ABSTRACT
Much has been written about the implications that ethnic and demographic trends in Soviet Central Asia might hold for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the Central Asian population of the Soviet Union has been growing more than three to four times as fast as the USSR's ethnic Russian population. At a time of enormous, and rising, economic, social, and nationalist pressures throughout the USSR, these demographic trends raise serious questions concerning the future both of Soviet Central Asia and of the USSR as a whole. The chapter discusses some of the key demographic trends suggest, and raises questions concerning their implications for the future. Beginning in the 1960s, demographic trends in the Soviet Central Asian republics have been marked by two fundamental changes in population size and composition: the total republican populations began to grow rapidly, and the local nationalities began to comprise an increasing proportion of these total populations.
