An ideological dogma in the USSR held that inflation simply could not exist in a planned economy. Because all prices in the Soviet Union were under strict government control and were very seldom raised officially, it was even possible to believe this dogma. The methodological trick is now well known: the Soviet Central Statistical Administration (CSA) compared prices only for strictly unchanged products. Because price increases were prohibited without explicit government permission, official statistics usually showed no or very low price increases. However, if a producer modified (even slightly) its product, then the government considered this product to be completely new; the State Price Committee permitted a new (usually higher) price, while the CSA never compared it with the price of the old (unmodified) product. Hence, there was some inflation in reality but none in statistics.5

This does not mean that all of the Soviet “volume indices” are completely useless (much of the research mentioned above has used them successfully), but here we —arbitrarily to some extent —decided to limit ourselves to indicators in natural (“physical”) units. This decision has meant an absence of long time series for trade (retail and wholesale) and for fixed investments in our set of indicators. The only exception to this rule was the Y-o-Y rate for industry; for this sector we used indices calculated from data with physical units and from official data in “fixed-year list-prices” (we provide arguments for this below).

More specifically, we compiled the following time series, most of which come from the late 1920s to the first half of 2015 (see Table 1).

Table 1Download as CSV 

Main official Russian macroeconomic indicators, by sector.

Sectors of Economy	Units	Period*
Industry
Index of industrial production, official	1960 = 100	1929–2015
Agriculture	Million head	1927–2014
Livestock inventory	Million tonnes	1928–2014
Grain production+
Grain area planted	Million hectares	1925–2014
Transportation
Railroad freight transportation	Million tonnes	1928–2015
Residential construction
New completions, state organizations and establishments	Million sq. meters	1946–2014
New completions, populationx	Million sq. meters	1980–2014

Notes: * until the first half of 2015; ⁺ the method of estimation radically changed in 1953; ^x workers and employees for 1946–1980.

Source: see Appendix B for details.

It must be kept in mind that several changes occurred to the RSFSR/RF's borders during these decades. The most important are:6

1. the exclusion of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan from the RSFSR in 1936 (they received the highest possible status of a “Union Republic” in the regional structure of the USSR). Therefore, we excluded the data for these territories from the official data for the RSFSR for the years through 1936;
2. the transfer of Crimea from the RSFSR to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1954. Therefore, we excluded the data for Crimea from the official data for the RSFSR for the years through 1954. In 2014, Crimea was returned to the RF, but official statistics for previous years still do not include it;
3. from 1940 to 1956, the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic had the highest status of a “Union Republic.” Before 1940 and after 1956 it had the status of an “Autonomous Republic” in the regional structure of the RSFSR. Therefore, we added the data for the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic to the official data for the RSFSR for 1940–1956 period;7
4. in 1945 (as a result of WW2), the Kaliningrad Region in the West and South Sakhalin (with several Kuril Islands) in the East were incorporated into the RSFSR. The economic role of these territories is not negligible (according to Rosstat, it may be up to 1% of GDP). Unfortunately, any correction is impossible because there is no information on economic conditions in these regions prior to their accession to the USSR as parts of the RSFSR. Thus, we can only suppose that the growth rates for certain macroeconomic indicators were overstated for 1945, but not to a great extent.

Our main sources of official data were:

1. databases from Rosstat's website (www.gks.ru);
2. annual statistical yearbooks for the USSR and the RSFSR; other (non-periodic) official statistical handbooks;8
3. documents never published by the Soviet Central Statistical Administration (CSA) and by other agencies of the Soviet government; those documents are now stored in the Russian State Economics Archive (RGAE).

For all compiled time series and their detailed sources, see Appendices A and B.

The alternative index of industrial production (1960 = 100) is calculated using the geometric means of Y-o-Y percent changes, which, in turn, were calculated from base indices published by several independent (non-government) researchers (see Table 2). All of these authors estimated their indices as a weighted average of technical base indices, one index per industrial product (its output is in physical units). The authors used various weights and various sets of goods. The total number of products varied from 100 to more than 200, but all of them were nonmilitary. Therefore, strictly speaking, the aggregated indices are not for “total industry” but only non-military or civilian products. The role of military production for the official index of industrial production is unknown.9

Table 2Download as CSV 

Alternative annual indices of industrial production for Russia.

