the Government, however, was very Social Reform in : weak in the beginning, since all power Background and Plans then rested with the local revolution• ary committees, which were loosely By Max Bloch* organized under regional revolution• ary committees. Even when central• Slovaks in agricultural were ized authority was gradually restored, DEVELOPMENT OF PLANS for a unified, it was only nominally held by the Gov- Nation-wide program of social insur• generally restricted to the status of unskilled laborers. Thus the forma• ernment, actually being exercised by ance for Czechoslovakia and adoption the TJRO, the central committee of of a 2-year plan for the rehabilitation tion of the Republic of Czechoslovakia in 1918 brought together two groups trade-unions. At present, the influ• of its national economy appear to ence of the official Government is pave the way for eventual long-range having different histories, different economies, and even different legal rather strong again in the western solution of the present difficulties be• (Czech) parts of the country, but each setting the social insurance program systems. Immediate and complete unification was impossible. Indeed, member of the Government has a in that country. Fulfillment of the special deputy for , and as a program is not in early prospect be• no uniform system of laws for the country as a whole has yet been result his own influence on Slovakian cause of deep-rooted differences in the affairs is rather weak. laws, customs, and economic activi• achieved. ties of the two ethnic branches which When the new Republic was formed, New legislation is badly needed to make up this Nation and because of decentralization of authority became straighten out the chaotic legal situa• the present unsettled condition of the an important political objective of tion now applying in all branches of country's postwar economy, but at some groups. From 1925 on, however, government, including the field of so• least a basis has been established for the Government became more con• cial security. Along with the pre-1918 future action. For an adequate un• servative and centralist. Under a law Austrian and Hungarian laws that are derstanding of the present difficulties, affecting regional jurisdiction, passed still in effect, and the pre-1939 laws a short review of the country's history in 1927, the small of of the Czechoslovak Republic, there is necessary. was merged with ; but the are now also the laws instituted under regional governments still remained the Protectorate, the valid Slovakian A Brief History of Czechoslovakia feeble administrative units, practi• laws passed between 1939 and 1945, cally without authority. This lack of all sorts of makeshift legislation put As may be deduced from the name self-determination was particularly into effect in the border districts, and of the Republic, the Czechoslovak Na• resented by the Slovaks, who had al• the emergency decrees issued and laws tion is made up of two ethnic ways sought a larger measure of au• passed since VE-day. Thus the task branches—the and the Slo• tonomy. After 1927 the Slovakian of simplification and unification of vaks. Ethnologically, these peoples separatist movement gained ground the legal code appears to be one of the are virtually indistinguishable from steadily, and it eventually played a pressing problems facing the each other, but because of long politi• considerable role in the disintegration postwar Government. cal separation and different sociologi• of the Republic in 1938-39. cal backgrounds the two groups now Social Insurance Legislation in consider themselves as distinct peo• The provided for ples. For centuries, the Czechs main• the cession of the border districts of Czechoslovakia tained their political independence as and Moravia () Obviously, the present state of the the , until, be• to . German laws and in• social insurance program in Czecho• ginning in 1620, the country came stitutions were immediately intro• slovakia reflects the unsettled history under the rule of the Hapsburgs and duced into these districts. The rest outlined above. The Austrian part of was gradually absorbed into , of the country was occupied by the the old Dual Monarchy introduced so• remaining a part of that country until in March 1939, the western cial insurance legislation in the form the end of . The Slovaks, (Czech) areas being declared a Ger• of workmen's accident insurance in on the other hand, were subject to man Protectorate and Slovakia an in• 1887. Sickness insurance for limited Hungarian rule for nearly a thou• dependent state. The Protectorate groups was introduced in 1888. Pen• sand years before their liberation in and Slovakia, however, were permitted sion insurance for salaried employees 1918. Despite the fact that Austria to retain their own codes of law. was inaugurated in 1907. In Hungary and Hungary were ruled by the same Wages and prices in the Protectorate a very complicated system of accident monarchy, each of these States was were equalized with those in Germany, insurance for agricultural workers autonomous and each had its own set but Slovakia, being then independent, was introduced in 1900, and a separate of domestic laws. Moreover, while was not subjected to these measures. accident insurance system for nonag- the Czechs in Austria