Twenty-sixth Congress Research Articles

International Conference on Social Development and Social Work Education

The Twenty-Sixth Congress of the International Association ofSchools of Social Work (IASSW) and the Seventh International Conferenceof the Inter-University Consortium for International Social Development(IUCISD) was held during 13-19 July 1992, in Washington, DC.These biennial international conferences are held simultaneously in thesame location to encourage interested social work educators to participatein the activities of both conferences.IASSW represents the interests of almost two thousand schools of socialwork and training institutes worldwide. The theme of the 1992 conferencewas "Realities of Global Interdependence: Challenges to SocialWork Education." Papers presented spanned the wide range of interestsof social work educators, from practice theory formulations to curriculumdevelopment to indigenous case materials. They also dealt with many diversefields of social work practice, for example, from family and childwelfare to rural and urban community development. Papers also dealt withclinical practice interests, polity, planning, and social development issues.IUCISD is a younger multidisciplinary organization of social workeducators and other allied professionals with an interest in the broaderarea of international social development. The theme of the IUCISD 1992conference was “Strategies of Social Development for Improving the HumanCondition.” Papers presented covered diverse topics, including socialwelfare provisions in Eastern Europe and countries of the former SovietUnion, peace and development, sustainable agriculture, refugees, socialdevelopment skills, social development and indigenous populations, socialdevelopment and aging populations, social development and children, andmany others ...

Twenty-sixth Congress of the International Geographical Union (26th International Geographical Congress), held in the University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, during 21–26 August 1988

Twenty-sixth Congress of the International Geographical Union (26th International Geographical Congress), held in the University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, during 21–26 August 1988 - Volume 16 Issue 1

The Life Cycle and Urgent Problems of the Rural Family

To strengthen the family as the most important unit in socialist society; to create conditions more conducive for women to combine motherhood with participation in the workforce and civic activity; to improve the system of public child and invalid care; to increase the average lifespan and the population's involvement in the labor process—such are some of the most important objectives of the Communist party's policy for social development, advanced at the Twenty-sixth CPSU Congress. The measures aimed at achieving these goals, which may be defined as comprising a demographic policy, constitute a relatively new course in improving the nation's prosperity. Its effectiveness depends to a considerable extent on the scientific soundness of its approach. The present study offers one way of defining the objects of demographic policy, namely, the socio-demographic groups within the population. A demographic typology of families, based on the stages of family life, was used to divide the population into groups. Th...

The Standard of Living in Siberia Compared with Other Regions of the RSFSR

The task of evening out differences between standards of living in different parts of the country, advanced by the Twenty-sixth Congress of the CPSU, entails the creation of those conditions most conducive to meeting the great diversity of existing demands, while taking into account the natural, climatic, demographic, economic, and sociocultural features of each region of the country. This requires employing a differentiated approach to living standards in different regions, since the substance and acuteness of problems associated with living standards differ considerably. Compiling differentiated and coordinated regional forecasts for raising living standards, as well as programs of social development based on these forecasts, must rest on a clear notion of the urgency of the problems in each region and the priority that should be accorded to them.

The Zigzag Path of the Iranian Revolution

In the documents of the Twenty-sixth Congress of the CPSU the Iranian Revolution is called "a major event in international affairs in recent years"; in addition, its "distinctive character" and "complexity and contradictoriness" were underscored and note was made of attempts by the internal and external forces of reaction to change its populist and anti-imperialist content. In connection with the Islamic slogans put forward both in Iran and in other countries of the Middle East, it was noted that: "The main issue is that of the objectives being pursued by the forces putting forward this slogan. A struggle for liberation can develop under the banner of Islam. Historical experience, including the most recent events, shows this. But it also shows that the forces of reaction use Islamic slogans to foment counterrevolutionary insurrections. The whole point, therefore, is what is the real content of one or another movement."1

On the Issue of Material Non-Monetary Work Incentives

The documents of the Twenty-sixth Congress of the CPSU repeatedly emphasized the need to make better use of material and moral incentives in order to play a more effective role in increasing the efficiency of production and labor productivity. In a report published to mark the 165th anniversary of the birth and 100th anniversary of the death of Karl Marx, Iu. V. Andropov noted that: We have been employing a system of material and moral incentives for a long time. This system has served us well in the past in our struggle to achieve socialism and communism. However, today both the system itself and its forms and practices require further improvement.1

The Zigzag Path of the Iranian Revolution

In the documents of the Twenty-sixth Congress of the CPSU the Iranian Revolution is called "a major event in international affairs in recent years"; in addition, its "distinctive character" and "complexity and contradictoriness" were underscored and note was made of attempts by the internal and external forces of reaction to change its populist and anti-imperialist content. In connection with the Islamic slogans put forward both in Iran and in other countries of the Middle East, it was noted that: "The main issue is that of the objectives being pursued by the forces putting forward this slogan. A struggle for liberation can develop under the banner of Islam. Historical experience, including the most recent events, shows this. But it also shows that the forces of reaction use Islamic slogans to foment counterrevolutionary insurrections. The whole point, therefore, is what is the real content of one or another movement."1

The Role of Price in the Management of Technical Progress

The acceleration of scientific-technical progress is a key condition to the conversion of the economy to the path of intensive development. In the years that have elapsed since the Twenty-sixth CPSU Congress, definite successes have been scored in the technical retooling of industry and agriculture and in raising the technical level of output. The party and the government have set the task of securing the further acceleration of the rates of scientific-technical progress and improving its management in all links of the national economy. The extraordinary March (1985) Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee noted the need to reach the most advanced scientific-technical positions, the highest level of social labor productivity in the world in a short period of time.

