CENSUS OF RUSSIANS

Taranaki Daily News, 7 January 1927, Page 7

CENSUS OF RUSSIANS

SUSPICION OF COMPILERS DECLINE OF BIRTH-RATE GROWTH OF THE CITIES ♦ By Telegraph—Press Assb. —Copyright. London, Jan. 5. The Riga correspondent of The Times says the Soviet has completed the first entire census since 1897. The compilers had the most curious adventures, even in the big towns, where people suspected the authorities of attempting a new political experiment. Many country districts were agitated by the revival of the legend current since Peter the Great organised the first census, that anti-Christ was numbering the people before the end of the world. The census revealed, even in Moscow and Leningrad, the extreme degradation of the great proportion of the population, especially in family relations; also the children’s squalor and vice. The first figures show that the population and birth-rate catastrophically declined after the revolution, but increased again after 1923, with a great drift towards the towns. ■ The population of Moscow is 2,018,000, compared with 1,027,000 in 1920, and Leningrad 1,611,000, double what is was in 1920.