SPATIAL PATTERNS OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE SOVIET UNION

Analysis of spatial patterns of attained educational levels is helpful in understanding the cultural geography of an area, perhaps especially in the Soviet Union, with its many ethnic groups and stated aim of providing equality of education regardless of ethnicity or sex. The proportion of the population that had completed a higher education was mapped at oblast level from 1970 census data. High rates are found in certain urban areas, Estonia and Latvia, Georgia, and certain sparsely populated areas of the Far North, Siberia, and the Far East. There are regional patterns of disparity between male and female rates of completed higher education and between rural and urban rates, despite Soviet attempts to reduce these inequalities. The distribution of Soviet higher educational institutions conforms generally to the distribution of population, although access to higher education opportunities appears to be geographically limited in some regions. (Maps by Joann L. Krupa, George Mason University.)     

REGIONAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION'S EXPORT EARNINGS OUTSIDE THE FORMER SOVIET UNION AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR REGIONAL ECONOMIC AUTONOMY

The distribution of foreign export earnings by area of origin is analyzed for the Russian Federation, to convertible and non-convertible currency areas, as well as for four major commodity categories. The paper focuses on identifying, because of Russia's narrow export composition, oblast-level units (and commodities) that contribute disproportionately to the Federation's overall convertible currency earnings. It then explores the implications of the extremely uneven spatial districution of such earnings for the Russian government's efforts to devise a workable formula for distributing export revenues between the “Center” and the localities.     

前苏联的环境保护问题及其对中国生态文明建设的启示

环境问题是制约当今人类社会发展的重要问题,其中生态环境问题与国家兴衰、社会制度变革的关系成为可持续发展研究的一个热点。前苏联作为社会主义国家的代表,其环境问题及其与社会主义制度的兴衰关系引起了国际学术界的关注。在对前苏联环境问题、环境保护政策变迁及环境保护失败原因分析的基础上,研究认为严峻的国内外局势、畸形的经济发展模式和高度集中的政治体制等因素使得环境保护一直处在前苏联国家战略的边缘。随着中国经济发展受到资源与环境约束力增强,生态—环境问题开始成为左右政治生活的一个重要力量,生态文明建设对促进我国人与自然和谐发展、构建和谐社会具有重要意义。     

PANEL ON THE SOVIET UNION IN THE YEAR 2000

A panel of geographers debates possible future developments in the Soviet Union in regional and environmental policy, water resource management, agriculture, industry, energy, population, urban growth and planning, transportation, and foreign trade. The present emphasis on modernization of existing plant capacity in cities of the western, more heavily settled regions of the USSR seems destined to continue, although it will be constrained by a growing shortage of industrial labor, declining terms of trade and resource oversupply in increasingly competitive export markets, and the continued resistance of Central Asian populations to urbanization and industrial employment.     

MILK PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION IN THE SOVIET UNION

The magnitude of regional milk production and consumption imbalances is calculated using the most recent (1970) comprehensive set of data on Soviet milk production and consumption. The type and amount of inter-regional exchange this imbalance generates is then estimated, and the implications of the product's perishability on the need for differentiated regional development of the dairy industry are assessed.     

SOVIET ASIAN-PACIFIC TRADE AND THE REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

During the 1970s and early 1980s it was generally accepted, by both Soviet and Western specialists, that in the Soviet Far East the expansion of exports to the nations of the Pacific Basin offered a solution to the region's economic problems. However, recent policy statements suggest the rejection of this export-led development strategy. This study examines the changing structure and dynamics of Soviet trade with the Asian-Pacific region. At present, for a combination of economic and political reasons, Soviet trade with the Asian-Pacific region is dominated by exports of machinery and equipment and petroleum to the socialist nations of the region, inasmuch as Japanese demand for Soviet natural resources is stagnant. Therefore, because of the resource orientation of the Far Eastern economy, contemporary trade relations do not favor the expansion of the Soviet Far Eastern export base. Consequently, the future role of the region in the national economic system will be determined largely by the availability of domestic capital investment funds.     

INDUSTRIAL DISPERSION IN THE SOVIET UNION: AN APPLICATION OF ENTROPY MEASURES

Industrial dispersion across the republics of the USSR between 1926 and 1974 is described through the use of entropy measures. Ostensibly, a set of location principles would guide such dispersion, and several of them stress regional equalization as an important consideration in locating industry. Therefore, trends in regional inequality (in industrialization) are investigated through the use of inequality statistics derived from entropy measures at three different spatial scales. Between 1926 and 1960, inequality among the republics decreased, but has increased between 1960 and 1974. However, inequality has decreased between the economic regions of the USSR between 1940 and 1975, and at the oblast level, there has been a tendency toward greater equality (homogeneity) within each economic region or republic since 1960. In attempting to account for these diverse trends, it is suggested that they are largely the result of the priority of efficiency considerations in location decisions rather than those of regional equity per se.     