Source	Period	Number of products
Suhara (2000)	1961–1997	100
Ponomarenko (2002)	1961–1990	117
Alekseev (1994) and Alekseev et al. (1996)	1976–1994	222
Smirnov (2013a)	1981–1992	108
Baranov and Bessonov (1999)+	1990–2006	126
Baranov and Bessonov (1999)+	1995–2010	236

Note: ⁺ time series were kindly supplied by the authors for our research.

The long-term trajectories for the main Russian macroeconomic indicators are shown in Figure 1.10 A few brief comments are naturally required.

Fig. 1

Main annual indicators for the RF and the RSFSR.

Note:x Brent since 1984, US Average through 1944, Arabian Light for 1945–1983. Sources: Appendix A; BP; Reuters.

Industrial Production. The official index of industrial output begins in 1929 and ends in 2015; the alternative index begins in 1960 and ends in 2010. As the official Y-o-Y % changes are quite close to the alternative estimates in recent years, there is currently little interest in any alternative figures (that is why our mean alternative index ends in 2010). However, this was not the case prior to 1991. At that time, the official Y-o-Y rates were calculated using the list prices from some fixed year (initially, the 1926/27 fiscal year, then the 1953 calendar year, etc.). As there was some permanent (unknown) inflation in reality, the official industrial rates were too high. A comparison with the mean alternative index for the 30 years from 1961 to 1990 indicates an average overshoot of 2.0–2.5 percentage points. On the whole, the official index rose five times during this period, while the mean alternative index rose 2.5 times.11 On the other hand, the two time series of rates moved in a more-or-less synchronized manner during this period (the correlation coefficient is 0.94). This means that for past periods, one may use not only alternative indices but also the official index to date decelerations and accelerations of industrial trends.

The most definitive declines in industrial production took place in 1942, 1945–1946, 1979, 1989–1996, 1998, 2009 and 2015.

Agriculture. We used livestock inventory as a main indicator to characterize total activity in the Russian agricultural sector.12 Large declines in this inventory are clearly connected to the periods of “hard times” in Russian economic history. The most significant reductions (more than 5% in a year) in livestock inventory took place in:

1. 1928–1932: collectivization.13 The rural population slaughtered more than half of their private livestock. It is well known from many “non-statistical” sources (including memories and witnesses) that the main driver of this drop was a strong unwillingness to turn over private livestock to “collective farmers”14^,15; another serious reason was a deficit of feed for horses and cattle;
2. 1941–1942: the first two years of the war between the USSR and Nazi Germany: a considerable amount of Russian territory was temporarily lost;
3. 1936, 1946, 1963 and 1975: the years of crop failures;16 the number of pigs was the most volatile because their owners preferred to eat them in lieu of feeding them;
4. 1987–2000: a prolonged transition period in the animal industry; the appearance of a high volume of meat imports that had never previously occurred;
5. 2003–2005: high exports of grain against the backdrop of low crop yields brought high fodder prices; low-producing livestock were slaughtered.

Residential construction. In 1950, average per capita urban floor space in the RSFSR was only 6.4 square meters. Evidently, there was a great need for housing. However, in a planned economy, because limits to production were set by supply rather than by demand, residential construction was at a very low level for years until special enactment No 931 was approved by the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Soviet Government on July 31, 1957. This had an immediate effect: by 1958, the Y-o-Y increase in new residential completions made by workers and employees exceeded 80%. In the following years, new completions made by state organizations and new completions made by the total population (workers and employees up to 1980) usually moved in opposite directions. They became more or less synchronized only after 2000.

Railroad freight transportation. The volume of railroad freight transportation is an indicator that is definitely well synchronized with the level of economic activity in Russia.17 Ordinarily its growth is highly monotonic; a decline in railroad freight transportation always indicates serious problems in the Russian economy.

Crude oil prices. Many believe that the Russian economy is highly dependent on the international oil market (as was the Soviet economy prior to 1991).18 The annual time series of international prices for Russian oil (“Urals”) began just recently in 1995, but the trajectory of the Russian oil market is very close to the trajectories for other types of oil, which means that we can use historical prices for international oil types as a proxy for the Urals price. It can be assumed that high or rising oil prices were positive for the Russian economy, while low or declining prices were negative.

The years of decline in absolute terms for all indicators under consideration are highlighted in Figure 2 with dark gray circles.

Fig. 2

Main Russian macroeconomic indicators: years of contraction*.

Notes: * gray columns — the years of overall economic recession; dark gray circles — the years of negative or zero growth rate of a particular indicator; small circles — data not available; + workers and employees for 1946–1980; ^x Brent since 1984, Arabian Light for 1945–1983, US average through 1944.

