-Paolo Koch/Photo Researchers.

area, labor productivity tends to be much lower than in other parts of the Soviet Union.3 The labor-surplus area sometimes experiences localized shortages of manpower, but Soviet observers argue that these can be overcome by better use of manpower and accelerated village-to-city migration.4

While migration (both involuntary and voluntary) contributed to this maldistribution of manpower in the past, the major factor at present and for the future is the sharp differences in birth rates in the various portions of the USSR. These differences are generating a profound shift in the ethnic balance of the Soviet population. The Slavic peoples of the Soviet Union, standing on the threshold of a consumer society, have opted for a better material ex

3. For example, one study estimates the average annual rate of growth of factor productivity over the period 1961-70 to have been 2.4 percent for the Russian Federation and only 0.1 percent for Uzbekistan. See N. Bandera and Z.L. Melnyk, Eds., The Soviet Economy in Regional Perspective, New York, NY, Praeger Publishers, 1973, p. 157.

4. See, for example, Yu. V. Arutunyan, "Socioeconomic Conditions of the Development of Ethnic Processes in the USSR," Sovremennyye etnicheskiye protsessy v SSSR (Contemporary Ethnic Processes in the USSR), Moscow, Akademiya Nauk, 1974, p. 127.

istence at the expense of having children. Even crash programs of apartment construction have failed to offset declines in birth rates among Russians, Ukrainians, and Belorussians. From 1958-59 to 1974-75 the gross reproduction rates in the RSFSR, the Ukraine, and Belorussia dropped from figures in the range of 1.14-1.36 (1 = a roughly static population) to the exceptionally low range of only 0.98 for the RSFSR, 1.0 for the Ukraine, and 1.08 for Belorussia. By contrast, in Soviet Central Asia the Muslim majority-for the most part governed by different aspirations, life-style, and values-continues to look upon large families as living proof of improved material conditions. In 1974-75, the gross reproduction rates in the four Central Asian republics were in the range of 2.33-3.07.5

These differential rates have combined with other demographic factors to produce a sharp difference between the rates of population growth in the predominantly Slavic parts of the country and

5. A. Kvasha and G. Kiseleva, "Trends of Population Reproduction in the USSR," Vozobnovleniye pokolenii nashey strany (Rejuvenation of the Generations of Our Country), Moscow, Statistika, 1978, p. 7.

in Central Asia. For example, in 1975, the population of the Russian Federation (RSFSR) grew only at 5.9 per 1,000, while that of Uzbekistan increased by 27.3 per 1,000.6 Indeed, one recent Soviet study estimated that Soviet Central Asia now accounts for some 30 percent of all Soviet population growth (with Uzbekistan alone providing 20 percent of the total), and that by the year 2000 Central Asia would account for 50 percent of total population growth.?

Although some Soviet commentators question whether this momentum will continue,8 for the present it seems likely to do so-as the data in Table 1 indicate. Between 1959 and 1970, the share of the five principal Central Asian Muslim nationalities in the youngest population group (age 0 to 9 in the 1959 census and 0 to 10 in the 1970 census) increased from 8.97 to 14.97 percent. The preponderance of Russians over Central Asians in this age group dropped from 6:1 to only 3:1 during the 11-year period.

The consequence of these developments is that by the 1980's the rapidly growing Central Asian populations will be the major source of increments to the able-bodied population of working age and, indeed, may even be serving to offset net declines in other parts of the USSR.9 The critical issue is that these increments will become available in laborsurplus Central Asia, not in labor-deficit areas of the Soviet Union. Moreover, Soviet Muslims have shown little propensity to migrate out of their native republics, little enough out of Central Asia. According to the 1970 census, less than half a million Kazakhs❘ (or roughly 10 percent of that ethnic group) lived outside of Central Asia and Kazakhstan, and two thirds of those who did lived in contiguous areas of the RSFSR which Kazakh nomads formerly roamed. Only 3 percent of the Kazakhs and less than 1 percent of other Central Asian Muslim nationalities lived in portions of the Russian Federation exclusive of such border areas. 10 Therefore, migration would pre

6. Narodnoye khozyaystvo SSSR v 1975 godu (The USSR National Economy in 1975), Moscow, Statistika, 1976, pp. 42-43.

7. See O. Atamirzayev and A. Atakuziyev, "Problems of Population and Regional Demographic Policy," Kommunist Uzbekistana (Tashkent), No. 1, 1978, pp. 40-41. On this point, see also the wellknown study by G.A. Bondarskaya, Rozhdayemost' v SSSR: Etnodemograficheskiy aspekt (Fertility in the USSR: The Ethnodemogrtaphic Aspect), Moscow, Statistika, 1977, p. 101, Figure 8.

8. Some Soviet authors predict that the birthrate of the Muslim portion of the Soviet population will begin to decline. See, for example, Ye. D. Grazhdannikov, Prognosticheskiye modeli sotsial'nodemograficheskikh protsessov (Prognostic Models of SocialDemographic Processes), Novosibirsk, Nauka, 1974, pp. 100-01. 9. See Feshbach and Rapawy, loc. cit., p. 128.

