million people. The Soviet death toll is equal to approximately 14 percent of its pre-war population - the countries with the highest relative death tolls in the war are found in Eastern Europe, due to the intensity of the conflict and the systematic genocide committed in the region during the war.

Over the course of the long nineteenth century, Estonia's population almost tripled, from 0.33 million in 1800, to over one million at the outbreak of the First World War. Throughout this time, Estonia was a part of the Russian Empire, however Germany then annexed the region during the First World War; when the German army eventually retreated in 1918, Estonian forces prevented Russia from re-taking the area in the Estonian War of Independence, and an independent Estonian Republic was gradually established between 1918 and 1920. Relative to its size and population, Estonia developed into a prosperous and peaceful nation in the interwar period, and Estonian language and culture thrived, although political stability proved difficult for the Baltic state.

Estonia in WWII Estonia's independence was short lived, as the country was then annexed by the Soviet Union as part of the secret Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the Soviets. The invasion was achieved with little-to-no conflict, as Estonia capitulated when faced with the vastly superior military and navy of the Soviet Union. Annexation became official in June 1940; a puppet, communist government was quickly established, and many military and political rivals were imprisoned or executed under Soviet control. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union the following year, they quickly took control of Estonia, but simply replaced the Soviet Union's rule with their own, and did not grant re-establish sovereignty as many Estonians had expected or hoped for. By the war's end, Estonia suffered approximately 83,000 deaths at the hands of the Soviet Union and Germany, with almost 50,000 of these civilian deaths, and the rest were fatalities of Estonian soldiers who were forced to fight in other nations' armies.

Post-war Estonia Following the war, Estonia remained under Soviet control, and between 1950 and 1990, the population of Estonia grew steadily, from 1.1 million to almost 1.6 million. In the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse, Estonia established a rapid, but peaceful independence in 1991; and the population dropped by roughly ten percent by the end of the century. This was mostly due to non-Estonians returning to their country or region of origin, although a wave of Estonian emigration soon followed. Estonia joined the European Union in 2004, and from 2000 until 2015, Estonia's population continued to fall, reaching just 1.3 million people in 2015. Recent years, however, have seen a reversal in this trend, with limited growth since 2015; although demographers predict that Estonia's population will drop below one million people in the next half-century. The past three decades have marked the longest continuous period in the past 800 years, where the region of Estonia was not under German, Polish, Russian or Scandinavian control.

In Russia, the crude birth rate in 1840 was just over 48 live births per thousand people, meaning that approximately 4.8 percent of the population had been born in that year. Throughout the nineteenth century, Russia's crude birth rate remained between 48 and 52, and fell to 43.4 in the late 1920s. From 1930 to 1945, the Soviet Union's crude birth rate dropped greatly, from 43.4 to 18.2, as a result of the Second World War (although it did increase in the late 1930s, in the early stages of the war). Russia did experience a baby boom after the war, and the birth rate did not fall to its pre-war level gain until the late 1960s. From 1970, the birth rate increased slightly to 16.2 in 1990, before the end of communism and dissolution of the Soviet Union caused the crude birth rate to fall to its lowest recorded level over the next decade, to 8.9 in 2000. Since the turn of the millennium, the crude birth rate of Russia has increased steadily, and was expected to be 12.8 in 2020.

In 1970, life expectancy at birth in the Soviet Union and United States was fairly similar, at 69.3 and 70.8 years respectively; a difference of 1.5 years. As the decades progressed, however, this difference widened. While improvements in the recording of such statistics in the Soviet Union gave a more reliable picture of life expectancy across the region, especially in Central Asia and rural areas, the largest influence was due to the side-effects of deteriorating economic conditions. As lifestyles and medical care in the U.S. steadily improved, the decline in life expectancy the USSR was largely due to preventable causes, particularly alcoholism and accidental deaths among the male population. By 1985, life expectancy in the U.S. was 6.3 years higher than in the Soviet Union.