developed along When the German armed forces col• ricultural workers in general and a commercial and industrial lines, the lapsed in May 1945, the Czech Govern• sickness insurance system for salaried ment-in-exile was on its way to employees and miners were estab• *Office of Military Government for lished in 1907. Thus, when the Germany (U. S.), Manpower Division, So• , where it arrived soon after the cial Insurance Branch. German surrender. The influence of Czechoslovak Government was in- augurated in 1918, It inherited social tablished Austrian institutes (Austria their supervision to the Central So• insurance programs which were in• having previously been occupied by cial Insurance Institute for workers, adequately developed and which were Germany). When the rest of Czecho• and another supervisory agency had uncoordinated as between the western slovakia was occupied, the existing to be created. To this end, a Presi• and the eastern parts of the country. insurance system was continued vir• dential decree established the Asso• The need for a uniform and ex• tually unchanged under the Protecto• ciation of Social Insurance Institutes, panded social insurance system was rate. The Slovaks established a new consisting of representatives of all recognized immediately. A program institute which administered both the insurance programs and located in of subsidized voluntary unemploy• system for wage workers and that for Prague. This Association is now ment insurance was instituted in salaried employees for all of Slovakia. functioning as a supervisory author• 1921, under which persons entitled to The sickness insurance funds in the ity for the social insurance agencies benefits as members of workers' or• Sudetenland were maintained, but (sickness insurance funds) in the ganizations were also entitled to sup• they were operated according to Ger• border . In the interior of plementary benefits paid by the State. man law. Insurance benefits and the country (the former Protector• A miners' invalidity, old-age, and contributions were considerably in• ate) the existing status was main• widows' and orphans' insur• creased in the Protectorate as a result tained: the Central Institute for ance plan was provided by law in 1922. of the equalization of wages and prices workers still supervises workers' sick• A law providing for compulsory sick• with those in Germany. No such de• ness insurance funds, and the Gen• ness insurance for manual workers velopment took place in Slovakia. The eral Pension Institute for salaried was passed in 1924 and became effec• old Austrian law on sickness insurance employees supervises the correspond• tive July 1, 1926. This law also pro• for salaried employees was replaced by ing sickness insurance agencies for vided for workers' invalidity, old-age, a completely new law during the Pro• that group. In Slovakia there is now and widows' and orphans' insurance. tectorate, but the new law was still only one central insurance institute, In addition, a central agency (Central different from the one pertaining to with one type of sickness insurance Social Insurance Institute), which wage workers. fund under its supervision. acted both as a pension insurance in• This was the legal situation when stitute and as a supervisory authority The fact that trained insurance the Czechoslovak Government took for sickness insurance, funds, was personnel had to be sent to the border over after the defeat of Germany. established for the country as a whole. districts was one of the reasons why The German officials in the Sudeten- A sickness insurance program for funds in the former land, most of them Nazis, simply fled civil servants was provided for in Protectorate were unified. All rural their posts, and the social insurance 1925. In addition, the invalidity, old- and health insurance funds and institutes were deserted when the age, and widows' and orphans' pension all the small establishment funds were Czechs returned. In the former Pro• insurance for salaried employees was dissolved, so that only local funds and tectorate, as well as in Slovakia, the reorganized in 1929. a few big establishment funds are left. institutes were fully staffed and were This simplifies matters considerably. The special subsidized social insur• solvent, but the laws and regulations In Slovakia there have always been ance programs in effect for the staff were no longer uniform. only local funds. of the State railways, all funds of Organizational measures were not which were supervised by the State Provisional Measures for Continued the only ones considered after the Railways Department, also were Operation of Social Insurance German defeat. Plans were made for broadened. Workmen's accident in• People from the interior of Czecho• barring Germans and collaborators surance, originally provided for these slovakia now streamed back into the from social insurance benefits and for workers under the old laws of 1887 in border districts, and there developed giving preferential treatment to vic• Austria and 1907 in Hungary, was ex• an immediate need for getting the tims of fascism; legislation to this ef• tended by decree in 1919 and by law social insurance institutes in those fect was passed on March 5, 1947. It in 1921. Compulsory sickness insur• districts working again. In the field was also