We use 1913 as the starting date instead of 1917 when the Russian Revolution occurred. Some capitalist historians think it is fair not to blame the capitalist system for the deaths of World War I and 1913 was the last year before World War I.

In 1924 Lenin died and Stalin came to power in the USSR. In 1953 Stalin died. Khruschev denounced Stalin in 1956 in his "secret speech." It's been downhill to capitalism ever since in the USSR.

Year	USSR infant deaths per 1000	USA infant deaths per 1000
1913	273	99.9
1940	184	47.0
1950	81	29.2
1953	68	27.8
1956	47	26.0

Source: John F. Kantner, "Basic Demographic Comparisons Between the USSR and the United States," (1959)...paper submitted to the Subcommittee on Economic Statistics of the Joint Economic Committee, Eighty-sixth Congress, First Session, Washington, DC. in Alex Inkeles & Kent Geiger, eds. Soviet Society: A Book of Readings (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1961), p. 18.

[August, 2002 addendum: MIM has shown this table to a lot of people who said, "so what?" It occurred to MIM that this was a result of the fact of poor education. The above table represents the fastest increase in life expectancy in history up to 1950. What Mao did after 1950 was the same, but for a larger population.

The anti-communist agitators focus on individual horror stories, of which there are always millions in any society of hundreds of millions. Anti- communism relies on the "cheap shot" and mathematical illiteracy for its effect.

The kind of progress seen in this table represents MILLIONS OF LIVES SAVED PER YEAR (and not millions saved in 30 years of Stalin's rule, but in EACH INDIVIDUAL year.)

Let me explain. You take the population of a country, and divide it by 1000. That's how many thousands there are in that country. Then multiply that by the improvement in the mortality rate per 1000, say between 1913 and 1953, and then you know how many lives were saved in 1953 because of advances since 1913. Anyone who does this will see why Stalin is still a beloved leader in Russia, second after Lenin according to public opinion polls. ]