Under Lenin's "Land Decree" he wrote retiring workers would

1. Lose the land they worked on, and

2. Gain a pension.

"Peasants who, owing to old age or ill-health, are permanently disabled and unable to cultivate the land personally, shall lose their right to the use of it but, in return, shall receive a pension from the state."

-- marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/oct/25-26/26d.htm

If that worker worked 20 years they qualified for a full pension:

"In 1987 the Soviet Union had 56.8 million pensioners; of this number, 40.5 million were retired with full pensions on the basis of twenty years of service and age eligibility"

-- mongabay.com/history/soviet_union/soviet_union-pension_system_welfare.html

By the way, the soviet state (the dictatorship of the proletariat) was not a "communist state." Communism (as Marx himself defined it) is stateless & comes after the state "withers away & dies:"

"Marx argued that for socialism to be realized, the state would have to be done away with."

-- socialistworker.org/2012/03/23/marx-against-the-state

ie, Marx advocated using the state to advance to socialist/communism, but they are not the same thing. In other words, "communist state" is an oxymoron.

Indeed, there was such a thing as a state-sponsored retirement in all 2^nd World countries. The only exception among communist states known to me was People's Republic of China, which continues to rely upon tradition - elders were taken care of by younger generation, not by state. Only recently PRC adopted law with minimal state-guaranteed pension.

On a side note, I prefer 2^nd World countries over communist states as it is more precise characterization. None of the 2nd World states claimed to be communist, they were officially in various stages of building communism. USSR declared to be a country with "socialism", later - of "developed socialism", for example, and some Eastern European countries were classified as "countries with people's democracy", which is a peg below socialism on official scale of transition to communism.

Anyway, retirement age in USSR by "Pension Law":

• males - 60 years old and working experience no less than 25 years

• females - 55 old and working experience no less than 20 years

That's a general rule.

Some types of work were classified as "physically hard" and|or "detrimental to physical health" and have lower pension age. All eligible professions and enterprises were tracked in a special list, confirmed by Soviet of Ministers (e.g. top government office):

• males - 50 years old and working experience no less than 25 years

• females - 45 old and working experience no less than 15 years

There were many other tweaks and perks (for disabled, for military veterans, increased pensions "for achievements" etc.)

Sources

1. Russian - Law of USSR about state-funded pension, 1956 with all later amendments As somebody noticed, Google Translator is pretty good with russian legalese.

2. Online - State pensions in the USSR: features and trends. International Social Security Review Volume 29, Issue 3, pages 258–266, July 1976 You could get general idea of of state pensions from this article.