When looking at each gender, life expectancy among women in the U.S. in 1985 was seven years higher than men, whereas there was a difference of almost 10 years in the USSR. Women in the U.S. could also expect to live for five years longer than their Soviet counterparts in this year, while life expectancy among men in the U.S. was eight years higher than in the USSR. Overall, the gap between the two countries narrowed in the late 1980s as the Soviet Union's existence came to an end, however, this gap then grew even larger throughout most of the 1990s and early-2000s, and the post-Soviet states continue to deal with the social and economic legacy of Soviet dissolution on their respective demographics thirty years later.

The Second World War had a sever impact on gender ratios across European countries, particularly in the Soviet Union. While the United States had a balanced gender ratio of one man for every woman, in the Soviet Union the ratio was below 5:4 in favor of women, and in Soviet Russia this figure was closer to 4:3.

As young men were disproportionately killed during the war, this had long-term implications for demographic development, where the generation who would have typically started families in the 1940s was severely depleted in many countries.

The fertility rate of a country is the average number of children that women from that country will have throughout their reproductive years. From 1840 until 1910, Russia's fertility rate was relatively consistent, remaining between 6.7 and 7.4 children per woman during this time. Between 1910 and 1920, the fertility rate drops sharply as a result of the First World War and Russian Revolution (for individual years of WWI, the fertility rate dropped as low as 3.4). From 1920 to 1930 the fertility rate returns above 6 again, however a gradual decline then begins, and by the end of the Second World War, the Russian segment of the Soviet Union's fertility rate was below 2. The population experienced a relatively small 'baby boom' in the two decades following the war, but then the fertility rate dropped again, most sharply between 1990 and 1995 at the end of the Soviet Union's reign. Russia's fertility rate reached its lowest point in 2000 when it fell to just 1.25 children per woman, but in the past two decades it has risen again, and is expected to reach 1.8 in 2020.

This graph shows the total population of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in the years between 1922 and 1935, as well as the total number of males and females. After the First World War the Baltic states began claiming their independence from tsarist Russia, as the events of the Russian Revolution took place. Inter-war Estonia The Estonian War of Independence from 1918 to 1920 led to the country's first period of independence, until it became occupied by the Soviet Union again in 1940 during the Second World War. After Estonia gained independence the country experienced a period of political turmoil, including a failed coup d'etat in 1924, and was hit hard by the Great Depression in 1929 before things became more stable in the mid 1930s. Between 1939 and 1945 Estonia's population was devastated by the Second World War, with some estimates claiming that as many as 7.3 percent of all civilians perished as a result of the conflict. From the graph we can see the population grew by 119 thousand people during the 12 years shown, growing from 1.107 million to 1.126 million. The number of women was also higher than the number of men during this time, by 67 thousand in 1922 and 68 thousand in 1934. Inter-war Latvia For Latvia, Independence was a hard-won struggle that had devastated the population in the late 1910s. Similarly to Estonia, the advent of independence brought many challenges to Latvia, and a period of political and economic turmoil followed, which was exacerbated by the Great Depression in 1929. After economic recovery began in 1933, and a coup d'etat established stricter control in 1934, the Latvian economy and political landscape became more stable and the quality of life improved. This lasted until the Second World War, where Latvia became one of the staging grounds of Germany's war against Soviet Russia, and approximately 12.5 percent of all civilians died. From the data we can see that Latvia's population between 1925 and 1935 grew steadily by 95,000 in this decade, with the number of men and women growing at a similar rate. Inter-war Lithuania Lithuania's experience in the interwar period was slightly different to that of Latvia and Estonia. The end of the First World War led to a growing movement for independence from German, Russian or Polish influence, however these countries were reluctant to cede control to one another, and independence was finally achieved in 1922. A right wing dictatorship was established in 1926, which maintained political and civil control until the outbreak of the Second World War, however interference from other nations, particularly Germany, was ever-present in Lithuanian economic activity. From the graph we have only one set of figures, showing that the Lithuanian population was just over 2 million in 1929, with approximately 5 percent more women than men. World War II again devastated Lithuania's population, with almost 14.4 percent of the entire population falling during the conflict.

