[Population policies and intervention on natality in Eastern Europe (Part 1)]

This is an overview of population policies and their underlying doctrines in Eastern European countries since World War II. The author describes three chronological stages: "an orthodox populationist stage, from 1945 to 1955...; a phase of liberalization of abortion and at times of contraception from 1955 to 1965; and from this latter date, as a reaction against the accelerated decline of fertility, a phase of abortion and divorce restriction and of growing aid to family, likewise [marked] by the creation of National Population Committees and Institutes of Demographic Research." The countries of Eastern Europe are divided into three classifications: those with no population policy (Albania only); those with indirect measures, including Poland, Yugoslavia, and the USSR; and those with explicit, quantitative demographic goals, including Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic, Hungary, and Romania. The effectiveness of selected population policies is assessed. (SUMMARY IN ENG)