Task of Taking Census of Soviets

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 13, 17 January 1939, Page 12

Task of Taking Census of Soviets

DIFFICULTIES FACING OFFICIALS United Press Association.— By Electric Telegraph. -Copyright MOSCOW, Jan. 15. A census of tho amazing patchwork of Soviet races covering one-seventh or the earth’s surface and believed to be approximately 170,000,000 has already begun in remote regions, where the J residents resent the numbering. Officials using horses and reindeer teams with sledges are chasing nomads on the Siberian steppes and frozen tundras in the far north, even jumping icefloes in pursuit of the Samoyeds, first cousins of the Eskimos. Already two tribes of the Chukchi Indians have been discovered in the extreme north-east. A census was taken in Soviet Russia on January 6, 1937. One million clerks were employed, but the results did not satisfy the authorities and they havo never been published. Several mouths ago it was announced that a fresh census would bo held because the Central Statistics Bureau had been under the control of “a gang of wreckers” headed by Professor Kraval, who not. only falsified tho actual count, which showed the population as 165,000,000, but introduced wrecking principles by drawing up a list of questions to be asked of all citizens to establish their nationality and religion. People were allowed to state what “nationalist culture” they claimed instead of their race by birth; thus a Jew might claim to be a Ukrainian. In the new I census they will have to disclose their race and their native language. Also, in 1937, a surprisingly large total appears to have claimed to bo of the Orthodox Greek religion.