During the Second World War, the three Axis powers of Germany, Italy, and Finland mobilized the largest share of their male population. For the Allies, the Soviet Union mobilized the largest share of men, as well as the largest total army of any country, but it was restricted in its ability to mobilize more due to the impact this would have on its economy. Other notable statistics come from the British Empire, where a larger share of men were drafted from Dominions than from the metropole, and there is also a discrepancy between the share of the black and white populations from South Africa.

However, it should be noted that there were many external factors from the war that influenced these figures. For example, gender ratios among the adult populations of many European countries was already skewed due to previous conflicts of the 20th century (namely WWI and the Russian Revolution), whereas the share of the male population eligible to fight in many Asian and African countries was lower than more demographically developed societies, as high child mortality rates meant that the average age of the population was much lower.

Throughout the 19th century, what we know today as Poland was not a united, independent country; apart from a brief period during the Napoleonic Wars, Polish land was split between the Austro-Hungarian, Prussian (later German) and Russian empires. During the 1800s, the population of Poland grew steadily, from approximately nine million people in 1800 to almost 25 million in 1900; throughout this time, the Polish people and their culture were oppressed by their respective rulers, and cultural suppression intensified following a number of uprisings in the various territories. Following the outbreak of the First World War, it is estimated that almost 3.4 million men from Poland served in the Austro-Hungarian, German and Russian armies, with a further 300,000 drafted for forced labor by the German authorities. Several hundred thousand were forcibly resettled in the region during the course of the war, as Poland was one of the most active areas of the conflict. For these reasons, among others, it is difficult to assess the extent of Poland's military and civilian fatalities during the war, with most reliable estimates somewhere between 640,000 and 1.1 million deaths. In the context of present-day Poland, it is estimated that the population fell by two million people in the 1910s, although some of this was also due to the Spanish Flu pandemic that followed in the wake of the war.

Poland 1918-1945

After more than a century of foreign rule, an independent Polish state was established by the Allied Powers in 1918, although it's borders were considerably different to today's, and were extended by a number of additional conflicts. The most significant of these border conflicts was the Polish-Soviet War in 1919-1920, which saw well over 100,000 deaths, and victory helped Poland to emerge as the Soviet Union's largest political and military rival in Eastern Europe during the inter-war period. Economically, Poland struggled to compete with Europe's other powers during this time, due to its lack of industrialization and infrastructure, and the global Great Depression of the 1930s exacerbated this further. Political corruption and instability was also rife in these two decades, and Poland's leadership failed to prepare the nation for the Second World War. Poland had prioritized its eastern defenses, and some had assumed that Germany's Nazi regime would see Poland as an ally due to their shared rivalry with the Soviet Union, but this was not the case. Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, in the first act of the War, and the Soviet Union launched a counter invasion on September 17; Germany and the Soviet Union had secretly agreed to do this with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in August, and had succeeded in taking the country by September's end. When Germany launched its invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 it took complete control of Poland, which continued to be the staging ground for much of the fighting between these nations. It has proven difficult to calculate the total number of Polish fatalities during the war, for a variety of reasons, however most historians have come to believe that the figure is around six million fatalities, which equated to almost one fifth of the entire pre-war population; the total population dropped by four million throughout the 1940s. The majority of these deaths took place during the Holocaust, which saw the Nazi regime commit an ethnic genocide of up to three million Polish Jews, and as many as 2.8 million non-Jewish Poles; these figures do not include the large number of victims from other countries who died after being forcefully relocated to concentration camps in Poland.

