&NA;During a 20‐year period (1965 to 1985), 4673 patients with rectal cancer underwent surgical treatment, with 3500 of them being subjected to radical surgery. Postoperative mortality was 6.1 percent. During the last five years, the mortality rate decreased dramatically down to 4.9 percent, despite an increase in the group of elderly patients (35.7 percent) and performance of a considerable percentage of simultaneous, extensive, and combined operations (33.7 percent). The trend of employing sphincter‐saving operations (in more than 60 percent of patients, the anterior resection and abdominoanal resection with a pull‐through were performed) accounts for the favorable five‐year survival rate (62 to 69 percent) and results in a good functional outcome in 80 percent of patients. The use of a combination of conservative and operative methods of rehabilitation contributes to the professional readaptation of 75 to 80 percent of patients after surgery with construction of a stoma. In 223 cases, a Soviet magnetic occlusive device was implanted, while in 67 patients an artificial sphincter mechanism was constructed from the flap of the adductor longus femoris muscle. It should be emphasized that surgical methods of rehabilitation are used both in primary and reconstructive operations. The experience with management of 124 patients with recurrent cancer after resection and extirpation of the rectum shows that local excision or repeated resections of the rectum cure 20 to 29 percent of those operated on.