Eszmélet organised the 1st Theoretical Conference of Journals of Social-critique at the Youth Centre in Csillebérc Budapest on April 10-12, 1991. In this issue, we present selected writings of the participants of the conference (it can be the written version of the speeches made or a different study) and of invited persons who could not come (like Bidet, Laibman, Mészáros or Samary).  We ask our readers to take into account that the original audience of most of the articles translated here were domestic readers of foreign journals, where the authors live. Nevertheless, we hope that articles reflecting the views of British, American, Italian, Austrian, French of Polish authors do have interesting points for Hungarian readers, since most of the studies focus on developments in East Europe, where we live.

In addition to articles related to the conference, we present two writings of André Gunder Frank from the Netherlands. This the continuation of our series presenting the 36 most renowned leftist thinkers that was started with publishing writings from Immanuel Wallerstein and that will be continued soon with articles from Samir Amin. (We have to note that the two articles of Wallerstein, the studies of Gunder Frank and the articles to be published from Amin all were sent to Eszmélet by the authors themselves.)

Table of contents

1. Conference of journals of social-critique, Budapest 1991- Brief account
2. Gus Fagan : Hungary – The collapse of Kadarism
3. Andrea Komlosy, Hannes Hofbauer : Restructuring (Eastern) Europe
4. Luciana Castellina : Remaning an Italian communist – reflections on the “death of socialism”
5. Vietorisz Tamás : The global information economy, privatisation, and the future of socialism
6. Jacques Bidet : A metastructural theory of modernity
7. Barry K. Gills, Andre Gunder Frank : The cumulation of accumulation
8. Andre Gunder Frank : Marketing demokracy in an undemocratic market
9. David Laibman : Toward a working theory of the socialist economy
10. Mészáros István : The decreasing rate of utilisation and the capitalist state
11. Catherine Samary : The necessary self-government
12. Bartosz Julian : Deep down – for undisjoinable values – Theses for the conference in Budapest on April 11-12, 1991
13. Hungarian literaure on the system change 1989-1991
14. Short introduction of journals present at the conference on April 11-12, 1991