A special and unique form of capitalism has evolved in Eastern Europe after the post-socialist transformation. This form is characterised by the unusual weak SMEs sector, an agricultural sector with few efficient capitalist large farms and many weak small farms often producing for self-subsistence and very weak labour in general. In these new systems, in addition to multinational companies, technocrats have a large weight in the evolving domestic capitalist elite, coming from the second rank of the former nomenclature and often with inherited bourgeois cultural capital.

In fact, the 'second edition' of capitalism is being created in Russia rather than of its 'restoration'. While pre-revolutionary Russia, although feudal-capitalistic and underdeveloped, was progressing, the present, now capitalistic Russia in turn is losing its population, declining in culture and science. Assembly lines now are advancing in sectors requiring advanced technology and scientific background. Industries, which were regarded progressive 30-40 years ago now stagnate. The traditional collective cultural activities of the Soviet times have disappeared, and are replaced by passive, individual free-time activities made at home, which characterise atomised societies. It is a special second edition, as global capitalism placed Russia on the semi-periphery, launching regressive and degrading processes.

The study examines the anti-Nazi screening procedures at the Hungarian Radio, an important but almost forgotten episode in the post liberation history of Hungary – fighting delusions. The practice of the screening committees and people's courts should be interpreted in a complex way: they provided a forum for acting out justified emotions ignited by war events and war propaganda and they made a basis for subsequently launching show trials but also helped to reveal facts of the that time recent past and also conveyed the message that serving a criminal regime was immoral and a crime itself.

The study follows the changes in gender relations and women policy in the time of Hungarian state-socialism, examining key areas in society, politics, economy and culture. Within gender policy and gender relations, the relationship between continuity and change is in the focus, examining how the emancipative ideal of socialism/communism matched social reality, what were the background motives of the system, and how developments correspond to West European gender policy achievements reached in the same period.

Original article Zimmermann, Susan: Gender Regime and Gender Struggle in Hungarian State Socialism in Aspasia Volume 4 , pp. 1-24, 2010