The article examines the question how specific the holocaust was and how can it be compared to other genocides – the fate of Armenians or the German repression of soviet peoples also resulting in millions of victims. According to the author, the specificity is that the holocaust was not limited to one country only, as it happened in Turkey before, and offered no escape for the Jews, while it offered the chance for collaboration for other citizens of the Baltic states and the Soviet Union.

The well-known German social scientist examines tendencies in the development of historical research in relation to historiography and other social sciences (economic science, sociology, politology) and concludes that the distance between them increased again in the second half of the 20th century. Nevertheless, a horizon for a new cooperation is emerging now, which is gradually getting into practice. Scientific methodological problems are deeply embedded in the process of fighting for social alternatives.

1968 mass movements played a determining role in the emergence of this new-leftist school of thought of the most significant scientific importance. These movements rejected both the bourgeois society and the state socialism. Nevertheless, the background for the world-systems analysis was set by the emergence of a new era of the capitalist world economy and theoretical problems as well. The Marxian and world-system analysis approach are different to the falling rate of profit, because the first bases it on the expropriation of surplus labour and the latter on oligopolistic price setting.

The world-systems analysis theory of Wallerstein can be regarded in fact as an alternative way of thinking to the capitalism theory of Marx or partly of Lenin. This article examines how this type of approach provides a real alternative in understanding the lows of motion and the development of capitalism.