JOURNAL OF EURASIAN STUDIES Journal of the Gábor Bálint de ...

January-March 2013 JOURNAL OF EURASIAN STUDIES Volume V., Issue 1.
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The health care system, therefore, ran parallel to material conditions as well as depended on
improvements in the environment and the general standard of living. Socialized medicine did receive a
great deal of the credit for such improvements. Wide health coverage, along with improved sanitation,
clean water supply and reasonably good nutrition meant that the USSR was able to achieve high rates of
immunization and deliver key interventions to improve infant and child mortality and reduce rates of
communicable diseases. For example, following the introduction of universal childhood immunization
in the late 1950s, diphtheria was well controlled for more than two decades with incidence levels in the
USSR in the mid 1970s similar to those of the USA at 0.08 per 100,000. 74
Analysis
The health system functioned with excellent results. The life expectancy in Kazakhstan reached in the
1970s the levels close to those observed in Eastern Europe and European Russia as the average age of a
Kazakh increased from mere 32 years in 1917 to 68.81 years (63.90 for men and 73.40 for women). 75 It was
primarily because a wide range of preventive medicine including massive programmes of vaccination
was carried out throughout the Union and accordingly by the year 1964, mortality and life expectancy
indicators improved throughout the USSR. 76 The general population of all republics including
Kazakhstan grew simultaneously from 232.2 million to 271.2 million between the years from 1965 to
1982, an increase of 17%. 77 These were no mean achievements, given that the Soviet Union was far more
backward as compared to most of Europe at the time of the Russian Revolution in 1917. 78 The Soviet
Union was industrially and technologically underdeveloped, by Western standards. Kazakhstan’s socio-
economic conditions were even worse than those of Russia at the time of Revolution. Disease and
unsanitary living conditions were accepted as a normal part of life by the majority of the Kazakh
population, before the Revolution. Moreover, during World War II the Soviet Union faced devastation
and loss of lives (particularly both in Russia and Kazakhstan) that was greater than the rest of Europe
put together. 79 The Soviet medical system helped carry the population through severe hardships and
raised the life expectancy and living conditions to 20 th century Western standards, as compared with
countries with similar per capita income levels. 80 These gains were important to help the country to
recover.
74 Michael Borowitz & Rifat Atun, “The Unfinished Journey from Samashko to Bismarck: Health reform in Central Asia from
1991 to 2006”, Central Asian Survey, Vol. 25, No.4, 2006, p. 421.
75 WHO, regional office for Europe, 1994; Michael Borowitz & Rifat Atun, Central Asian Survey, Vol. 25, No.4, p. 421.
76 Soviet life expectancy for women was 74 years and for men 66, while as in 1913 it was just under 32 years; USSR: Questions
and Answers, 1917-1967, p. 316; The New Man In Soviet Union, p. 184.
77 Health in the USSR: Organization, Trends, And Ethics, pp. 119-120.
78 Mark. G. Field, Health Care in Central Asia, pp. 67-68.
79 The difficult decade of the 1930s was followed by World War II devastations, massive losses of population were estimated at
26 to 27 million or13.5% of the pre-war population; the population that survived endured horrific conditions including disease,
severe rationing and malnourishment, and dislocation; Elizabeth Brainerd, The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 70, pp. 95-99;
Amit Sen. Gupta, The Soviet Health System, Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Nov.18, 2007.
80 Elizabeth Brainerd, The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 70, pp. 83.
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