Some Issues of Regional Inequality in the USSR under Gorbachev

Abstract

OZORNOY G. I. (1991) Some issues of regional inequality in the USSR under Gorbachev, Reg. Studies 25, 381–393. Official Soviet policy statements have long espoused the objectives of equalizing development levels and living standards among the country's diverse nationalities and regions. Consequently, Soviet economic planners have attempted—with indifferent success—to reconcile salient spatial discrepancies between resource distribution and economic activity. This paper demonstrates that since the late 1950s, little has been accomplished in this area, in real terms. Even if the centre has the will to narrow these disparities, the task will be exceedingly difficult. It is suggested that radical economic reform will, if implemented, tend actually to promote centrifugal forces. It is also suggested that almost any version of republican economic sovereignty will, in the absence of a fully marketized economy, widen economic disparities between republics. OZORNOY G. I. (1991) Quelques questions concernant l'ineg...