Soviet Regionalization

T IHE Soviet approach to socioeconomic regionalization employs a so-called territorial-productional complex that reflects both the economic factors and the aims of the political system. As a result, some of the regional delineations are arbitrary,' and regional boundaries are frequently modified to conform either to changing attitudes of the Soviet decision makers or to changing economic conditions. This is not to say, however, that attempts at purely academic approaches to socioeconomic regionalization have not been made. On the contrary, Soviet geographers have advanced interesting and constructive schemes, which have become important contributions to the regional concept.2 The aim of the present paper is to explore the possibility of dividing the Soviet Union into integrated geographical, socioeconomic regions that have a semblance of permanency, but at the same time retain the dynamism of their functional characteristics. It is expected that such regional units, by transgressing changeable economic-administrative boundaries, will not conceal geographical reality, which in the Soviet Union is subject to rapid change in its components. To attain these ends, the Soviet Union is viewed here in a small-scale frame, employing maximum generalization. This method makes it possible to derive present and prospective images from the analysis of only a few selected aspects of the four basic criteria that reflect the dynamics of any area: site, people, circulation, and the time factor. It is also expected that considera

Geography · Political science · Population · Regional science · Socioeconomic status · Sociology · Cross-Border Cooperation and Integration · Demography · Russia and Soviet political economy · Urbanization and City Planning