Katalin Lévai, Susan Zimmermann, and István Kakuszi discuss the systemic change in Hungarian social policy. The debate concerns the application of models of social policy regimes, as well as the room for manoeuvre of contemporary social policy maker.

The appeal of leading representatives of Russian arts, science and culture, to condemn the anti-democratic measures taken by Boris Yeltsin in September 1993.

The article deals with the ideology of postmodernism as it is cur­rently debated in the international intelligentsia and in academia, and which makes itself felt in "identity politics" of race, gender and sexual preference. It suggests that "identity politics", and their the­oretical sources, are symptoms of and not a solution to the breakup of a phase of capital accumulation, and the resulting breakup of the long received ideas of the international left.

Historical evidence shows, as early as the case of Mesopotamia, that progressive social formations could take shape in a premature form long before they achieved a historic breakthrough, and conso­lidated excluding the possibility of return to previous forms. The study of antic, feudalistic, and capitalist formations from this point of view allows the author to draw some interesting conclusions about the future of socialism.