Post-war Poland

The immediate aftermath of the war was also extremely unorganized and chaotic, as millions were forcefully relocated from or to the region, in an attempt to create an ethnically homogenized state, and thousands were executed during this process. A communist government was quickly established by the Soviet Union, and socialist social and economic policies were gradually implemented over the next decade, as well as the rebuilding, modernization and education of the country. In the next few decades, particularly in the 1980s, the Catholic Church, student groups and trade unions (as part of the Solidarity movement) gradually began to challenge the government, weakening the communist party's control over the nation (although it did impose martial law and imprison political opponent throughout the early-1980s). Increasing civil unrest and the weakening of Soviet influence saw communism in Poland come to an end in the elections of 1989. Throughout the 1990s, Poland's population growth stagnated at around 38.5 million people, before gradually decreasing since the turn of the millennium, to 37.8 million people in 2020. This decline was mostly due to a negative migration rate, as Polish workers could now travel more freely to Western European countries in search of work, facilitated by Pola...

The Second World War's Eastern Front, the largest theater of war in history, was largely dominated by the conflict between Germany and the Soviet Union. The two countries had agreed upon an unexpected peace pact in 1939, with the joint invasion and partition of Poland, but this peace was broken in June 1941 when Germany invaded the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa. Germany's economic and technological superiority, alongside its Blitzkrieg military strategy, allowed it to gain the upper hand in the early stages of the conflict. Within six months the Germans had pushed the frontlines back to Moscow, and almost 40 percent of the Soviet population now lived in occupied territory. German gains at the expense of the Soviets was reflected in the changing balance of their economies - Germany's GDP grew each year until 1944, whereas the Soviet GDP fell by one third between 1940 and 1942.

In 1800, the population of Latvia was approximately 591,000, a number which would grow steadily throughout the 19th century as reforms in agrarian law and steady improvements in standards of living and production allowed for a significant expansion in population. However, the population of Latvia would peak at just under 2.5 million in 1909, before falling sharply in the First World War. As the battlefield between the German and Russian Empires, Latvia and the other Baltic states were the site of widespread combat, attacks on civilians, and scorched earth campaigns, devastating the country. Even many of those who did not lose their lives in the war were forced to evacuate under orders from the Russian Empire, leading hundreds of thousands to flea eastward. As a result, by the end of the First World War, the population of Latvia would fall to approximately 1.8 million, and would not recover to pre-war population levels until the 1980s.

Following the end of the First World War, Latvia's population would remain largely stagnant at this level, rising slightly before falling back down in the Second World War. However, population growth would increase rapidly in the post-war years, as rapid industrialization by the Soviet Union and sharp decreases in mortality as mass immunization and vaccination would allow for the population to return to pre-World War levels by the 1980s. Latvia's population would begin to decline rapidly with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, however, as significant unemployment and economic turmoil would lead large numbers of Latvians to migrate west to the European Union in search of work, particularly so following Latvia's inclusion into the Schengen Area in 2003. As a result, in 2020, Latvia is estimated to have a population of just under 1.9 million.

Over the course of the Second World War approximately 127.2 million people were mobilized. The world's population in 1940 was roughly 2.3 billion, meaning that between five and six percent of the world was drafted into the military in some capacity. Approximately one in every 25 people mobilized were women, who generally served in an administrative or medical role, although hundreds of thousands of women did see active combat. Largest armies In absolute numbers, the Soviet Union mobilized the largest number of people at just under 34.5 million, and this included roughly 35 percent of the USSR's male population. By the war's end, more Soviets were mobilized than all European Axis powers combined. However, in relative terms, it was Germany who mobilized the largest share of its male population, with approximately 42 percent of men serving. The USSR was forced to find a balance between reinforcing its frontlines and maintaining agricultural and military production to supply its army (in addition to those in annexed territory after 1941), whereas a large share of soldiers taken from the German workforce were replaced by workers drafted or forcibly taken from other countries (including concentration camp prisoners and PoWs). Studying the figures The figures given in these statistics are a very simplified and rounded overview - in reality, there were many nuances in the number of people who were effectively mobilized for each country, their roles, and their status as auxiliary, collaborative, or resistance forces. The British Empire is the only power where distinctions are made between the metropole and its colonies or territories, whereas breakdowns of those who fought in other parts of Asia or Africa remains unclear. Additionally, when comparing this data with total fatalities, it is important to account for the civilian death toll, i.e. those who were not mobilized.