following facts and fig-
© all quoted from a No-
SS Agency pamphlet,
Of Soviet Society:
* * DS
' * Soviet Union’s total popu-
8 246,300,000. Nearly 136
ive in urban localities
: Rettillion in the coun-
ttben tween 1959 and 1969
a Population grew by
m “4 and countryside popu-
®creased by three mil-

2 the percentage of
‘ 6.9 and women 53.9.
‘ Sa developed on ac-
the elder category
Was caused mainly
Count seauences of wars
Sitizens lost 20 million of
Ne ny S in the Second World
ostly men).

* *

) OS and

*

the
fics j"° 15 constituent re-
We 29 ne USSR, and these
BY aut utonomous republics,
Onomous regions, 10
areas, six territories
th regions,
mot the entire Soviet
lity he language of the
mM question is its
with 6% of the

ot a6

for “eit Ond reindeer breeders of Chukotke

‘ tended vein boarding schools while their parents are
Periods, working in the tundra.

population using the languages
of other nations. All the nations
and nationalities voluntarily
selected the Russian language
as the common language of in-
ter-nation intercourse and co-
operation.
% * Bo

Soviet society consists com-
pletely of working people: the
working class, the class of col-
lective farm peasantry, and of
working intellectuals.

At present, there are about
65 million industrial workers in
the USSR. And the working
class comprises more than half
(over 55%) of the gainfully em-
ployed population. The working
class has been, and still remains,
the basic productive force of
society. More than 550 workers
in every thousand now have
secondary school and college
education.

Currently, about 33,000 col-
lective farms in the USSR unite
17 million farmers. According
to information available, by the
end of 1970, more than half of
the rural population graduated
from. secondary schools or col-
leges.

The number of intellectuals
keeps growing quickly. In 1928

there were only 521,000 diplo-—

65,000,000 industrial Dress USSR range from heavy
*Mterprises like Marat Knitted Goods Mill in Tallinn.

: uF SS
are fully

maed specialists engaged in the
national economy. In 1970 the
figure was 16.8 million. Before
the war the USSR had about
100,000 scientific workers, and
now the figure is 970,000. In
1928 the country had 63,000
physicians, and in 1970, 668,000.

* *

Centrally and locally, the
Soviets comprise a single, de-
mocratically centralized system
of state power. The system in-
cludes: the USSR Supreme
Soviet (1517 deputies) the Su-
preme Soviets of the 15 Consti-
tuent . Republics (5879 depu-
ties), the Supreme Soviets of 20
Autonomous Republics (2994
deputies), about 50,000 local
Soviets (about 2.2 million depu-
ties), ie., territorial, regional,
district, town, rural and village
Soviets.

All Soviet citizens of 18 and
over can participate in the elec-
tion of the deputies, irrespective
of their race or nationality, sex,
religion, education, domicile, so-
cial origin, property status, and
past activities.

Citizens of 23 and older can
be elected to the USSR Supreme
Soviet; of 21 and older to the
Supreme Soviets of the Consti-
tuent and Autonomous Repub-
lics; of 18 and older to the local
Soviets of Working People’s
Deputies.

The Supreme Soviet of the
USSR includes 481 workers and
282 collective farmers (who ac-
count for just over 50% of the
total number of deputies.)

JUL UL LLB

Nadya Siburusskaya, a member of the Chukchi-Eskime Ergyryon

dance and song ensemble, enjoys opportunities afforded her people.

On the day when the 24th
CPSU Congress opened in March
1971, the Communist Party had
a membership of 14,455,321 men
and women (including 645,232
candidate members). Commu-
nists account for 9% of the
adult population of the country.

There is only one party in the
Soviet Union. This is due to the
fact that there are no antagonis-
tic classes in the country and

that Soviet society is united.
The existence of only one party
—the Communist Party — does
not contradict the principles of
democracy, but makes it pos-
sible to implement these prin-
ciples in practice in the best
possible way. But the one-party
system is not an essential cri-
terion of socialist society; in the
USSR it is the result of certain
historical conditions.

