In 1950, Czechoslovakia had 12.34 million people

In 1980, they were 15.3 million. The population had not doubled. The old age pensionists or retired had, by contrast, gone up from 1.7 to 3.8 million in 1978.

Meanwhile, the school youth in 9 grades primary school were 144.2 / 1000 in 1950, 124.2 / 1000 in 1978.

144.2 * 12 340 = 1 779 428
124.2 * 15 300 = 1 900 260

Now, the Czechoslovak constitution made it a Socialist state, in which every citizen was required to work and in which the state provided or at least guaranteed basic needs to every citizen. The idea which Pope Pius XI condemned in Divini Redemptoris (see discussion on a blog post of mine).

With such a growing unbalance between old and young, Czechoslovakia was not going to be able to keep this idea look feasible. It was going to collapse, exactly as old age pensions are collapsing in the free West, and it was a boon to Commie Nostalgia (but not a true boon to any honest man), that the breakdown of Communism in 1990 allowed people with that leaning to project the problem on Capitalism.

If 1990 had not happened, Czechoslovakia would by now either exact more work from all citizens able to do so, or from citizens previously not thought able to work, or the state guarantees for, for instance, old age pensions, would have been lowered, exactly as was going to happen in France before the Corona-virus struck.

The booklet in which I read facts about the then population, the growth of the retired population, the diminution of those in compulsory school, the constitution also bragged, Czechoslovakia guaranteed women equality with men. Since the main inequality is due to pregnancy, this means it was allowing abortions and contraception. This, and not Capitalism or any stab in the back on Communism, was what brought about the problem.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Vaclav
28.IX.2020

Apud Boleslaviam veterem, in Bohemia, sancti Wenceslai, Ducis Bohemorum et Martyris, sanctitate et miraculis gloriosi, qui, dolo fratris sui necatus, victor pervenit ad palmam.