ABSTRACT
The linguistic aspects of nationality relations are also a factor of no small importance in the present-day ideological struggle, especially vis-a-vis the numerous attacks by anticommunists on the Soviet approach to solving language problems within the context of the overall solution of the national question in our countries. The development of linguistic life in the multinational Soviet society is a dynamically evolving reality which gives rise to ever new problems and challenges. The correlation between the general and the particular in the panorama of linguistic life of the nations and nationalities of the USSR is revealed most strikingly in the 1979 census data. The widespread diffusion of various types of bilingualism, including national-language-Russian bilingualism, has not led to linguistic assimilation. In other words, the general line of development in our country’s linguistic life has been tending toward equalization among the union-republic nationalities with regard to the share of their members who are fluent in the language of inter-nationality communication.
