Comments on Communism

Positives of the Communist era in the Czech Republic
1) The Communist era in former Czechoslovakia introduced a very effective and generous social system (e.g. mothers can stay with their children at home for three years, they are given allowance from the state and when they want to go back to work, their employer must give them the same position they left those three (or less) years ago).EVIDENCE: According to OECD (2005) the Czech Republic had the most effective social system in the world which needs the least money from the GDP (gross domestic product). It is even better than Denmark or Sweden; and the Czech Republic has the smallest ratio of the poor (4%) in the world. This social system is the heritage from the Communist era and no government dares to introduce major changes in this as most people consider the system as a standard.2) The Communist era brought a high social respect to the historically “poorest” working professions.EVIDENCE: For example, miners in Communist Czechoslovakia had the highest salaries among workers (much higher than white-collar workers), they enjoyed special priviledges, such as free/or almost free holidays, free theatre/concert tickets in private lives; and huge respect in “policial sphere”, for instance, they could even keep the word “God” in their traditional greeting.