1. I. S., Koropeckyj, “Equalization of Regional Development in Socialist Countries: An Empirical Study” Economic Development and Cultural Change, 21, no. 1 (October 1972): 68 Google Scholar.

2. Gregory J. Massell, “Modernization and National Policy in Soviet Central Asia: Problems and Prospects,” in Cocks, Paul, Daniels, Robert V., and Heer, Nancy Whittier, eds., The Dynamics of Soviet Politics (Cambridge, Mass., 1976), p. 265 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3. Pravda, December 22, 1972, p. 5.

4. Vsevolod Holubnychy, “Some Economic Aspects of Relations Among the Soviet Republics, “in Erich, Goldhagen, ed., Ethnic Minorities in the Soviet Union (New York, 1968), p. 1968 Google Scholar and Koropeckyj, “Equalization of Regional Development,” pp. 79-80.

5. Gertrude E. Schroeder, “Regional Differences in Incomes and Levels of Living in the USSR, “in Bandera, V. N. and Melnyk, Z. L., eds., The Soviet Economy in Regional Perspective (New York, 1973), p. 1973 Google Scholar and Henry W. Morton, “What Have Soviet Leaders Done About the Housing Crisis? “in Morton, Henry W. and Tökés, Rudolf L., eds., Soviet Politics and Society in the I970's (New York, 1974), p. 1974 Google Scholar.

6. John M., Echols, “Politics, Budgets, and Regional Equality in Communist and Capitalist Systems” Comparative Political Studies, 8, no. 3 (October 1975): 271–73Google Scholar; Jack Bielasiak, “Policy Choices and Regional Equality among the Soviet Republics,” American Political Science Review, 74, no. 2 (June 1980): 399; Nove, Alec and Newth, J. A., The Soviet Middle East: A Communist Model of Development (New York, 1967), p. 1967 Google Scholar; Martin C. Spechler, “Regional Developments in the USSR, 1958-78,” in U.S. Congress, Joint Economic Committee, Soviet Economy in a Time of Change, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C., 1979), p. 145; and James W., Gillula, “The Economic Interdependence af Soviet Republics” in Soviet Economy in a Time of Change, p. 620 Google Scholar.

7. Schroeder, Gertrude E., “Soviet Regional Policies in Perspective,” in The USSR in the 1980s (Brussels, 1978), p. 131 Google Scholar; Echols, “Politics, Budgets, and Regional Equality,” p. 271; Bielasiak, “Policy Choices and Regional Equality,” pp. 397-400; Elizabeth M., Clayton, “Regional Consumption Expenditures in the Soviet Union” ACES Bulletin, 17, no. 2-3 (Winter 1975): 35–43Google Scholar.

8. Peter, Zwick, “Ethnoregional Socio-Economic Fragmentation and Soviet Budgetary Policy” Soviet Studies, 31, no. 3 (July 1979): 395 Google Scholar.

9. Ellen, Mickiewicz, Handbook of Soviet Social Science Data (New York, 1973), pp. 35–40 Google Scholar.

10. Some of the most detailed analyses are offered by Alastair, McAuley, Economic Welfare in the Soviet Union (Madison, Wis., 1979 Google Scholar); Spechler, “Regional Developments in the USSR,” pp. 141-63; Gillula, “Economic Interdependence,” pp. 618-55; I. S. Koropeckyj, “National Income of the Union Republics in 1970: Revision and Some Applications,” in Fallenbuchl, Zbigniew M., ed., Economic Development in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, 2 vols. (New York, 1974-76), 1:287–331 Google Scholar; Schroeder, “Regional Differences,” pp. 167-95; and Gertrude, Schroeder, “Soviet Wage and Income Policies in Regional Perspective,” ACES Bulletin, 16, no. 2 (Fall 1974): 1–20 Google Scholar.

11. Unless otherwise noted, we use unweighted coefficients of variation, calculated according to the formula: x Xi = value of variable for the ith region; N = number of observations

12. See Brian, Silver, “Levels of Sociocultural Development Among Soviet Nationalities: A Partial Test of the Equalization Hypothesis” American Political Science Review, 68, no. 4 (December 1974): 1618–37Google Scholar and Carol Nechemias, “Regional Differentiation of Living Standards in the Russian Republic: The Issue of Inequality,” Soviet Studies, 32, no. 3 (July 1980): 366-78.

