Why was the Russian Empire predicted to have insane population growth if it didn't collapse?

Erizium

Repeatedly, I have seen some threads here talking about a Russian Empire which would have ballooned in size due to the absence of the Revolution or the Great War.

While estimates I have seen for other great powers of the era, such as Germany or Great Britain have relatively conservative projections of being 30%-50% larger at 2019, estimates for Russia are, at the minimum, double as to what modern Russia has, with some projections of 600 million to an obscene 1 billion, even counting for the territories the empire and the USSR lost in the last century.

Why was this the case for Russia? It had a population of around 180 million before the Revolution, and was rapidly industrializing its agriculture and industries which are an obvious factor, but is there anything else I'm missing?

I would love to hear all your insights.
 

Gancio The Ranter

Erizium said:
Repeatedly, I have seen some threads here talking about a Russian Empire which would have ballooned in size due to the absence of the Revolution or the Great War.

While estimates I have seen for other great powers of the era, such as Germany or Great Britain have relatively conservative projections of being 30%-50% larger at 2019, estimates for Russia are, at the minimum, double as to what modern Russia has, with some projections of 600 million to an obscene 1 billion, even counting for the territories the empire and the USSR lost in the last century.

Why was this the case for Russia? It had a population of around 180 million before the Revolution, and was rapidly industrializing its agriculture and industries which are an obvious factor, but is there anything else I'm missing?

I would love to hear all your insights.
Click to expand...
While 1 billion and even 600 millions people is an exaggerated estimate, Russia was very late in the population transition, with higher birth rates (among the highest in Europe) and higher death rates than Germany and the UK. Personally I believe that 400-500 millions is a more reasonable estimate, depending on the actual borders
 

DocJamore

Most people actually seem to believe that a modern Russian Empire would have around 400 million people. 500 at the most. And the few who give higher numbers than that are projecting Latin American birthrates onto Russia even though no explanation is given why a country located literally next to Europe would follow that trajectory instead of European demographic trends.

Some invoke Russian religiosity to keep the birth rate high, except that any elected Russian government will have a large socialist or left-wing component that would look unfavorably on that. And while it is true that Communism did screw Russia over, land reform is absolutely necessary to Russia to continue its population growth. Otherwise by the 1920s/1930s we are going to start seeing humongous famines.
 

Carl Schwamberger

Depends on when the industrial birth drop is triggered. Back in my Anthro/Soc college classes we had graphs and numbers showing birth trends in Europe, spanning the late agrarian through industrial age. Population grow starts relatively slow, then balloons as rising early industrial economies signal improve infant health, lower adult epidemic rates, and the residual agrarian attitude that large families are better. As the population shifts from rural to urban living the birthrate rapidly drops as urban families lose interest in a family labor pool. I expect its not difficult to take the analysis from those i saw and apply them to several likely urbanization/indutrialization trajectories of a Russian Empire and plot a few birth rate curves.
 

Jiraiyathegallant

Because Russia still had a TFR of ~7 while Germany and Italy were around 3.5, France 2.2, Britain 2.5, AH and most the Balkans around 4-5 when WWI started.

This puts Russia more in the Latin American bracket than Europe.
 

pattersonautobody

Erizium said:
Repeatedly, I have seen some threads here talking about a Russian Empire which would have ballooned in size due to the absence of the Revolution or the Great War.

While estimates I have seen for other great powers of the era, such as Germany or Great Britain have relatively conservative projections of being 30%-50% larger at 2019, estimates for Russia are, at the minimum, double as to what modern Russia has, with some projections of 600 million to an obscene 1 billion, even counting for the territories the empire and the USSR lost in the last century.

Why was this the case for Russia? It had a population of around 180 million before the Revolution, and was rapidly industrializing its agriculture and industries which are an obvious factor, but is there anything else I'm missing?

I would love to hear all your insights.
Click to expand...
Russia had 115 million in their second last census. In their last census that had approx. 180 million. I think that their quasi industrialization was a recipe for huge population growth. it was enough to feed everyone so they can avoid starvation, but they would still be poor enough and have enough land that popping out 9 Orthodox babies to till the soil carried with it a real benefit. Poor people have a lot of kids usually not because they are stupid and don't know about birth control methods, but because there is a real financial benefit to so many children. You just cant be so poor they all starve.
 