Sources: Appendices A and B.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to reasonably combine all of these indicators into a single composite: a) the indices are available for different time periods and have different omissions (usually in the 1930s); b) some indices are flows (e.g., industrial output), others are stock (e.g., livestock inventory); and, most importantly, c) there is no information about potential “weightings” for the components; the only thing we may be aware of is that these weightings have changed significantly since the end of the 1920s. Therefore, all we can do is carefully trace the trajectories for all of the indicators, look for their contractions and then—based on qualitative analysis —attempt to identify years with overall contractions, or contractions of the whole economy.

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Russia was shaken by the controversial processes of collectivization and industrialization. As mentioned above, these years were very destructive for the Russian animal industries: the livestock inventory in 1932 was only 46% of the 1927 level. On the other hand, the results for the crop output from the Russian agricultural sector were not as bad. The total grain area planted in 1932 was 12% higher than in 1928, and grain production was only 5% lower. Despite this, there was a great famine in Russia in 1932 and 1933, with up to several million victims.19 Because total grain production was not as low in 1931 and 1932, the cause of the famine could only be found in the Soviet government's decisions. The most popular idea (almost an “official” one) connects the requisition of crops from individual rural households with the needs of rapid industrialization (supposedly, the grain was exported, and the earnings were spent on industrial equipment).20 Indeed, the growth rates for industry in the RSFSR were very high during the first and the second economic plans (1929–1937): always double-digit and sometimes approximately 20% or more per year. Of course, the official figures were based on list prices from the fiscal year 1926/27 and may be overstated to an unknown extent. In any event, they were usually high, with one important exception: the growth rate was only 5% in 1933. This is in stark contrast to the preceding and subsequent years; it is also near the level of the differences between the official and the alternative industrial indices caused by inaccurate deflators in the official statistics, as it can be observed in the 1960s and later years.

Therefore, it is quite plausible that real industrial growth was close to zero or even negative in 1933. Russia's railroad freight transportation volume also fell in 1933 (decline had been very rare before WW2). We therefore hypothesize that the total level of economic activity in the RSFSR declined during 1933 and that the first crisis in the planned economy took place sometime that year. The famine in rural areas, the very low (or even negative) growth in industry and declining railroad freight transportation can all be considered arguments for this proposition.21 The roots of this crisis were in the Soviet government's economic policy concerning the agricultural sector, as well as in the low world prices for grain exports by the USSR.22

The next economic contraction occurred in 1941 and 1942, which was obviously related to the destruction caused by the war and temporary losses of territory (Soviet statistics did not account for economic output in the territories occupied by Germany). The agricultural sector was most heavily damaged: livestock inventory dropped by 25% in 1941 and by 19% in 1942; grain production decreased by 18% in 1941 and by 47% in 1942.23 Railroad freight transportation fell 3% in 1941 and 27% in 1942. Lastly, according to official data, industrial production grew by only 4% in 1941 and declined by 9% in 1942.24 We therefore have strong evidence that the total output of the Russian economy did contract in 1941, especially in 1942.

During the next two years (1943–1944), strong economic growth was observed as the territories previously occupied by Germany were returned to Soviet control and the production of military goods expanded greatly. However, by the end of the war and shortly after, a more or less ordinary post-war crisis began. A considerable number of military goods and ammunition were no longer needed, and their excessive production had to be cut. Therefore, industrial production dropped by 16% in 1945 and by 22% in 1946.25 The drought of 1946 had an additional negative effect on the Russian economy. Grain production declined by 17% in 1946 (after a 6% decline in 1945), and livestock inventory declined by 6%. Railroad freight transportation grew by 5% in 1946, but there had been a decline of 1% in 1945.

The post-war expansion that began in 1947 was long and pronounced. Growth rates were very high in the late 1940s and through the first half of the 1950s (often approximately 15–20% annually for industrial production and railroad freight transportation). They then began to slow and 25 years later dropped to a level of 2–3%. It is possible that they could have slowed further and quite quickly, but in 1974, the world price for crude oil (Russia's main export item) grew 3.5 times as a result of OPEC actions (from USD 3.3 to USD 11.6 per barrel). This price increase gave the Russian economy a respite but only until the end of the 1970s.26

