ABSTRACT
The Soviet Union was a large and diverse empire founded in 1917, which not only created a distinct pattern of social policy amongst the 15 republics that it contained, but imposed this pattern in large part on many other countries of Central Europe. Changes in economic and ideological balance have been clearly reflected in changing social concerns, expenditure priorities and planning mechanisms. Social policy is divided into six periods: utopian, urban, industrial, welfare, and stability/productivity. Distinct patterns of social politics are also associated with those periods. In education the most vexed question was over the relative status of minority and Russian language teaching, since a disproportionate amount of published material, official documents, and even alphabet development was in Russian rather than native languages. The close link between occupation and welfare is thus one important model of Soviet welfare.