Deleted member 114175

DocJamore said:
Most people actually seem to believe that a modern Russian Empire would have around 400 million people. 500 at the most. And the few who give higher numbers than that are projecting Latin American birthrates onto Russia even though no explanation is given why a country located literally next to Europe would follow that trajectory instead of European demographic trends.
Click to expand...
Russia started industrializing later, so they started the demographic transition later.

Latin American birthrates being high was a temporary phenomenon caused by the development of these countries in the 20th century. Today the fertility rate of Mexico is 2.18, Colombia 1.85, and Brazil 1.78.

Every country goes through the demographic transition, it's not something specifically European or specifically Latin American. Religiosity has a relatively small effect.
 

Oldbill

The increasing industrialization was part and parcel of the growth of railways. More railways meant more jobs but also more outlets for the farmers, and the ability to feed workers in the cities. Eventually it'll plateau but until then it will grow nicely.
 

Wendell

Tsarist Russia draws comparisons to the United States at times, and for good reason. Think of the various booms in U.S. natural population growth. Add to that improving public health and infrastructure, industrial and commercial growth, bountiful agricultural potential, significant oilfields, and conservative religious populations, and voila. One billion may be high, but half that is easily a possibility under the right circumstances.
 

GiantMonkeyMan

Banned
Prior to 1917, the Russian Empire had one of the highest fertility rates in Europe but that rapidly changed after the revolution. From Robert C. Allen's 'Farm to Factory: A Reinterpretation of the Soviet Industrial Revolution': "In the twentieth century, most Third World countries experienced a population explosion. Between 1928 and 1989, population increased three fold in India, Indonesia, and Bangladesh, about four fold in Turkey and Morocco, and close to five fold or even more in Brazil, Mexico, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, and Venezuela. With its high fertility regime, the Soviet Union was headed for the same fate. If Soviet population growth had been like the Third World’s, the USSR would have contained close to a billion people in 1989 rather than the 288 million actually present. Income per head would surely have been less. And yet, between 1928 and 1989, the Soviet population rose by only 70 percent."

Effectively, Allen's conclusion about demographics in the USSR is that the deaths caused by the wars and the Civil War and even the famine and collectivisation had a far smaller effect on the changes to the potential population in the USSR than the 'fertility transition' caused by women having more rights, having access to the workplace, having greater education and healthcare, and thus having less children. Without the revolution, if the Tsarist regime had remained in power and had continued being controlled by its stagnant autocracy that perpetuated patriarchal social relations, then people might have had less opportunities and continued to have lots of children.
 

TastySpam

SeaCambrian said:
Russia started industrializing later, so they started the demographic transition later.

Latin American birthrates being high was a temporary phenomenon caused by the development of these countries in the 20th century. Today the fertility rate of Mexico is 2.18, Colombia 1.85, and Brazil 1.78.

Every country goes through the demographic transition, it's not something specifically European or specifically Latin American. Religiosity has a relatively small effect.
Click to expand...

That part is predictable, but it's often not predictable how fast a country goes through a demographic transition. All of the Imperial Russian population stuff is all basically speculation. Maybe rates would have stayed high. But they might have also crashed. One interesting example of a crashed fertility rate is Iran, which went from 6.5 in 1983 to 1.6 in 2018 (35 years, which is basically one generation).
 

Dorknought

Russia’s lost population (blue pre-war trend). Note in peace it still mirrors the pre war trend.
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Wolttaire

if it wasn't for the revolution and the world wars I would increase there population by a couple hundred million maybe even more. If it wasn't for though they wouldn't be on the decline they are on and this is my personal opinion but I think by the end of the century Russia will either be a rump state or will have broken apart even more prob losing the far east and the east. Slowly losing more territories
 
anotherlurker

anotherlurker

Population nearly doubled between WW2 and dissolution, only Japan and the USA had similar developments. The rest of the larger European states were more or less stagnant.

Imperial Russia unlike the USSR will not promote women in the work force, will not so readily make contraceptives and abortion available and will not crush the churchs influence which traditionally preaches to go forth and multiply. Plus the war dead, depressed birth rates due to war/crisis and emigration due to crisis/repression and said people having children of themselves and it's not unreasonable to assume that 600+ million is possible.
 

Carl Schwamberger

Be interesting to compare these hypotheticals with predictions of food production absent a war. Would agriculture continue to keep pace so 'Russia' remains a net exporter?
 
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