ABSTRACT
The inadequacy of social security provision under Czarism provided both Bolsheviks and Mensheviks with live political ammunition. The initiation of the New Economic Policy meant a return to the more realistic social security programmes introduced before the war communism period. Changes in social security came with the death of Stalin as they did in other aspects of economic and social policy. In spite of its harsher image, the social insurance system began to be effective compared with the situation in the early 1920s, when the scheme was under a progressive ideology but lacked the resources to put ideology into practice. Retirement pensions are by far the most expensive benefit in the country’s social security system. For both social and economic reasons, Soviet workers are encouraged to continue working beyond retirement age. Sickness benefit in the Soviet Union has always been closely linked with the person’s employment history.