13. Resolutions adopted by the Tenth (1921) and Twelfth (1923) Communist Party Congresses called for industrial development and social investment in less developed regions as top priority (see KPSS v resoliutsiiakh i resheniiakh s “ezdov, konferentsii, i plenumov TsK, 7th ed., 2 vols. [Moscow, 1953], 1:559-60,713-14).

14. F. Douglas Whitehouse, “Demographic Aspects of Regional Economic Development in the USSR,” in Bandera, and Melnyk, , eds., The Soviet Economy in Regional Perspective, p. 155 Google Scholar.

15. Davies, R. W., The Development of the Soviet Budgetary System (Cambridge, 1958), pp. 305–306Google Scholar; Khrushchev, N. S., XX s “ezd KPSS, Stenograficheskii otchet (Moscow, 1956), p. 89 Google Scholar.

16. Advocates of equal industrial development include Bagdasarian, A. M., Sovetskii opyt ekonomicheskogo vyravnivaniia natsional'nykh respublik (Groznyi, 1971), p. 13 Google Scholar and Zakumbaev, A. K., Melody olsenki urovnia ekonomicheskogo razvitiia soiuznykh respublik i raionov (Alma-Ata, 1975), p. 14 Google Scholar.

17. Lychagin, V. A., Ekonomicheskieproblemy razvitiia natsii inatsional'nykh otnoshenii v SSSR na stadii razvitogo sotsializma (Saransk, 1975), pp. 119–20 Google Scholar and Zlatin, V. and Rutgaizer, V., “Comparison of the Levels of Economic Development of Union Republics and Large Regions” Problems of Economics, 12 (June 1969): 6–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18. K., Subbotina, Narodnoe obrazovanie ibiudzhet (Moscow, 1965), p. 90 Google Scholar; Basov, V. I., Obshchestvennye fondy potrebleniia i biudzhet (Moscow, 1967), pp. 105–106 Google Scholar.

19. This point has been emphasized repeatedly in debates on American public policy. See, for example, Ira, Sharkansky, The Politics ofTaxing and Spending (Indianapolis, 1969), pp. 190–98 Google Scholar; Lineberry, Robert L. and Welch, Robert E. Jr., “Who Gets What: Measuring the Distribution of Urban Public Services,” Social Science Quarterly, 54, no. 4 (March 1974): 700–12Google Scholar; and James S. Coleman, “Problems of Conceptualization and Measurement in Studying Policy Impacts,” in Dolbeare, Kenneth M., ed., Public Policy Evaluation (Beverly Hills, 1975), pp. 19–20 Google Scholar.

20. For a more comprehensive discussion, see Michael, Rywkin, “Central Asia and Soviet Manpower” Problems of Communism, 28, no. 1 (January-February 1979): 1–13Google Scholar and Murray Feshbach, “Prospects for Outmigration from Central Asia and Kazakhstan in the Next Decade,” in Soviet Economy in a Time of Change, pp. 656-709.

21. On the question of differences in regional efficiency, see Spechler, “Regional Developments in the USSR,” p. 149 and Whitehouse, “Demographic Aspects,” p. 156.

22. Elizabeth Clayton writes, for example, that cultural and biological differences modify the impact of health care policy in different regions (see Clayton, “Regional Distribution of Medical Services in the Soviet Union,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, October 1975, pp. 3-4).

23. See, for example, Zwick, “Ethnoregional Socio-Economic Fragmentation,” pp. 392-95.

24. This is the strategy used by Echols, “Politics, Budgets, and Regional Equality,” p. 261 and by Bielasiak, “Policy Choices and Regional Equality,” pp. 396-400.

25. Gillula, “Economic Interdependence,” pp. 619-36; Spechler, “Regional Development in the USSR,” p. 145; and Nove and Newth, Soviet Middle East, pp. 93 97.

