ABSTRACT
The population issue in the Soviet Union was either ignored or considered of little importance until relatively. Mortality has shown some strange behavior and a hall in the Soviet Union. From a pattern of remarkable success in the postwar period in further lowering both the overall crude death rate and the infant mortality rate, something seems to have gone awry. With a larger population of older people, and their relatively higher age-specific death rates, the crude death rate will concomitantly be driven upward. During the period 1970-85, the net increase in the population 20-59 years of age will be 30 million. During the period 1985-2000, the estimated increase will be only 6 million, or one-fifth the Prior increase. Additional efforts, the launching of research in medical demography, and another major decree on health in the summer of 1982 indicate continuing high-level concern about the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics's deteriorating health and death rates.