In 1979, the second post-war crisis took place: industrial production fell by 0.4%,27 livestock inventory by 0.2%, grain production by 33%, railroad freight transportation by 4% and new residential completions by 6–7%. The crisis of 1979 was that of the planned Russian economy as a system. First, constraints had appeared on the supply side; up to this moment the main resources of the Russian economy had ceased growing rapidly (e.g., the ratio of the urban population to the total population had almost reached its “saturation point” and the growth of this labor force, which was more productive than the rural one, had dramatically slowed down; the grain area planted was nearing its maximum potential, etc.). Second, there were no major incentives on the demand side. While a number of relatively modern plants for chemicals, electronics, automobiles and other industries had been introduced during the previous two decades, there was no large incremental demand for these products.28 And third, there was little incentive to have an active business position for either individuals or organizations. Career advancement for individuals was very slow. For organizations, the largest part of their profits (not just taxes!) was withheld from them by the state. The Kosygin–Liberman reforms implemented in 1965 to encourage private initiative and responsibility had been exhausted by the early 1970s. By the late 1970s, all previous discussions about them had been completely forgotten.

The crisis of 1979 was quite acute, but it was not too deep or too long. OPEC raised oil prices 2.3 times (up to USD 31.4 per barrel) and saved the Soviet planned economy at that time, but it never returned to rapid growth. As the price of oil decreased, military expenses for the war in Afghanistan went up, and no structural problems of the planned economy were solved, the Russian economy was therefore experiencing a long period of stagnation. From 1980 to 1988, the growth rate in the alternative index of industrial production was never higher than 1.5–1.7%;29 the average annual growth rate for railroad freight transportation was only 1.3%; and the livestock inventory stopped increasing at all. After oil prices were halved in 1986 (to USD 14.4 per barrel), the situation became much worse. A burst of enthusiasm came after the accession of Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985, but his reforms were poorly thought out and inconsequential; in some respects, they unsettled the Soviet financial system.

From 1989 to 1991, the first wave of the Great Russian Depression came. Industrial production decreased by 12% during these three years;30 railroad freight transportation dropped by 13%; livestock inventory was down by 10%; new residential completions made by state organizations declined by 30%, etc. Monetary reform was unsuccessful in 1991; the financial system became unbalanced, and there was an overall deficit of consumer goods.

At the end of 1991, the USSR collapsed as a unified whole, and the Soviet planned economic system came to an end. Russia began to exist as an independent state within the boundaries of the RSFSR. The new government initiated serious pro-market economic reforms. These reforms were based on ideas proposed by the IMF and included liberalization of prices, liberalization of foreign trade, privatization of state enterprises and several structural reforms. The reforms were neither consistent, nor easily accepted; there was a strong lobby against them.

The second wave of the Great Russian Depression (the so called “transition crisis” or the regeneration of a market economy) lasted from 1992 to 1996. For these five years, industrial production contracted by 50%;31 livestock inventory fell by 48%; railroad freight transportation declined by 47%; and new residential completions made by state organizations were down by 45%. Taken together, the two waves of the Great Russian Depression were much more damaging than the American Great Depression of the 1930s. For example, in the United States, the maximum decrease in industrial output (using annual statistics) was 47% (from 1929 to 1932); in Russia, this indicator was 56% (from 1988 to 1996).

There were three main reasons for this drop. The first was the distorted structure of the Russian economy. Since it had been destroyed by the planning system, the output of military goods and certain low quality products was too high. In a market economy, without a single planning (decision-making) center, there would be no reason to produce these goods in the same quantities. Therefore, the production volumes for large numbers of goods had to be reduced. The second reason for the sharp decline was the low competitiveness of most sectors of the Russian economy; strong competition from imported goods and services displaced large numbers of Russian goods (import competition was quite new to Russian producers). The third reason was that Russian owners and managers had no experience in seeking consumers and suppliers, exporting, receiving bank loans, setting prices for their own products, etc. In the planned economy every establishment had all of these parameters fixed by the Central Planning Agency. During the transition period, Russians gained all of this market knowledge, but this learning proved quite costly. The absence of market experience was probably the most important factor in the transition crisis. For this reason, output of nonmilitary and highly competitive Russian goods also declined (e.g., oil production declined 49% between 1988 and 1996).

During the transition period, a large number of state plants were privatized; market laws were adopted; a new budget system and banking sector were built; economic agents accumulated initial market experience, and the risk of reestablishing communism diminished.32 The Russian economy had reached its low point, and there was nowhere to go but up. Therefore, in 1997, after eight years of continuous decrease that had seen Russian economic output cut in half, there was a brief period of recovery.