10. Itogi vsesoyuznoy perepisi naseleniya 1970 goda (Results of the 1970 All-Union Census), Vol. 4, Moscow, Statistika, 1973, Tables 11-14

sumably have to be either encouraged by a combination of economic pressures and material incentives, or forced by the imposition of Stalinist methods of control and coercion.11 Whether voluntary or not, such a migration might create more problems than it solves, in terms of Muslim discontent or interethnic strife in Slavic cities and regions.

It should be noted at this point that the above population trends will have an impact not only on the civilian economy but upon the complexion of military manpower. It has been estimated that by the year 2000, some 35 percent of all recruits are expected to come from Central Asia and the Transcaucasus.12

and 22-28. For discussion of the low propensity of Central Asians
to migrate, see Ye. Chernova, "Labor Resources Tomorrow,"
Sovetskaya Kirgiziya (Frunze), June 29, 1977; and N. Khonaliyev,
"Population Migration," Kommunist Tadzhikistana (Dushanbe),
Mar. 17, 1977.

11. J.F. Besemeres has suggested that the model for such a policy might be the experiments carried out in Leningrad, Moscow, and other cities (as described in M. Feshbach and S. Rapawy, "Labor Constraints in the Five-Year Plan," in US Congress, Joint Economic Committee, Soviet Economic Prospects for the Seventies, Washington, DC, US Government Printing Office, 1973, pp. 541-43). The experiments involved "a strict system of labor control, computerized record-keeping, and an elaborate network of sanctions" aimed at reducing job turnover. See Besemeres' article, "Population Politics in the USSR," in Soviet Union (Pittsburgh, PA), Nos. 1-2, 1975, p. 62.

12. Feshbach and Rapawy, "Soviet Population...," loc. cit., p. 148.

assessing this debate and Soviet developments, Western scholars have arrived at two sharply opposed viewpoints concerning the probability of massive out-migration from labor-rich Central Asia to other portions of the Soviet Union.

Two Views on Muslim Migration

The first view anticipates heavy migration of Central Asian Muslims to other parts of the USSR. Such a proposition has been put forward by the American economic geographers Robert A. Lewis, Richard H. Rowland, and Ralph S. Clem.15 They argue from a comparativist viewpoint that gives primacy to economic over sociopolitical and cultural considerations, i.e., they contend that like fellow Muslims elsewhere (e.g., in Turkey and Algeria), the Muslims of Central Asia--given the proper economic stimulus-will undergo the "universal experience" of migration to highly industrialized areas.

This trend may help free young manpower for employment in labor-deficit areas and "employ," if temporarily, surplus Muslim youths in military occupations. At the same time, it is unlikely that soldiers of Central Asian Muslim background would gravitate to labor-deficit areas upon demobilization as opposed to returning to their native republics. The anticipated change in the ethnic composition of the Soviet armed forces also has military and political significance, but these matters are beyond the scope of the present study and deserve consideration on their own account.

In 1970, V. Perevedentsev, a leading Soviet demographer, stirred up a controversy by openly discussing the above demographic trends and raising the possibility of migration of Central Asian Muslims to industrial areas of the RSFSR as a means of offsetting regional labor supply imbalances.13 Over the ensuing years, there has been a considerable Soviet literature on this and other aspects of migration.14 In

Lewis, Rowland, and Clem tend to talk of the Central Asian labor surplus less as an answer to manpower problems elsewhere in the USSR than as a problem on its own account, confronting Moscow with the possibility of widespread unemployment and welfare burdens in Central Asia if not solved. To prevent such a situation from arising, they suggest, Moscow has three options: (1) to launch a crash program of economic development in the region, (2) to institute birth control measures, or (3) to spur emigration of surplus labor from the region.

Looking at the potential for accelerating economic development in Central Asia, Lewis and his colleagues argue that expansion of the rural economy cannot absorb more than half the surplus unless the Soviet leadership abandons further mechanization in favor of more labor-intensive culture or drastically enlarges the acreage of land under irrigation. The first flies in the face of decades of Soviet practice. As for irrigation, these scholars feel that Soviet plans to expand irrigated lands are insufficient to absorb the growing rural manpower. 16 Moreover, at the time of their major study on the subject, they felt that the targeted expansion of irrigated lands (10 percent for

13. See V. Perevedentsev, "Population Migration and Utilization of Labor Resources," Voprosy ekonomiki (Moscow), No. 9, 1970. He had already discussed some of these themes in an earlier article, "The Census Debate," Literaturnaya gazeta (Moscow), Jan. 1, 1967.

14. For a good Soviet bibliography on migration problems (including a list of 3 books and 14 articles by Perevedentsev), see V.I. Staroverov, Sotsialisticheskiye problemy derevni. Metodologiya, metodika, opyt analiza migratsii sel'skogo naseleniya (Socialist Problems of the

Countryside. Methodology, Methods, and Experience from Analysis of the Migration of the Rural Population), Moscow, Nauka, 1975, pp. 263-83.

15. See Lewis, Rowland, and Clem, Nationality and Population Change in Russia and the USSR. An Evaluation of Census Data, 1897-1970, New York, NY, and London, Praeger Publishers, 1976, especially pp. 350-87.