Soviet books describe Canada

- By IGOR ZAKHAROV

It was back in the first half
of the 18th century, at the time
when Captain Vitus Bering of
the Russian navy approached
America from the East, that the
first news about Canada start-
ed to be featured in the Russian
press.

The most intensive explora-
tion of the north-western part
of the North American contin-
ent was carried out by Russians
—seafarers, travellers and mer-
chants —in the late 18th and
early 19th century. It was dur-
ing that period that the first
books about Canada appeared
in Russia. One of these books,
Shipwreck and Adventures, con-
taining the reminiscences of
Pyotr Vioda, Russian seafarer
and explorer, was put out in St.
Petersburg (now Leningrad) in
1802, exactly 170 years ago.

In the years that followed,
Russian publishers widely print-
ed books about Canada, in the
main the tales of those who tra-
velled there. It was during this
time, too, that the first scholar-
ly books about Canada began to
To these belonged, for

appear. )
example __ Pavel Mizhuyev s
Farming Domain, Outline of

’ t-
Canada’s Growth and Presen
day Condition, or Nikolai Yep-
anchin’s Irrigation and Colo-
nization of Canada’s Far West.

dy of
Today a profound study —

Canada is being made by Soviet
historians, economists, lawyers,
ethnographers, art scholars and

geographers.
One would be hard put to

state the total number of books
about Canada which have come
out in Russian in the course of
the last two centuries. We may
well say, however, that there is
no sphere of Canadian life,
about which there are no books

or at any rate articles published’

in the Soviet Union.

Among books for the general
public, released in recent years,
worthy of mention are three
written by the Soviet journalists
Vladimir Osipov, Leon Bagra-
mov and Oleg Feofanov, each of
whom spent several years in
Canada. They cover different
aspects of the Canadian scene,
tell of meetings with Canadians
and give a comprehensive pic-
ture of the physical and geo-
graphical conditions, population,
languages, religion, history and
culture.

There are quite a few books
about Canadian history, and
about Canadian politics in the
past and present such as Vladi-
mir Tishkov’s Historical Pre-
requisites for the Canadian Re-
volution of 1937 (published in
Moscow in 1969), Lidia Zimu-
lina’s Canada’s Fight for Poli-
tical Independence (1967), and
Abram Mileikhovsky’s study,
Canada and Anglo - American
Contradictions.

Soviet historians have devot-
ed a large number of works to
the labor movement in Canada.
Among books of this nature are
Boris Altayev’s study, The Cana-
dian Labor Movement in its
Present Phase (published in
1960), Klara Tatarinova’s Ques-

tions of the History of Canada’s

Labor Movement (1967) as well
asa thesis for a doctoral degree
in history entitled Canada’s
Fight for Democracy, which was
presented by Dmitri Naumov in
Kiev (Ukraine) in 1970. Alexan-
der Lidin’s Canada’s State Struc-
ture was released in Moscow in
1960 and in 1966 appeared a
reference work called Trade
Unions of North America.

A large number of Soviet
books and articles of recent
years dwell on problems of Cana-
dian economy. In addition to an
economics and statistics almanac
on North America published in
1969, there appeared such books
as Tatyana © Pazhitova’s Chief
Features of Canada’s Industrial
Growth, Rachik Faramazyan’s
The -Economy of Present-day
Canada, and Leonid Karpov’s
Distinct Features of Canada’s
Development in the Post-War
Period. .

There have been works, too,
dealing with different branches
of Canadian economy. To them
belong, Canada’s Agriculture by
Aleksei Smirnov, Canada’s Lum-
ber Industry by Yuri Kuzmichev
and Valery Semyonstov’s Can-
ada’s Water Resources.

Both the USSR and Canada
have a great amount of territory
in the Arctic and it is therefore
not surprising that many books
published in both lands deal
with .the development of the
North. Noteworthy among Sov-
iet books ‘in this sphere are the
works of Grigory Agranat, one
of the Soviet Union's most emi-
nent students of the globe's
northern areas.

PACIF}C TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1972—PAGE 9