Huh? The population was booming in the post-war USSR as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demo

Huh? The population was booming in the post-war USSR as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Soviet_Uni... Compare with the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Sta... And population growth in the pre-WW1 Russian Empire was even higher, despite having regular food shortage and hunger period. In general, pre-industrial agrarian societies tend to have much higher birth rates than industrial and post-industrial ones. For some strange reason the US nowadays is comparable in the percentage of prisoners in USSR in worst Gulag years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_United_States_incarceration_rate_with_other_countries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_United_States_in... I don't have an explanation here, TBH. The US is a rich and socially advanced country. In comparison to Europe this feels very wrong.