This first recovery of the Russian post-planning era was fully disrupted in November 1998. First, the world crisis, which began at the end of 1997 in Southeast Asia, caused foreign capital outflows from all emerging markets, and Russia was no exception. Second, as the world economy slowed and global demand for crude oil lessened, oil prices declined to USD 10–11 per barrel (much less than was required to fulfill the Russian budget). Therefore, the international exchange reserves of the Russian Central Bank were exhausted, and the federal budget was unable to service the government's debt. Under these circumstances, there were two important decisions: the Russian government declared a default on its bills and bonds, and the Russian Central Bank stopped adhering to a fixed exchange rate regime.33 As a result, several of the largest Russian commercial banks went bankrupt, many individuals and non-financial companies lost their money, and the Russian ruble was devalued four times over a period of just months. In 1998, real GDP fell by 5.3%, industrial production by 4.8%, railroad freight transportation by 5.9%, etc. As the base level was not especially high, there was little room for decline, and the contraction in 1998 was much less than during the transition period. In any case, at its lowest point, the total output of the Russian economy fell back to levels of the early 1960s.

The strong devaluation of the ruble generated the process of substituting imports with domestic goods and services. This factor became the most important driver for the recovery in 1999 and 2000. Later, the output of the Russian economy was driven by rapidly rising oil prices and increased oil exports. Since 2004, the main “locomotive” for the Russian economy has been the rise in household expenditures backed by fast-growing personal incomes and a large expansion of personal credit. In 2007, oil prices were slightly under USD 80–90 per barrel, and domestic demand grew by 10–12% per year. The high dependency of the Russian economic growth on rapidly increasing oil prices and unsecured consumer loans increased worries of overheating in the economy. The drastic decline in inventories during the Russian crisis of 2008–2009 proved this hypothesis to be true.

The 2008–2009 recession came to Russia through the world financial markets, which were shaken by the Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy. From the end of 2007 to September 2008, there was an illusion that the Russian economy —with its enormous (more than half a trillion dollars) and still growing foreign exchange reserves, surplus federal budget and oil prices at more than USD 100 per barrel —might be a safety haven in a stormy world economy. Oil prices drop to one-third of their prior level (to USD 38 per barrel in December, 2008), massive capital outflow and difficulties in access to global financial markets proved this dream to be an illusion. The overheating of pre-crisis domestic demand and a lack of skill in managing inventories resulted in a significant decline in production. In 2009, real GDP declined by 7.8%, industrial production by 9.3%, new residential completions made by state organizations declined by 14.6%, and railroad freight transportation fell 15% (after a 3% decline in 2008).34

After the recovery in 2010–2011, it became clear that the old pattern of Russian growth, which was based on high and continually increasing oil prices, would not return. With nearly stable domestic oil production and nearly stable (and still very high!) world oil prices, no other driver for the Russian economy appeared. Capital outflow remained high; the competitiveness of goods (except for crude oil and certain other raw materials) remained low; most regional budgets experienced deep deficits; the ratio of bad debts to banks’assets increased; (ineffective) government companies obtained an unreasonably inflated role; inflation continued to be significant (6–8% per year), which prevented the Central Bank from lowering high interest rates; the investment climate for private businesses (foreign and domestic) became worse, etc. As a result, dismal stagnation occurred in 2012 and 2013.

Since the spring of 2014, Western financial sanctions connected with the Ukrainian crisis, related Russian self/antisanctions and —several months later—a steep decline in oil prices have put the Russian economy on the threshold of a new recession (or, rather, stagflation, because inflation has risen to double-digit levels). Most experts predict a contraction in real Russian GDP of up to 4–5% in 2015. This recession will hardly be deeper, as no significant inventories have been accumulated. However, the period without steady economic growth in Russia may really be quite prolonged.

Table 3 shows all nine recessions for the Russian economy over the past 88 years (1928–2015).35

Table 3Download as CSV 

Russian Recessions and Their Causes, 1928–2015.

