One of the most important problems of historical demography is the provision of research sources. Unfortunately, some, especially young au- thors, pay little attention to the analysis of statistical materials used for reli- ability and comparability. As a result, published works are sometimes full of defects and even errors. It was an attempt to correct this unfortunate short- coming in the study. The study was devoted to resource analysis of such im- portant sources as local population censuses conducted in Western Siberia in the first half of XX century. The first Soviet census of 1920 was held in the conditions of Civil war, and covered only 72 % of the population, which did not allow obtaining any accurate data. The all-Union census conducted in December 1926 made it possible to determine the population number. How- ever, since 1930 the USSR entered the period of demographic crisis, which turned into a demographic catastrophe. Migration had not only more wide- spread, but also chaotic character. The census scheduled for December of 1932 had not been carried out. During this period, the only method that al- lowed obtaining data on the population was local census. In January of 1931, a local census of Kuzbass urban population was held. A valuable statis- tical source on the history of urbanization of Siberia was the reregistration of urban population in 1931, dedicated to the issuance of "fence books". On February, 15, 1932 housing and communal census of Novosibirsk was held. The comparison of the data of the census of cattle and tax records of 1932- 1936, allowed revealing the number of rural population. Thus, the compari- son of all mentioned sources provided quite reliable information. These data, in the absence of other sources, allowed tracing general trends in the devel- opment of both urban and rural population of Western Siberia.
local census, statistics, demographic history, population, number, social structure, gender, age, migrations, accounting error
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