Nationalities of the Union and Autonomous Republics of the USSR, according to the Censuses of 1926 and 1937. August 26, 1939
Original Source: Perepis’ 1939 goda: Dokumental’nye istochniki Tsentral’nogo gosudarstvennogo arkhiva narodnogo khoziaistva (TSGANKh) SSSR (Materialy k serii “Narody Sovetskogo Soiuza”). Moscow: Institut etnologii i etnicheskoi antropologii AN SSS
Top Secret
To the Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars Comrade Viacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov:
The Central Administration of Economic Statistics of USSR Gosplan reports information on the national composition of the USSR by nationality, according to the censuses of 1926 and 1937.
In 1937 the ten most numerous nationalities in each republic, krai, and oblast were listed separately, and the other nationalities within each were included in the category “other nationalities.”
Thus the all-Union summary data from 1937 about the numerical size of some nationalities are not complete, for they do not include data from those oblasts where the given nationality was not among the ten most numerous.
Head of the Central Administration of Economic Statistics under the USSR Gosplan (I. Sautin)
Completely Secret Nationalities of the Union and Autonomous Republics of the USSR, According to the Censuses of 1926 and 1937
| Nationality | 1926 | 1937 |
| Russian | 77,791,124 | 93,933,065 |
| Ukrainian | 31,194,976 | 26,421,212 |
| Belorussian | 4,738,923 | 4,874,061 |
| Kazakh | 3,968,289 | 2,862,458 |
| Uzbek | 3,955,938 | 4,550,532 |
| Tatar | 3,029,995 | 3,793,413 |
| Jew | 2,672,499 | 2,715,106 |
| Georgian | 1,821,184 | 2,097,069 |
| Azerbaijani | 1,706,605 | 2,134,648 |
| Armenian | 1,568,197 | 1,968,721 |
| Mordovian | 1,340,415 | 1,248,867 |
| German | 1,238,549 | 1,151,601 |
| Chuvash | 1,117,419 | 1,167,817 |
| Tadzhik | 978,680 | 1,137,995 |
| Turkmen | 763,940 | 747,723 |
| Kirghiz | 762,736 | 846,503 |
| Bashkir | 713,693 | 757,935 |
| Peoples of Daghestan | 660,459 | 770,624 |
| Udmurt | 504,187 | 568,268 |
| Mari | 428,192 | 401,092 |
| Chechen-Ingush | 392,619 | 436,076 |
| Komi | 375,871 | 384,508 |
| Moldavian | 278,905 | 223,848 |
| Ossetian | 272,272 | 319,350 |
| Karelian | 248,120 | 233,006 |
| Yakut | 241,365 | 239,307 |
| Buriat-Mongol | 238,060 | 218,597 |
| Karakalpak | 146,317 | 179,292 |
| Kabardin | 139,925 | 150,690 |
| Kalmyk | 129,321 | 127,423 |
| Cherkess | 65,270 | 78,733 |
| Abkhaz | 56,957 | 55,561 |
| Oirot | 45,925 | 46,508 |
| Khakass | 45,608 | 48,334 |
| Other Nationalities and Undistributed Nats | 3,406,080 | 5,149,537 |
| Total | 147,037,915 | 162,039,470 |
(Signature illegible August 26, 1939.)
Source: Journal of Soviet Nationalities (Durham, N.C.: The Center, 1990-), Vol. I (Winter 1990-1991), p. 4.