Years of contraction	Causes of contraction
1933	Destruction of the agricultural sector caused by the “total collectivization” policy. Low world prices for Russian raw exports.
1941–1942	Destruction of assets due to the war. Temporary loss of territory.
1945–1946	Cuts of not required any longer military production. The drought of 1946.
1979	Exhaustion of extensive factors, including the conversion of the population from rural to (more productive) urban. Significant introduction of modern industrial equipment during the two previous decades; no connection between final demand and investment decisions. Weak incentives to grow and to develop for individuals and organizations.
1989–1991	The first wave of the Great Russian Depression (the death throes of the planned economic system). All structural problems of the late Soviet planned economic system were aggravated by vague reforms and decreasing oil prices. Unbalanced financial system and overall deficit of consumer goods.
1992–1996	The second wave of the Great Russian Depression (the transition from a planned to a market economy). The complete absence of “market experience”, distorted structure of the economy, low competitiveness of Russian goods and services and incompleteness of market reforms resulted in the Russian economy's output declining by roughly half.
1998	The Russian economy was affected by the Southeast Asian financial crisis. Intensive foreign capital outflow and a decline of Russian oil prices to USD 10–11 per barrel, forced default on treasury bills and bonds, bankruptcy of several of the largest commercial banks, loss of money by many economic agents, contraction in total output by approximately 5% and devaluation of the ruble by a factor of 4.
2008–2009	After the Lehman Brothers’bankruptcy in September 2008, Russian banks and companies were nearly cut off from global financial markets, massive capital outflow began from Russia and other emerging markets and oil prices fell to one-third of their pre-crisis levels. Overheating of pre-crisis domestic demand and a lack of skill in managing inventories resulted in a significant decline in production. 2015–? Consistent quelling of entrepreneurial spirit and excessive administrative pressure on business paved the way for the recession triggered by the mutual sanctions from the West and especially by the radical drop in oil prices. At the moment, any positive drivers for economic growth are not very obvious.

The official index of industrial production (1960 = 100) is in fact not fully official. We calculated it using published official Y-o-Y percent changes (if available) or Y-o-Y percent changes that, in turn, were calculated using official base indices (with various bases) or values of industrial production in list-prices (also with various bases). We took 1960 as a base to have a time-series comparable with the alternative index of industrial production.

We added the total number of cattle, sheep, goats and pigs. Almost continuous time series, beginning with 1927, are published in only one source; more recent and fully comparable data may be taken from the CBSD held by Rosstat. The “holes” for almost 90 years are 1928 and 1938. We succeeded in patching the hole in 1928 and substituted the average of 1937 and 1939 for 1938.

According to the present methodology (in use since 1953) the garnered grain is counted (at the granary at net weight). According to the “old” methodology, the harvest is estimated in the field (standing grain). It is no surprise that the “old” methodology gave higher numbers than the “present”; the surprise is that according to Rosstat, for 1928 and 1932, both methodologies gave equal volumes. Therefore, one may doubt whether Rosstat's re-estimations for the 1920s and the 1930s were made properly; in practice, this also means that one cannot use “old” data to interpolate “new” data. For this reason we preferred to use both time series in parallel (one for the “present” methodology, another — for the “old” one).

The grain area planted was counted by the Soviet statistical system beginning in 1925. This indicator is more or less comparable through time. Some minor problems were connected with corn grain of milky-wax ripeness, which was included in total grain for several years in the second part of 1950s and excluded for all other years. We had to make our own estimates of this factor for 1956–1957 using information for the USSR as a whole; the correction was approximately 1.5% of the total area planted in the RSFSR.

Historical information on residential construction is less available than on other sectors of the Russian economy, at least those considered here. Publication of the RSFSR's data on new residential completions began in 1946; we could not find any previous information, even in unpublished documents stored in archives. Our hypothesis relates this to the fact that the main goal of economic policy during the Soviet period was the creation of large-scale industrial establishments, especially those which were specialized in producing machines and equipment (capital goods). The communist and Soviet authorities paid far less attention to the production of consumer goods and to residential construction (it even seems that for years the Soviet statistics simply did not count the new houses built by collective farmers, which were the majority of the houses in rural areas). As the official figures for total new residential construction consist of different components for different years, we decided not to use them at all. Instead, we chose three time series: one for state organizations and establishments (it is roughly comparable for all years) and two for the population: for workers and employees up to 1980 and for the total population beginning in 1980 (we hope that the trajectories of the latter two are similar).

Railroad statistics for the RSFSR were openly published up to the mid-1930s and after 1958 with more than a 20-year gap in between. We found almost all necessary information in unpublished documents stored in archives. Unfortunately, at the moment, we still have three holes: 1934 and 1936–1937. It makes it impossible to say anything reasonable about the dynamics of railroad freight transportation during the second 5-year plan (1933–1937) but it is enough to detect the contraction in 1933.