The Customary and the Unapparent in Capacity Utilization

As noted at the Twenty-sixth Party Congress, the improvement of the utilization of production capacities and productive fixed capital is one of the directions of economic intensification.

Psychology Working for the School Reform

The Twenty-sixth CPSU Congress and the subsequent CPSU Central Committee Plenums have placed before Soviet science the crucial task of heightening efficiency in incorporating the results of scientific research into socialist construction, in order to promote scientific and technological progress, a rise in labor productivity, the upbringing of the new man, and the optimization of all spheres of life in developed socialist society. Psychology has an important role to play in addressing this task.

Scientific-Technical Progress: Economic Problems

The Twenty-sixth CPSU Congress posed the task of subordinating the development of science and technology to the realization of the economic and social tasks of Soviet society, to accelerating the conversion of the economy to the path of intensive development, and to increasing the effectiveness of social production to an ever greater degree. At the extraordinary February (1984) Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, Comrade K. U. Chernenko stated: "Intensification, the accelerated introduction of advances of science and technology into production, and the implementation of large-scale, integrated programs must ultimately raise our society's productive forces to a qualitatively new level."

Some Ways of Increasing Educational Efficiency

Improvement in the public education and occupational training of young people are an integral part of the optimization of developed socialist society. The shift to intensive economic development, the actualizaton of a broadscale, integral socioeconomic program, the ongoing expansion and reinforcement of socialist democracy, the practical construction, in the main and basically, of a classless social structure, and the shaping of the new man elicit an imperative demand for far-reaching change within the educational system. At the Twenty-sixth CPSU Congress, a definition for development in our society over the current decade was followed by a call "to enhance the operational efficiency of all the units and forms of education and cadre training." [1]

Increasing the Return on Industry's Fixed Capital

The Twenty-sixth Congress and subsequent plenums of the CPSU Central Committee noted that the problem of increasing the return on the existing production potential and using fixed capital and new capacities to the fullest merits our most serious attention. Only highly productive technology, writes K. U. Chernenko, multiplied by the general economic interest in its application, can make an overdue economic breakthrough a reality, can couple two revolutions—the scientific and technological revolution and the social revolution, and can with new vigor reveal the advantages of the socialist organization of production.1

Strengthening the Scientific Foundations of the Activity of the Organs of Internal Affairs

The political line of the Twenty-sixth Congress of the CPSU, developed in resolutions of subsequent plenums of the CPSU Central Committee and in speeches by the General Secretary of the Committee and Chairman of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet K. U. Chernenko, embodies the scientific strategy of the Party and the socialist state for comprehensive improvement in the society of mature socialism. Grounded in political and scientific realism in its analysis, evaluation, and creative development of the general concept and key problems of scientific socialism, the Party has defined the immediate and long-term goals, the role, the place, and the concrete tasks of political, state, ideological, and economic institutions in communist construction.

Capital Investment Effectiveness in Planning

The present stage of intensification of social production and the tasks posed by the Twenty-sixth CPSU Congress and subsequent plenums of the CPSU Central Committee relating to the identification of reserves for increasing effectiveness in various sectors of the national economy, including capital construction, make new demands on the methodology used to calculate effectiveness in the planning process. The possible directions of improvement of methodology include: making the methodology reflect the relationship between the effectiveness of capital investments and the final national economic result; norming the indicators of their overall effectiveness; using indicators and norms of effectiveness to substantiate the priorities of individual directions of capital investment.

Curtailment of Manual Labor—A Key Social and Economic Task

The Twenty-sixth CPSU Congress posed the task of curtailing manual, especially unskilled, labor in the national economy as one of the most important problems in the nation's social and economic development. What are the reasons behind the preservation of manual labor and how can it be reduced?

Planning the Fuel-Energy Complex under Conditions of Intensification

The development of the national economy in the present stage means following the social production intensification policy indicated by the Twenty-sixth CPSU Congress and subsequent plenums of the CPSU Central Committee. Performing these tasks requires the further improvement of the methods used in the planned management of intensification and of the evaluation of the system of priorities and the directions of relatively more rapid development of individual interbranch complexes that promote the conversion of the economy to the intensive path of development. The fuel-energy complex (FEC) acquires special importance in this regard.

Robotics and Its Efficiency

To perform the tasks assigned by the Twenty-sixth CPSU Congress pertaining to the acceleration of scientific and technical progress mainly entails the production and deployment of industrial robots. At the June (1983) Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, Iu. V. Andropov noted the need to automate production, to secure the broadest possible use of computers and robots, and to introduce flexible technologies.

Problems of Teaching Six-Year-Old Children in School and Kindergarten

Among the socioeconomic developmental perspectives endorsed by the Twenty-sixth Congress of the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union), was the task of preparing for the gradual transition to the enrollment of six-year-old children in [the first grade of) school, in a five-day school week program. The basic guidelines to be used in tackling this socio-pedagogical task were laid down in a resolution that was issued jointly by the Central Committee of the CPSU and the USSR Council of Ministers on January 22, 1981 (no. 108).

Increasing the Effectiveness of the System for the Preparation of School Pupils for Labor

The Twenty-sixth Congress of the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union) posed the task of improving the preparation of general education school pupils for socially useful labor, of intensifying work related to pupil vocational guidance, and of strengthening the bond between education and life. This task was concretized in the decisions of the June (1983) Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee. A decisive role in its realization belongs to teachers. A great deal also depends on the public education authorities, who are the organizers of pedagogical work, and on educationists and their recommendations addressed to classroom teachers. Educational research is being called upon to give teachers the requisite direction to make the content, forms, and methods of pupil labor training correspond to contemporary demands, and educational administration is being called upon to create optimal conditions for the teachers who are responsible for labor training. Further improvement in the content, methods, and organiza...