26. Zwick reports CVs for the following variables in 1940 and 1970: 1940 1970 Doctors per capita 0.40 0.22 Hospital beds per capita 0.28 0.09 Kindergarten enrollment per population aged 10 and under 0.56 0.42 Higher education enrollment per capita 0.65 0.17 Zwick also reports that the number of primary-secondary schools per population aged 10 and under grew less equal in this period. However, as we note below, it is not clear that the sheer number of institutions is a useful measure of educational opportunity. These data are from Peter Zwick, “Intrasystem Inequality and the Symmetry of Socioeconomic Development,” Comparative Politics, 8, no. 4 (October 1976): 507. The conclusion that social welfare spending is not compensatory is from Zwick, “Ethnoregional Socio- Economic Fragmentation,” pp. 392-95.

27. Clayton, “Regional Consumption Expenditures,” pp. 27-46.

28. See the list of sources in note 10.

29. The rationale is that urbanization is essentially a process of population concentration and therefore can best be measured with a standard numerical criterion. This definition is offered by Leo F. Schnore, “The Statistical Measurement of Urbanization and Economic Development,” Land Economics, 37, no. 3 (August 1961): 229-45.

30. Zwick, “Intrasystem Inequality,” pp. 506-507.

31. Compare the differences between sown area and agricultural land, for example, in Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR v 1972 g. (Moscow, 1973), pp. 307, 315.

32. Ibid., pp. 23-31.

33. Holubnychy, “Some Economic Aspects of Relations,” p. 73 and Koropeckyj, “Equalization of ) Regional Development,” p. 79. Holubnychy does not include the three Baltic republics in this set of estimates, so the CV from his data understates the degree of inequality (since the Baltic region is at the : high end of the scale on industrialization). Both of the coefficients in the text are population-weighted, a necessity since Koropeckyj provides only weighted coefficients in his analysis.

34. Gillula, “Economic Interdependence,” p. 653.

35. Zwick, “Intrasystem Inequality,” pp. 507, 510.

36. This is based on the number of students in school per population aged 5-14: the CV equals 0.04 for 1970 and 0.07 for 1959 (no comparable data were available for earlier years). The source for the number of students is Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR v 1972 g., p. 633 and for the number of children, Itogi vsesoiuznoi perepisi naseleniia v 1970 g., 2:16-75.

37. Problems in interpreting budgetary data are explored in more depth in Donna Bahry, “Measuring Communist Priorities: Budgets, Investments, and the Problem of Equivalence,” Comparative Political Studies, 13, no. 3 (October 1980): 267-92.

38. Republic budgets, for example, accounted for only 47 percent of expenditures on economic development in 1970 and in 1975 (Gosudarstvennyi biudzhet SSSR i biudzhety soiuznykh respublik, 1971-1975 gg. [Moscow, 1976], p. 31).

39. See the list of ministries provided by Hough, Jerry F. and Fainsod, Merle, How The Soviet Union Is Governed (Cambridge, Mass., 1979), pp. 412–17Google Scholar.

40. Investment and population data are from Narodnue khoziaistvu SSSR v 1972 g., pp. 9, 484 and budget data from Gosudarstvennyi biudzhet SSSR i biudzhety soiuznykh respublik, 1966-1970 (Moscow, 1972), p. 33.

41. This is the basic difference among the works listed in note 6.

42. In 1960, the ratio of the highest ranking republic (Latvia) to the national average was 139, while the ratio of the lowest ranking region (Kirgizia) to the USSR average was 0.84—an absolute difference of 55 points. In 1970, the corresponding republics were Latvia and Uzbekistan, and the corresponding ratios were 126 and 74, respectively. The absolute difference in that year was 52 points, indicating that regional disparities had lessened slightly. That is the conclusion offered by Schroeder, “Regional Differences,” p. 183.

43. This method is employed by Morton in “What Have Soviet Leaders Done,” p. 170. For 1960, average housing space in developed regions (including the RSFSR, Ukraine, Belorussia, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Moldavia, and Georgia) equaled 9.83, while the average for the remaining seven republics equaled 7.81. For 1970, the averages were 11.84 and 9.16, respectively.

