RUSSIA TAKES A PLUNGE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 10, Issue 243, 18 February 1944, Page 24

RUSSIA TAKES A PLUNGE

7 FE most important news received from Europe in the past fortnight was the announcement of the political disestablishment of the U.S.S.R. Since the revolution in 1917, Russia has been a single State, with one Army, the Red Army, and one Foreign Policy. Now by a decision of the Supreme Council it becomes a federation of 16 different States, each with authority to establish its own army and conduct its own foreign affairs, 7

But of the U.S.S.R.’s 193,000,000 people only 150,000,000 are actually Russian Slavs. Instead of one people, the Russians are 175 peoples at least. They speak 150 different languages and dialects, and believe in dozens of different religions. Not only does» each people speak and write its i and native language, but the Soviets foster this cultural nationalism among all the 175, Peoples that for centuries have spoken an unwritten language -without alphabet or

From One State to Sixteen

recorded literature have been given an alphabet and have taken to publishing books. Approximately 40 such languages have been recovered from the abyss of illiteracy and launched into historic culture. Thus the Giliaks and the Yagnobians, the Kets and the Karagas, and a score more, cari now see their traditional songs and legends in print and have begun to write new ones. Naturally, Great Russian is taught as a second language in all the schools.

On. these pages are shown only a characteristic 18 of the U.S.S.R.’s 175 peoples. Roughly, they are divided into the Slavic group, 5,000,000 Japhetides of the Caucasus, 20,000,000 Turco-Tartars centred in Central Asia east of the Caspian Sea, 4,500,000 Finno-Ugrians of the north, plus various basic Iranians, Mongolian, Jewish, German, Greek, Siberian, and Baltic stocks. The photographs used on these pages are from official Soviet sources.