Sabine Hering 
Social Care under State Socialism (1945-1989) [PDF ebook] 
Ambitions, Ambiguities, and Mismanagement

In the period of State Socialism in Eastern Europe (1945- 1989) Social Welfare was exercised on two levels: The dominant level was the system of governmental Social Policy, because individual and private structures of so – cial help were considered as a dispensable bourgeois tradition. According to this perception, social welfare should include an extensive system of support and social services, although, in reality, special groups of ´´asocials´´ and ´´parasites´´ were excluded. Although – except for Yugoslavia – social work as a profession was nearly totally eliminated, modulated forms of social care had to be provided, because people like handicapped, elderly or mentally disabled still were in need. There – fore, Social Care was realised on a subordinated level – mostly allocated to proximate vocations or organisations like teachers, nurses and mass organisations. Experts from the respective countries explain what it was like. Countries under scrutiny: Bulgaria, Czechoslowakia, GDR, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Soviet Union, Yugoslavia