Deregulation of social relations has been a prime tendency in Western Europe. The most clear development in recent years is a decrease in social standards, which encourages a competitive devaluation of labour in various parts of the EU.

A maverick in contemporary Russian philosophy with dozens of books, some of them published even in Hungarian. He wrote, among others, the deep-cutting critique of the Gorbachev era titled Catastroika (combining the words catastrophy and perestroika). The portrait functions as an introduction to the article by Zinoviev.

The author never belonged to the apologists of state socialism, although he became rather critical towards the developments of the past few years and the emerging system. In his opinion, a kind of colonial democracy is taking shape in the place of the Soviet system, the economic, moral, and other type of performance of which will remain far lower than that of the previous regime. Sometimes his brave statements seem extravagant, however, they are able to stimulate discussion and further thinking.

The author presents a new approach to the assessment of the bipolar world order, illuminating from the point of view of political science how the bipolar model determined domestic political structures in various parts of the world. Neoconservativism, the breakthrough of which marked the end of state socialism, is reconsidered from the point of view of technological and social progress. The conclusions concern the changing relationship between the monopolar world order and the mode of production, as well as the periodisation of 20th century history.

Some theses on how we can understand the strengthening of the so-called successor parties in our region. It seems the accendence of the "left" to government positions can give room to very limited hopes only.