Regional Patterns of Population Change in the Soviet Union 1959-1979

Abstract

rT HE Soviet Union has undergone tremendous and, at times, traumatic population change. From approximately the beginning of this century through World War II, the country suffered huge population losses from war, revolution, civil war and internal strife, and famine, while major alterations of the economic landscape led to a large-scale geographical redistribution of the population through both interregional and rural-to-urban migration. These demographic trends are well covered elsewhere, and I shall touch on them here only insofar as later events are concerned.' My attention in this article centers on population change in the USSR in the post-World War II era, and I utilize recently published materials from the Soviet census of 1979 and data from the earlier enumerations of 1959 and 1970 which, taken together, allow for both a meaningful longitudinal analysis and an examination of the spatial dimensions of population change.2 Specifically the aspects of population change that will be detailed here are regional population growth and redistribution-both in the aggregate and for the urban and rural components-and urbanization. Beyond the description of these patterns, explanations will be offered to the extent that current concepts and available information allow. Beyond the intrinsic interest of these topics for scholars, the elements of population change in temporal and spatial contexts provide insights into socioeconomic conditions that are the object of government policies. For example, changes in the size and the geographical distribution of the urban population are determined largely by economic factors; this aspect of population change can thus be used to evaluate policies of the Soviet government designed to shape the course of regional economic development. On the other hand, the universal experience with population change indicates that demographic trends not only are passive, that is, determined by other factors, but also are active in the broader social, economic, and political arenas. Hence interregional differentials in the rate of population growth, particularly when these differentials are along ethnic lines, may portend serious problems, as is the case in the USSR. It is therefore important to examine population change in light of policies intended to influence demographic trends directly or indirectly and to suggest likely implications of the trends. In broad overview of the demographic situation in the USSR, the period after World War II is notable for a reversal of earlier trends in regional population redis-