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Stalin and historigraphy – thopughts on the bigraphy by Deutscher

In connection with the Hungarian edition of I. Deutscher's book on Stalin, the reviewer underlines three circles of problems: the analysis of Stalin's personality, the social-institutional background of Stalinism and the integration of the Stalinist "primary accumulation of capital" into the idea of world system, stressing the important role played by the war culture of modern capitalist civilisation, that is agression as industrial enterprise and intellectual product.

Neofascism – threat or a temporary feature of disorientation crisis in the new Federal Republic

Is there a real extreme right-wing danger in Germany? The author is of the opinion that there are neo-fascist phenomena. After enumerating such events, he criticizes the opportunism of the press in belittling such phenomena. He describes the groups in contemporary Germany that can be termed as neo-fascist and the specific characteristics of their operation. Today, these groups are at the stage of assessing the mood and the article describes some of the methods of that testing. He also discusses some of the causes of the spreading of extreme rightism, especially those which in the former GDR prepared the ground for neo-fascism.


Society and crime

The criminology specialist reviews the recent crime statistics and tries to find the causes of the dramatic upswing in the wave of crimes. In addition to the evident connections between multiple disadvantage and crime, he surveys the psychological types of family influences promoting crime, the crisis of institutions and the changes of social values with special regard to the radical growth of value of material wealth.

The illusion of development. Renewal of the concept of semi-pheriphery

In this lecture Arrighi gave in 1939, he provides a very thorough analysis of the idea of "semi-periphery". He questions the frequently quoted connection by which the level of development would be equivalent with the level of industrialisation. He interprets the latest stage of industrialisation as the shift of industry to the periphery and not as a peripheral development. He challenges the idea that unequal exchange would be the main basis of the economic power of the centre. In this process, the placement of capital and labour is more decisive. He puts forward the theory that this economy is based on the double nature of exploitation and exclusion and if a peripheral country fights against one of the two, then it is to lead to the trap of the other in most cases. Catching up is an illusion for the majority because the advantages they want to reach originate from the very fact that others are subordinated to exclusion and exploitation. Analysing the most different regions of the world, he states that on the scale of periphery-semi-periphery-periphery the up or down movement is exceptional. He opposes the anti-system and pro-system semi-periphery which despite the failure of the "anti-system" socialism is mostly more disadvantageous for the pro-system semi-periphery.