The article deals with the topic of socialist social policy as a special feature and an extremely important instrument of legitimating power and of guardianship. Drawing on his extensive archival research, the author compares the starting points of the social-policy measures of the Czechoslovak and the East German CP leaderships from 1970 to 1989. He discusses the fundamental systemic prerequisites and ambitions of social policy, points out the limits of economic policy, and outlines the individual stages in the development of social policy in the two countries in the period under scrutiny. The focal point of the article is a systematic comparison of the development of pension plans, to which the political establishment in each country paid considerable attention. Providing social security to their senior citizenswas a serious problem for both regimes right up to late 1989, and the implemented measures were only partly successful in dealing with it. The article identifi es the pitfalls of retirement insurance, and takes into account the standard of living of pensioners in both countries. From his research, he concludes that old-age pensions were the Achilles’ heel of East German Socialism. The unanticipated circumstances of senior citizens, the tangible decline in their standard of living, the considerable employment of people of a post-productive age, and the continuous violation of the publicly declared principle of merit are, however, among the problems the Czechoslovak regime also struggled with throughout the years of reinstating hardline Communism in the post-1969 policy of ''normalisation''.