44. The CV, however, can assume two forms, and there are differing opinions about their relative advantages. One form is weighted by the size of each republic's population, which is appropriate if we want to emphasize the equality of people rather than regions. If people in the Baltic region, say, far surpass the rest of the Soviet population in health care or housing, a weighted CV would attach little importance to the differential, because the Baltic republics represent so small a share of the total Soviet population. By the same token, a smaller gap between Russia or the Ukraine and the other republics would have a far greater impact, making the coefficient larger simply because of their respective population sizes. An unweighted CV is appropriate if our real interest is in republics as units of analysis. In this case, if the Baltic republics'surpass the others, an unweighted CV attaches just as much importance to the gap as it would to a difference between any other regions. Since both Soviet and Western authors focus on republics as units of analysis, we chose here to use unweighted coefficients (except in our example on industrial production, where the only data available were weighted CVs).

45. Zwick, “Ethnoregional Socio-Economic Fragmentation,” p. 385.

46. Zwick, “Intrasystem Inequality,” p. 507.

47. Education expeditures are from Gosudarstvennyi biudzhet SSSR, 1966-1970, p. 38.

48. Spechler, “Regional Developments in the USSR,” p. 146.

49. Holubnychy, “Some Economic Aspects of Relations,” p. 65.

50. Koropeckyj, “Equalization of Regional Development,” p. 79.

51. Silver, “Levels of Sociocultural Development,” pp. 1618, 1637.

52. Ann, Sheehy, “Some Aspects of Regional Development in Soviet Central Asia” Slavic Review, 31, no. 3 (September 1972): 555 Google Scholar.

53. For an excellent analysis of Baltic nationalism, see V. Stanley Vardys, “The Baltic Peoples, “ Problems of Communism, 16, no. 5 (September-October 1967): 55-64 and Tonu Parming, “Population Processes and the Nationality Issue in the Soviet Baltic,” So v/W Studies, 32, no. 3 (July 1980): 398-414.

54. Arutiunian, Iu. V., “Konkretno-sotsiologicheskoe issledovanie natsional'nykh otnoshenii” Voprosy filosofii, 1969, no. 12, pp. 135–36Google Scholar; Juris Dreifelds, “Latvian National Demands and Group Consciousness Since 1959,” in Simmonds, George W., ed., Nationalism in the USSR and Eastern Europe in the Era of Brezhnev and Khrushchev (Detroit, 1977), p. 142 Google Scholar; Parming, “Population Processes and the Nationality Issue,” pp. 407-10.

55. Karl, Deutsch, Nationalism and Social Communications (Cambridge, Mass., 1953)Google Scholar. Although Deutsch modified his views in later writings, the basic thrust of his work does involve a predictive model linking modernization to social and political integration. Two important studies of Soviet regional development that test hypotheses drawn from Deutsch's theoretical constructs are: Brian Silver, “Social Mobilization and the Russification of Soviet Nationalities,” American Political Science Review, 68, no. 1 (March 1974): 45-66 and J. Dellenbrandt, “Regional Differences in the Soviet Union,” Research Center for Soviet and East European Studies, Uppsala University, 1977.

56. See, for example, Walker, Connor, “Nation Building or Nation Destroying?” World Politics, 24 (April 1972): 319–55Google Scholar and Anthony H., Birch, “Minority Nationalist Movements and Theories of Political Integration” World Politics, 30 (April 1978): 325–44Google Scholar.

57. Arutiunian, Iu. V., “Ethnosocial Aspects of the Internationalization of Way of Life,” Soviet Sociology, 18, no. 2 (Fall 1979): 7 Google Scholar.

58. Ibid.

59. Ibid., pp. 7-8.

60. Silver, “Social Mobilization,” pp. 59-64 and Brian Silver, “Language Policy and the Linguistic Russification of Soviet Nationalities,” in Azrael, Jeremy R., ed., Soviet Nationality Policies and Practices (New York, 1978), pp. 250–306 Google Scholar. I gratefully acknowledge the International Research and Exchanges Board and Monmouth College for grants used in the preparation of this article. 1 am indebted to the officers and staffs of the Central State Historical Archive (TsGIA) in Leningrad and the Manuscript Section of Lenin Library (ORGBL) and the Central State Archive of the October Revolution (TsGAOR) in Moscow for providing archival materials. An earlier version of the article was presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, 1978, in Columbus, Ohio.