Editor's Introduction

Abstract

Like so much of the recent social science literature, Soviet discussions of migration processes provide abundant evidence of the serious problems confronting Soviet society. The lead article in our current issue, by L. L. Rybakovskii and N. V. Tarasova ("Migration Processes in the USSR: New Phenomena") focuses on two particularly troubling aspects of recent population movements. The first of these concerns the markedly differing quality of population outflows and inflows in recent years. The authors characterize the outflow as a "brain drain" since it includes substantial numbers of skilled technical personnel and representatives of the creative intelligentsia (the article provides data on the ethnic groups involved and the countries to which they have emigrated). The population inflow, on the other hand, although obviously quite small, has included mainly unskilled laborers from Vietnam and North Korea. Such international migration flows have clearly contributed to "a deterioration in the labor potential of the country." The other problem discussed in some detail by the authors concerns the connection between domestic migration processes and the recent rise in interethnic tensions—what the authors characterize as "the problem of [domestic—M.Y.] refugees." This involves not only involuntary population movements associated with open and sometimes bloody groups conflicts (among, for example, Armenians and Azerbaidzhanians), but also the ouflow of Slavic nationalities from the country's southern republics, a process that the authors anticipate will soon characterize the Baltic republics. Soviet migration processes in many of the republics are now affected by the latter's attempts to move toward a "monoethnic population." This article is particularly valuable for its abundant empirical documentation.