AN INVITATION FROM THE SOVIET UNION

OnJune3,1950,twoFrenchmountaineersnaurce(1919-)andLachenalLouis(1921-1955)scaledthe8,091-meterAnnapur-naPeakforthefirsttimeinhumanhistory.Theiraccomplishmentsoundedthebugleforassaultingpeakseachwithanelevationof8,000metersormore.InspiredbytheFrenchmountaineeringcirclesintheformerSovietUnionproposedtotheirChinesecounterpartsaplantoclimbtheworld'shighestpeakinChina-theQomolangmo.SovietmountaineersdecidedtojoinhandswiththeirChinesecounter-partsbecausetheirterritorycontainednomountainsthatris…     

REGIONAL INDUSTRIAL STRUCTURES AND ECONOMIC PROSPECTS IN THE FORMER USSR

The value of output, employment, and capital stock for each industrial sector for each oblast-level spatial unit in the former USSR, as well as differences in regional industrial structures are presented on the basis of a unique set of unpublished Goskomstat data. Particular emphasis is placed on asessing the regions' relative raw materials endowments, especially with respect to energy resources, and on the degree of diversification, or lack of same, within their industrial structures. The extremely uneven distribution of industrial capacity is examined in light of its role in determining the near- and longer-term economic prospects for the various republics and regions.     

THE NONCHERNOZEM DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM AND PROSPECTIVE SPATIAL SHIFTS IN GRAIN PRODUCTION IN THE AGRICULTURAL TRIANGLE OF THE SOVIET UNION

The Soviet program to proceed from further expansion of the grain area in the semi-arid steppe zone to intensification of graingrowing in the humid Nonchernozem Zone after decades of neglect is considered a landmark decision in the history of Soviet agriculture. If successfully carried out, the Nonchernozem program might yield by the late 1980s a grain increment equivalent to the amount now being imported by the Soviet Union for its own needs and for re-export to its allies. The implementation of the Non-chernozem program would also have consequences for regional grain-production patterns in the Soviet Union. The Nonchernozem Zone would be in a position to make a more significant contribution to the demand for grain in the industrial centers of European Russia, thus easing the pressure on the virgin lands of northern Kazakhstan and reducing the need for the present long grain hauls. Finally, a greater shift of grain production into the humid Nonchernozem would be in keeping with a program of water economies since grain output in the humid zone requires less than half of the water needed for grain production in the arid zone. The success of the Nonchernozem program is conditioned on greater attention to the development of rural infrastructure, particularly roads, which the author considers a key element in upgrading the agriculture of the region.     

REGIONAL GROWTH IN THE SOVIET ECONOMY A MODEL AND ANALYSIS*

A multiregional econometric model of the Soviet economy is presented. It consists of 1,391 equations, with time-series information for 1965-1980. In conformity with the number of the country's republics, 15 input-output tables are incorporated. The discussion includes the methodological framework, the structure and equations, theoretical justification for the interaction between the econometric and input-output components, data and estimation, and forecasting results.     

REGIONAL PREFERENCES AND CONCEPTS OF SOVIET YOUTH

Data obtained from a questionnaire is used to analyze the regional preferences and views of [graduating secondary] school students from several Soviet cities and of several groups of Muscovites (including also university students, geographers, and the intelligentsia) about a set of 20 regions of the USSR. A basic similarity of the preferences of young Muscovites with the preferences of their contemporaries from other cities is revealed. The differences in regional preferences of students from various portions of the country were found to be stronger than the differences in regional preferences among various groups of the population within a single city (Translated by Jay K. Mitchell, PlanEcon, Inc., Washington, DC 20005).     

长征中的中华苏维埃共和国国家银行

七十多年前中国工农红军长征的途中,中国革命的金融工作者也同红军战士一样进行了英勇的斗争。他们除了行军打仗外,在极其艰难的条件下还进行了大量的经济、金融工作,特别是利用有利时机适时发行苏维埃国家银行纸币,为迅速补充红军给养,促进部队战斗力的恢复做出了贡献。     

THE 1929 MEETING OF SOVIET GEOGRAPHY TEACHERS: A KEY EVENT IN THE HISTORY OF SOVIET ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

A Soviet economic geographer who participated in a 1929 conference of geography teachers describes the antecedents, the atmosphere and the proceedings of this crucial meeting in a stormy period of the discipline. It was a landmark in the history of Soviet economic geography in marking the beginning of the end of the old sectoral-statistical approach and inaugurating the new regional school led by N. N. Baranskiy.     

LOCATIONAL FACTORS OF MACHINE MANUFACTURING IN THE SOVIET NORTH

Arguments are marshaled against the location of machine manufacturing in the North. The location of suppliers and the location of the market are viewed as negligible factors because machinery plants generally are supplied from a large number of sources and serve a highly dispersed market. The crucial element is said to be the issue of labor resources, particularly skilled labor, and the associated infrastructure that would be needed in the North. It is also pointed out that machine manufacturing is traditionally most cost-effective in large urban centers and in older industrial areas where it benefits from the so-called agglomerative effect of locational factors. It is recommended that metal-fabricating activities in the North be restricted to essential equipment repairs and overhauls and occasional manufacture of nonstandard equipment, with greater use of centralized supplies of spare parts. (For an opposed view, see V. P. Yevstigneyev in Soviet Geography, May 1976.)