The 1970 census was initially scheduled for 1969, exactly 10 years after the previous one. An experiment with self-enumeration of the population was carried out as part of a pilot census in 1967: in some districts a certain share of respondents filled in a brief questionnaire on their own. The experiment was not a complete success, but it was nevertheless decided that counters would ask people to fill in brief census papers unassisted.

An innovative sampling technique was also used - all residents were required to fill in a brief questionnaire and 25% were polled using an extended questionnaire. Several groups of questions proved particularly problematic.

«Difficulties and innovations»

Women were upset by a question about the number of children born, since it reminded them of children who had died or been killed in the War.

In some districts questions about fertility angered the husbands of women who were polled, since they considered such questions to be of an intimate nature. It was therefore decided that polling of women on fertility questions should be in the absence of all other family members, and that only specially-trained women would be engaged as counters.

It was eventually decided to ask questions about the number of children in a separate study, rather than during the census.

The questions about people's living conditions were also excluded from the census, even though this group of questions was part of UN recommendations. This could be explained by the fact that during the pilot census it was found that many people were renting space unofficially in family houses and apartments, so they would avoid inclusion in the census, thus leading to an undercount. Moreover, residents of private dwellings were often unaware of or purposely underestimated the size of their property.

«The "computer era"»

The use of computers (or electronic computing machines, as they were then called) to handle bulk data was just beginning in 1970. The State Planning Committee and the Ministry of the Radio Industry provided the Central Statistical Directorate with 10 Minsk-32 electronic computing machines, equipped with input devices and RAM equal to 32,000 words.

The 1970 census showed that more than half (56%) of the country's population lived in cities and towns. The biggest increase was in the population of big cities. While in 1917 Russia had only two cities with a population greater than 500,000 people, in 1970 there were 40 such cities, including 13 with a population of more than one million people.