16. Ibid., p. 357.

1971-75) was itself overly ambitious in light of past performance and the limited availability of land suitable for irrigation.17

Nor do Lewis and his fellow researchers believe local industry can absorb the surplus rural manpower. They say that for it to do so would require an industrial growth rate of between 9 and 13 percent a year, as compared with an average of 8 percent in the period 1965-70. They further note that plans for increases in industrial labor productivity in the area indicate an expectation that in Central Asia industrial manpower will not grow as rapidly as production. They affirm that over the period 1971-75, increases in per capita fixed capital investments in Central Asia

17. Between 1960 and 1970, the USSR increased its irrigated acreage by an annual average of only 0.5 percent. However, a 1977 report claimed that "during the last five years" the amount of irrigated land in Uzbekistan had increased 10 percent. See G. Ye. Trapeznikov, "Uzbekistan in the Epoch of Developed Socialism," Voprosy istorii (Moscow), No. 2, 1977, p. 11.

were below the average for the USSR-and they attribute this to the area's limited endowment of natural resources required for large-scale heavy industry and its remoteness from the main Soviet industrial centers.18

As for birth control, Lewis et al. suggest that it is already too late to have much of an impact on existing trends in the remainder of this century. Some 50 percent of the Central Asian population is under 15; hence, birth control measures would probably not significantly reverse the Muslim population explosion before the 1990's. 19

The only remaining option, it is argued by Lewis and his associates, is for the Central Asians to migrate abroad or to other areas of the USSR. The former is viewed as highly unrealistic, the Jewish emigration being seen as a special case not likely to be dupli

18. Lewis, Rowland, and Clem, op. cit., pp. 367-71. 19. Ibid., p. 358.

-Novosti from Sovfoto.

at home in their native republics. In the words of Murray Feshbach, demographer with the US Department of Commerce,

... the overwhelming weight of the evidence-economic, demographic, and cultural, leads to the conclusion that there will not be a massive out-migration of labor from Central Asia to the labor-deficient areas of the USSR during the 1980's.21

In terms of economics, Feshbach points to current scattered symptoms of shortages of industrial manpower within Central Asia itself,22 and he cites Soviet sources to indicate that Moscow has already resolved to bring new industry to Central Asia to absorb any surpluses of labor as they arise.23 Moreover, he sees Muslims as unlikely to be attracted to other areas of the USSR, where the cost of living is higher than in Central Asia. Demographically, he goes on, the burgeoning Central Asian population includes large numbers of children and of women with large families (and thus unable to take jobs in distant parts of the USSR).24 Finally, Feshbach stresses the linguistic and sociocultural impediments to large-scale out

-Paolo Koch/Photo Researchers.

cated. As for internal migration, rural areas of the USSR are hardly likely to seek unskilled Muslim farm hands with alien life styles and language problems when what these areas need are technically trained young men capable of fitting productively into the local environment.

Consequently, Lewis, Rowland, and Clem see the only solution to be out-migration of rural Central Asian Muslims to distant urban areas in the RSFSR. These researchers admit that poor Russian language training and lower educational and skill levels may impede the flow, but they argue that such factors will not be decisive "once local economic conditions begin to deteriorate."20

A contrary view (and one more widely held among Western experts than that of Lewis et al.) argues that the Muslims of Central Asia are more likely to stay

20. Ibid., p. 361.

21. Murray Feshbach, "Prospects for Massive Out-Migration from Central Asia During the Next Decade," paper for the US Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis, February 1977, p. 23. 22. For confirmation of this finding in the case of Uzbekistan, see R.A. Ubaydullayeva, "Labor Resources in the Regional Economy of Developed Socialism," Obshchestvennyye nauki v Uzbekistane (Tashkent), No. 2, 1978, p. 8.

such a migration to solve manpower shortages elsewhere, Feshbach concludes it would result in ghettoes and political friction in Russian cities and Soviet embarrassment before other Asian states because of the implicit admission of failure to solve Central Asia's unemployment problems on the spot.

Migration Mechanisms

In their debate about Central Asian migration, most Western specialists have overlooked a highly revealing book on patterns of Soviet internal migra

23. Feshbach refers to V.G. Kostyakov, Trudovyye resursy pyatiletki (Labor Resources of the Five-Year Period), Moscow, Politizdat, 1976, p. 56; and Planovoye khozyaystvo (Moscow), No. 11, 1976, pp. 19-22.

At the same time, it should be noted that natural gas and cotton-Central Asia's most important resources-are still exported to the RSFSR in raw form for processing. See Bandera and Melnyk, op. cit., p. 28.

24. This point is confirmed in the case of Uzbekistan by L. Sbytova, "Sources of Manpower in Contemporary Conditions," Voprosy ekonomiki, No. 6, 1978, pp. 36-37, 40.

25. Here, Feshbach draws on the work of the French cultural historian Alexandre Bennigsen, who has argued that modernization has led to a strengthening, rather than weakening, of Muslim cultural ties. See Bennigsen's chapter, "Islam in the Soviet Union. The Religious Factor and the Nationality Problem in the Soviet Union," in (continued on page 7)