Extraordinary Longevity in the Soviet Union:Fact or Artifact?

Much of the debate about the role of age exaggeration in reports of extraordinary longevity has taken place in this journal; the Soviet Union has been at the center of the controversy. This paper describes our analyses of Soviet mortality and census data from 1959 and 1970, which provide significant evidence effectively negating previous claims of extraordinary Sovietlongevity. The results from our study strongly suggest that the true number of centenarians is but a small fraction of that reported.