ABSTRACT
Thirty-five years ago the Soviet Union embarked on a program of rapid economic development under a system of national economic planning administered by a socialist form of government. From a demographic point of view, the population of a country may be characterized under five headings: the over-all rate of growth; the rate of fertility; the rate of mortality; the distribution of the population by age and sex; and its composition according to various socioeconomic criteria. In one important respect, however, the pattern of Soviet population growth may be characterized as inherently stable–namely, in the over-all rate of growth. A reasonably high rate of natural increase of the population has the same implications for the ultimate development of the Soviet Union as a whole that a high rate of population immigration did for the United States. It provides a growing manpower base necessary for the exploitation and utilization of a broad expanse of territory.
