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.     

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES IN SOVIET FOREST MANAGEMENT

Exploitation of forest resources in the USSR requires choices among a set of uses which are at times mutually exclusive. Trees have predominantly been used in industry, often harvested by methods which have caused environmental damage and have not allowed for optimum utilization of the resource. It appears that increasing recognition is given to other functions of forest stands, including food supply, social recreation, and non-consumptive uses such as ecosystem preservation and environmental amelioration.     

AGRICULTURAL COOPERATION AND AGRIBUSINESS IN SOVIET TRANSCAUCASIA

The author, an authority on the agriculture of Transcaucasia, traces the evolution of the new Soviet system of interfarm integration at the rayon (minor civil division) level and the development of a new agribusiness administration combining all farm-related and food-related activities. Since the initial experimentation with rayon-level integration (known by the Russian acronym RAPO) in the Georgian SSR in the early 1970s (notably in Abasha Rayon), the RAPO system of administration has been introduced throughout the Soviet Union. As of Jan. 1, 1984, there were 3,109 RAPO administrations in the USSR, comprising 95,975 separate enterprises with a total employment of 33.6 million people. The enterprises included 50,435 farms (mainly the nation's 26,000 collective farms and 23,000 state farms), 7,849 agricultural processing plants, 19,587 agricultural service enterprises and 7,361 rural construction agencies. The RAPO system of administration constitutes the lowest level of a new agribusiness hierarchy of management, represented at the republic and national levels of government by the consolidated Agroprom (Agribusiness) agencies.     

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。     

TWO REFORMS IN HISTORY

AccordingtoapolicyproposedbyZhangYintangintheearly1900s,newspapersandbankswouldbecreatedtohelpwithlocaldevelopment.Thepolicywasmeanttoconsolidatethesouthwesternbordersthrougheconomicdevelopment.However,thisplanforreformfailed.Inthe1920s,the13thDalaiLamameanttoputanendtotheTibet'sclosed-doorstancetowardtheoutsideworld.Unfortunately,thisreformfailed,too.Eventhoughthetwoattemptsatreformwereintroducedunderdifferenthistoricalbackdrops,theyfailedforthesamereason;theyviolatedthevestedinterestofthe…     

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.     

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.)     

IN SEARCH OF COMMUNITY HISTORY

Abstract

This editorial response to the preceding article by Dennis Mills addresses the meaning of community history. Rejecting an over-tight definition, we argue for a methodologically distinct community history, combining a micro-historical approach with a sensitivity to the discursive construction of the term ‘community’. Furthermore the role of family and community historians should be to adapt a critical stance towards contemporary meanings of both past ‘communities’ and past ‘families’, The article concludes that Withington and Shephard’s schema for approaching the history of ‘community’ offers a practical way forward for the family and community historian.     

假面一笑舞人生

一张张无声的假面,或愤怒、或讥笑、或开心、或忧郁;轻轻开合假面活动的下腭,一颦一笑都承载了悠久时光里,丰富多彩的社会功用。     

THE SOVIET OIL INDUSTRY IN THE TWELFTH FIVE-YEAR PLAN

The article briefly considers the question of conservation and oil displacement in recent years. It then focuses on the problem of petroleum supplies, on the factors affecting their expansion, and on Soviet efforts and plans in the field. Investment growth in the oil industry and its regional allocation in the 1980s and beyond are examined. The nature and thrust of the exploratory effort, its relationship to the new reserve classifications, and to prospects for the Soviet oil industry are analyzed. Finally, the causes of the current rebound in output and Soviet plans for field development are assessed.     

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.)     

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.     

COMMUTING IN SMALL AND MIDDLE-SIZE TOWNS OF SOVIET GEORGIA

The author takes issue with the view expressed by M. I. Artamonov, an archeologist, that an ethnos, or ethnic group, represents a social state rather than a process. In the author's view, ethnos IS a vast system in constant development, which tends to be stabilized by endogamy and undermined by exogamy. An ethnic hierarchy is proposed to illustrate the process of ethnogenesis. It ranges from the lowest order of ethnic grouping, a consortium, through subethnos, ethnos and superethnos to mankind as a whole. Each order in the hierarchy is distinguished by particular forms of associations, trends of development and culminating phases. The concept of ethnos as an ongoing process is illustrated with reference to ethnic change in ancient China and in the Ottoman empire.