proposed that credit for time ance and invalidity, old-age, and of health insurance there were too spent in forced labor in Germany or widows' and orphans' insurance also many institutes to be completely in German-occupied territory be were provided for these workers in staffed; moreover, there" was no neces• given to Czech nationals on the basis 1924 and subsequently. sity for maintaining the different of administrative ordinances. All these programs apparently were types. It was impossible even to In line with the other emergency working well when the Republic was maintain separate institutes for wage measures being taken, the Czecho• divided in 1939. workers and salaried employees. slovak Provisional National Assembly When Germany occupied the border Uniform organizations, based on the in December 1945 passed five acts in• districts, a new social insurance insti• original local sickness insurance creasing cash benefits under the social tute (Landesversicherungsanstalt Su- funds, were set up and began to insurance programs and otherwise detenland) was established at Teplitz- function both as agencies for these liberalizing program provisions. Schoenau for a part of the Sudeten- funds and as local agencies for sick• land. The other parts of that terri• ness insurance of both wage workers Plans for Social Insurance Reform tory were added to the regions cov• and salaried employees. Conse• quently, it was impossible to leave The provisional measures described ered by existing German or newly es• above are of a temporary nature. A far-reaching reform of social insur• prepared. The second project is the form can be successfully carried out ance has been on the program of the unification of the laws pertaining to only after a revival of business activ• new Czech Government ever since the each particular insurance program, ity and under stabilized economic liberation of the Republic. In actual so as to make it possible to incorpo• conditions. On October 28, 1946, the fact, however, it was the URO (cen• rate these unified programs into a Government adopted a 2-year plan tral committee of trade-unions) which comprehensive integrated insurance for rehabilitation of the country's took first action along these lines by system to be developed at some later economy. Under this plan, produc• assembling the foremost social insur• date. Drafts have been drawn of the tion will be increased to a level which ance experts of the country to pre• law for unification of health insur• will make it possible to supply the pare the first draft of a new social in• ance (eliminating mainly the differ• population with substantially all surance law. This first draft provides ences between wage workers and necessary consumer goods, either for organization of social insurance salaried employees), and provisions through domestic production or on a new basis and also embodies cer• setting up a unified program of through international trade. With tain other new basic principles. The miners' insurance have been enacted. supplies of consumer goods restored to very name of the measure—National normal, there is reasonable expecta• —is indicative of the The Outlook for Social Insurance tion that the Nation's industry and comprehensive nature of the legisla• Reform trade can be brought back from their tion under consideration. Under the present low level of productivity to the proposed measure, a single insurance The need for a broad reform of the prewar rate of activity. Achievement institute for all branches of social in• Czechoslovakian social insurance sys• of this recovery, it is believed, will then surance for the whole country would tem which will bring about unification permit the Government to proceed be established in Prague. This insti• and extension of coverage is recog• with the proposed revision of the tute would have regional offices which nized, but it is believed that the re• country's social security system. would supervise the local branches for the individual districts and also ad• judicate the benefits of accident and pension insurance. The national office as well as the regional and local offices would have elective governing bodies. Compulsory insurance would be extended to all workers, employees, and self-employed persons, including employers, without any limitation on size of firm. As a matter of fact, na• tionalization of all larger enterprises in Czechoslovakia has left no employ• ers large numbers of workers. No ratio of representation as between workers and employers was fixed in the proposed law. In view of the fact that wages and prices were to be fixed by the Government, the practice of splitting up contributions would be dropped, and all contributions would be paid by the employers as a part of the cost of production.

It is clear that the complete reor• ganization of social insurance is too large a task to be undertaken under present unstable economic conditions. Attempts are being made, therefore, to carry out partial measures, among them two upon which the interest of experts now is being focused. It was mentioned above that policies relat• ing to wages and prices, which directly affect social insurance benefits, were different in the Czech and Slovakian parts of the country during the occu• pation and subsequently. A law equalizing these benefits is now being