people counted fictitiously somewhere ( orig. used in refer, to serfs who had died in the period between two censuses but were still counted in the rolls)
dead souls.
Они с Ганичевым подсчитали: подписка (на заем) пошла в гору. Нажим помог. Но до плановой цифры все ещё было далеко. Тогда Лукашин опять стал доказывать, что добрая треть этой суммы падает на мёртвых душ, на тех, кто только на бумаге числится в колхозе (Абрамов 1). .. Не and Ganichev tallied the pledges (to contribute to the government loan) and saw that things were looking up. The pressure had helped, but they were still far from the Plan target. Lukashin again tried to show that a good third of the target sum fell on dead souls, that is. on people who were in the kolkhoz on paper only (1a).