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The article is devoted to the debates on Boris Mironov's book ‘The Standard of Living and Revolution in Imperial Russia, 1700–1917’. Using the aggregate data of male height at recruitment and the estimated net grain harvests, Boris Mironov tries to prove that in the period from 1866 to 1913 there was a significant rise in the Russian population's living standards. The author of the present article shows that Mironov's conclusions are based on misinterpretation of available anthropometric data sources and that in fact the average height of the draftees hardly increased. There is another similar error, which is connected with Mironov's incorrect assessment of the fodder consumption when calculating the grain and fodder balance. These errors invalidate Mironov's assertion that subsistence needs of the Russian peasantry were met quite ‘sufficiently both in quantity and in quality’. 

История России, революции