On the surface of our social experience we mostly meet phenomenon that were produced or ordered to be produced to manipulate us. The writing attempts to illustrate how contents of public interest can be made inconsumable for the public by dressing them in professional or thought-be professional terms.

The article is only available in Hungarian. You can order a copy of the issue.

The current issue of Eszmélet is likely of interest to all of our readers, because it focuses on the fate of workers in East Europe, especially in Hungary, the former Soviet Union and Poland. Many contributions are made to understand the problem why after the working class after the system change was unable to resist the social degradation by capitalist expropriation. The ‘social integration' of the working class was determined by state suppression for decades, almost making impossible to acquire working class consciousness, because this consciousness remained the monopoly of the ‘socialist' state/party. Two articles conduct lessons from the demolition of ‘welfare achievements' – the background of the fate of the working class after the system change – and the ineffectiveness of capitalist use of human, material and natural resources, the parasite character of this system. Within this framework the problem of Roma people gained a particular role, of which ‘anthropological' aspects also addressed.

Table of contents

1. Lewis H. Siegelbaum : The late romance of the Soviet worker in Western historiography
2. Mark Pittaway : Retreat from collective protest: Household, gender, work and popular opposition in Stalinist Hungary
3. Tóth Eszter Zsófia : Commuters in Hungarian documentaries – Black train, Gyuri Cséplő, The protégé
4. Vera Trappmann, Rafal Towalski : Polish workers: how to live when everybody wants to forget about you
5. Eszmélet : A new quarterly: Fordulat
6. Tamás Gáspár Miklós : The ghost of the welfare state
7. Binder Mátyás : Roma nation building – from historical and cultural antrophological approach
8. Artner Annamária : The dotted ball and the ineffectiveness of capitalism
9. Balázs Gábor : A French passion: Trotskyism (part 2)
10. Ana Bazac : Sartre and the adventures of the concept of shortfalls
11. Tütő László : A tale about aunt Mary and the spectacle

The renowned Sovietologist and labour historian examines the question how the Soviet labour history writing developed in the West, what were the major paradigms of historiography and what direction the research tends now. He concludes that the "golden age" of workers in historiography has ended too; while earlier they were depicted (and celebrated) as heroes of the revolution but the trendy catchword now is "people's impulsiveness"; they are in the end victims of their "own" revolt against oppression. Nonetheless of this pessimistic picture of historiography the author – at the end of his study – describes certain promising research fields which can offer (also) new perspectives to labour history writing.

The author examines – through historical documents – the forms of workers resistance in Hungary in the 50s reactions to the state cutting back on workers' income by increasing production norms and shortages in state organised supply caused by forceful collectivisation in agriculture. According to the study, the retreat from and later absence of collective protest cannot be explained by strong suppression only. Workers and especially women have invested more and more in their private sphere that completed the uncertain and low income from the state sector securing the living of families. Not even the most successful families were completely self-sufficient but the experience gained in the 50s became a key factor in the development of the ideal of social privatisation.

The first part of the study reviews the Hungarian state socialism's literature on commuters and gives a picture on the way how the official discourse addressed commuting workers. It is important to be noted that urban workers often envied families having income both from industry and agriculture and this split was reinforced by propaganda. Nevertheless a large group of long-time commuters came from the poorest, for whom moving into the cities and taking non-skilled industrial jobs could mean certain positive social mobility. In the second half of the study the author analyses documentaries how they present in the 70s and 80s the poverty and lack of protection of commuters travelling on "black trains" as a social question.

The article is only available in Hungarian.