Family in kulak exile in the Bashkir ASSR in the 1930s: quantitative composition, birth rate, mortality

The subject of demographic analysis in this article is families classified as kulaks, evicted from their homes and resettled in special settlements (labor settlements) of the Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic during the period of collectivization in the USSR. The study is written on the basis of documentary sources published by V.N. Zemskov, as well as archival sources stored in the National Archive of the Republic of Bashkortostan. The sources make it possible to investigate the quantitative composition of families in special settlements (work settlements), establish the proportion of disabled persons, the percentage of teenagers and children under 4 years of age, and calculate the birth rate taking into account the free population living in labor settlements. The analysis carried out by the author led him to conclusions about the high mortality rate, especially for children under 8 years of age, in the labor settlements of Bashkiria in 1932-1934, and also to determine that mortality in labor settlements decreased and the birth rate reached high levels in the second half of the 1930s, which is explained by the traditional reproductive attitudes of labor settlers.